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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
The Oscars have never, ever, lauded, accepted and/or embraced bad behavior (at least not for more than a couple of seconds), which appears to be Ms. Wilson's raison d'etre. Fine, to each their own. Go watch the MTV Movie Awards for the kind of celebration you desire.
As for Stewart, he did fine. Not fabulous, but fine. To be fair, his material was about 15 minutes out of a mercifully short 3 and a half hour broadcast. What he and his colleagues from TDS wrote was good. What the presenters had to utter? There was the dullness.
Because I think swearing for the sake of swearing, being scandalous for the sake of being scandalous, and shocking people for sock's sake is kind of boring. After a while my eyes glaze over and I tune out, and I get an inner monologue that's like, "Yes, yes, you're swearing, oh yes, I'm horribly shocked, yes you are oh-so-shocking". Ugh.
Swearing is the uncreative way of making a point.
I thought Jon Stewart did a stellar job of hosting the Oscars. I thought the video bits (particularly the "Playing Off" bit with Tom Hanks) was hilarious. He should be invited back to host again. I really don't understand why anyone would think that being consistently funny throughout the broadcast constitutes "sucking".
Boring? Have you lost your mind, Cintra? I, along with everyone at my Oscars party loved Jon Stewart. It was certainly the best hosting performance in recent memory, from the excellent fake political ads to his ad-libs that got sharper and sharper as the night wore on. But hey, I don't get paid to write jaded, cynical, hipper-than-thou reviews, and you do, so what do I know?
What a tired, tired review of the show. Do everyone (including yourself) a favor, Cintra, and go on vacation next March.
The Oscars are always boring ... except for a few moments. Just like last night. Cintra, you need to lighten up, you take the night and yourself way too serious.
I generally like Salon, but this article is typical of your sometimes misplaced oh-we're-so-hip-we can-say-fuck-while-others-don't snobbery. First of all, what did you expect the Oscars to be? The MTV awards? They've always been strait-laced and staid; they're always self-congratulatory and politically correct. It was the same this year. Why would that change just because Stewart was hosting? And what's with the diatribe against nice Southern girl Reese getting the award? So awards should be based on real-life bad behavior, not on-screen performance? Man, for someone writing an article on the Oscars, you have pretty poor Oscar acumen. Let me explain: Reese got the award because it was a weak category, because two of the other contenders in the category have won some things already, and because the academy needed to make sure they threw something at "Walk the Line", which was not going to win any other awards (especially not Joaquin for best actor).
As for Jon Stewart, are you kidding me? Did we watch the same show? He was muted, sure. But he was NOBODY's monkey. The "campaign" ads were great, the montage of homoeroticism in Westerns was smart. Hell, he even made a crack suggesting Charlize didn't leave pay-inequality behind when she left the coal mines for Hollywood. Both feminist and class-aware at the same time; very cool. Oops, I said feminist. How politically correct of me. Shoot me.
Jesus Fucking Christ, Cintra. Get over yourself.
That report was far more tiresome than the Oscars, which were an improvement over last year. I thought Jon was fine. And Stephen Colbert's voiceovers were a welcome surprise. All the video clips they produced (a strength of the Daily Show crew) were brilliant, and the gay cowboy montage was the best thing I've seen at the Oscars since Woody Allen walked on stage after 9/11.
I thought Jon was hilarious, and wouldn't be surprised if he is invited back to host again. But seriously, has Cintra ever seen an Oscar night she didn't loathe? As far back as I can remember she's said how this Oscars was the worst ever. Its becoming a tad predictiable so I'm wondering if next time around Salon might choose to bring on someone a little less inclined to hate the whole thing before it even begins? That way Cintra can go back to doing whatever it is she does when she's not talking about how unimportant/boring/self indulgent/etc. the Oscars are, and we can get a more balanced review of the evening.
I wonder if Chris Penn and Shelley Winters had to pass because there was no oxygen for their burning spirits in the airtight Hollywood terrarium this year.
No self-indulgent Hollywood hack, no dazzled-by-his-own-mythos Academy PR stooge could have written a more laughable Harlequin-rejected line, one that masquerades as a poignant lament only in the mind of its author. My only hope is that Ms. Wilson is deepening the irony so much as to mock Hollywood's own worries about its loss of cachet and courage, but I doubt it.
I am no industry insider. I live in flyover country and I'm over 40 and I work for the church, and I take second place to no one in the desperation of my un-coolness. But I bet I know why Reese Witherspoon won, and it has nothing to do with the Stepford-cum-June Cleaver conspiracy Ms. Wilson imagines. I could be very wrong, but my guess is that Ms. Witherspoon won because more of the Academy voters liked her performance than liked any of the other women's, and cast their ballots accordingly.
As for Jon Stewart, it could be that writers who spend time satirizing political events and people in the real world found themselves at a loss when called upon to do the same for people whose work and lives exist only in make-believe, and that parody has no room to work in a culture that is already stuffed full of self-parody. Or it could be that he hit his peak with Talk Soup and this is just a harsh way of learning it.
Sheesh.
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