ACADEMY AWARDS 2008 -- ITS A WRAP

Cinema Views With Film Critic Kevin J. Walker

The Academy Awards were ho-hum this year, but it still was a spectacle. Why did an actress wear a Hefty bag? Why did a former exotic dancer wear a dress slit so high you could almost see her burning bush? Why didn't Ruby Dee win for "American Gangster?"...

OSCARS 2008 – ITS A WRAP!

It was time for Black folks to stop hogging all the awards and let somebody else win for a change. Winners this year were people whose category was English as a Second Language, if at all. France, Spain, Iran were in the house.

Ruby Dee was up for Best Supporting Actress for playing Denzel Washington's accommodating mama in AMERICAN GANGSTER which was otherwise shut out of the acting awards. Had she won at 83 she would have been the Academy's oldest recipient ever.

AUGUST RUSH's "Raise It Up" was nominated for Best Song by creators Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack, and Tevin Thomas which they performed for the ceremony in a rousing rhythmic display.

Incidentally, Charlize Theron is African American. (South African native). Her accent is Gone, Baby Gone from all the American parts she's played, and unlike people such as Sean Connery (Scotland), Eric Bana (Australia) Mel Gibson (Aus.) Nicole Kidman (Aus.) and Russell Crowe (Aus.) she doesn't go home enough to recharge her linguistic skills to get her accent back. Countrywoman Cate Blanchett's is almost on its way out. But I digress.

Daniel Day Louis won Best Actor for "THERE WILL BE BLOOD." He finally got his head on straight after saying a few years ago he wanted to retire and become a cobbler. This is his second win after "My Left Foot." He's kept his Brrritish occ-cent.

Javier Bardem won Best Supporting Actor for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, a modern Western about a botched drug deal, a missing fortune, and a brutal mob enforcer played by Bardem. He delivered his speech in Spanish, saying "This is for all of us!"

He brought his mother to the ceremonies. He's a real man. He was the lead in "The Dancer Upstairs," about a Spanish counter terrorist operative on the trail of the country's top killer.

This focus and preponderance of foreign born nominated, obscure arty films and depressing subject matter may have depressed tune-ins for the show, the lowest rated Oscar show ever, and a lame host from a tiny cable online community.

The budget movie houses have several of these films since the timing drops them into their schedules when the nominations and ceremonies are underway. The bigger chains then scramble to have them back.

Among the big films only "Juno" made any real money, over $100 million largely from the youth appeal and positive Pro Life message of a teen who eschewed having an abortion and chooses to give the baby up for adoption to Jennifer Garner and her husband.

GONE BABY GONE director Ben Affleck had his on fire baby brother Casey as lead, but the most excellent film was shut out much as "American Gangster" in nominations. Casey did get nominated for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" starring Brad Pitt. Amy Ryan was up for Best Supporting Actress as the Boston single mother whose young daughter's disappearance is being investigated by Affleck, Monaghan, Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris.

OSCAR HOSTING WAS WEAK

Jon Stewart wasn't bringing a lot of popularity to the screen with him. Goatee Boys, TwentySomethings who get their news from his fake topical news show, and latte drinkers on college campi don't count for much. But he got some points in.

Politics crept into Stewart's presentation when he commented on the struggle for primacy between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, with the barest connection to Hollywood.

"Usually, whenever there's a African American or woman president a huge meteor is about to hit the Statue of Liberty" quipped Stewart in an unusually apt zinger. I'm thinking Morgan Freeman in "Deep Impact."

The prolonged writers strike made it a chance there'd be no awards show at all, like the Golden Globes, and many people were mentally divorced from the event. Then, there was the subject matter which was murderous, gloomy and overtly arty and foreign based.

All combined meant no real reasons to tune in and give almost four hours of one's life that couldn't be gotten back. I'll bet the show's organizers are rethinking how best to woo Chris Rock back to do his host thing. Comedians have been the preferred host pool since Johnny Carson, Billy Crystal and Steve Martin did such a good job in the 1980s. They followed with multiple hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Chris Rock.

FILMS HONOURED WHAT FEW PEOPLE SAW ON THEATRES

Denzel Washington capped off the show presenting the Best Film award. He won the Best Actor Academy Award winner for "Training Day" in a year for what has been termed the African-American Oscars for the tripartite wins that night (Halle Berry for "Monster's Ball;" Washington; and Sidney Poitier for Lifetime Achievement).

"Thank God for teen pregnancy" in 'Juno'," which this year passed for a Feel Good movie, quipped Seattle based conservative radio talk show host and critic Michael Medved of this year's "empty" crop of gloomy and/or murderous movies: SWEENEY TODD; THERE WILL BE BLOOD – which wasn't a rip off of the "Saw" and "Hostel" franchises, but about a morally conflicted oil businessman of the late 1800s played by the victorious Daniel Day Lewis.

"What is 'No Country For Old Men' about? That if you come across $2 million dollars in the desert from a drug sale gone bad and a shootout, don't pick it up?" Medved asked.

OSCARS BECOMING ENTERTAINMENT WORLD'S SUPERBOWL

Prince had a jamming post-Oscar party in the Hollywood Hills. Of course, many people have to with a lot less.

I've been to Oscar viewing parties, both sanctioned and not. (They'll send lawyers after you, if they can catch you. Smart ones don't advertise it, but people know. There actually is a law that you can't show broadcasts of sports or movies even for free without an Exhibitors license. Around the Superbowl is when you hear of that. So, all those patio and lawn parties with the projection TVs or flat panels might get you a terse letter.

Usually they don't bother, they're too busy trying to close down the bitTorent movie downloaders who are doing for feature films what happened to the CD and music sales! More on that in the Technical articles, and the evolving Web ver.2.0

The Oscar ritual is becoming a growing type of cultural Superbowl. Instead of just a night, it starts days before with gatherings and fittings and parties and sightings. It seems to be evolving much as Halloween has, which has long been snatched from the kiddies and now is the second most expensive holiday season.

The Superbowl and Academy Award seasons fill the void of the long period of drought between the end of the month long Thanksgiving and Solstice season and the growing March 17th multi-day bacchanalia of St. Patrick's Day.

The Spring Equinox celebration we call Easter, from its older name of Ishtar, from Persia and thereabouts, would be the next one after that. Go read about the Real Reasons For Tha Seasons.

ABC knows how to use what they have. They front loaded their Oscar pre, post and next day God Morning America shows to boost their lineups. Barbara Roberts had her customary interviews; Jimmy Kimmel Live's late night show and his foul-mouthed girlfriend the comic and cable show star Sarah Silverman had dueling ribald cuckold videos.

"I'm wearing 'JC Pen-ay' – from the after 5 section," quipped GMA co-host Robin Roberts as she reclined on the loungers on the Oscar set the next day. Really? Are they from the same line as Tar-Zhay? (Target!)

Roberts kept her hair on this time, but is as prone to take it off if it gets uncomfortable or in the way. When she did her runway model dare a few weeks ago she doffed the hairpiece she wears while she undergoing her chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer.

I had a lady friend whose head was close shaven. I liked it a lot, because she had the head shape for it. When she grew her hair back I didn't like it as much, although she had ear lobe-length hair when I met her. But I digress.

Since ABC was the sponsoring station, they had access to all the good stuff, while the other networks' news shows used the after ceremony setup where they let people blab on and on, with the photogenic back drop. This way there's no nagging music-hook about to usher you off the stage while you're thanking the nanny and the gardener, et cetera while the show drags into the night.

ABC also used the opportunity to push "Pushing Daisies" co star and Broadway singer Kristin Chenowith, who does some on the limits pushing show about her pie shoppe partner who has the power of resurrection over anything dead. You have to be there. It will be covered in TeleViews. It also stars Chi McBride, and Ellen Green who does her own singing. You know her as Seymour's boo from "Little Shop of Horrors."

DIABLO CODY – THIS IS WHY SOME WOMEN SHOULDN'T GET TATS

Diablo Cody, tatted up best Screenwriter for "Juno," was a refreshing departure from the cutesy gown wearing chicks in the ceremonies and red carpet. She didn't even bother putting makeup on that thing on her right arm nor wear a single sleeve over it, as some did. Screw 'em she seemed to say. Hers was at the upper limit of respectability and almost looked like some wayward jewelry.

This is why smart women who plan on going nice places someday don't get large red/blue/green obtrusive tattoos. They don't go well with gowns, although Tractor Pull Redneck chicks don't think they'll ever have to care. Or apparently Mary J. Blige who had them on both arms, looking like a Thug Babe who wandered into the ceremonies on her way to a Gangsta Rap concert in the same building.

Blige's tat wasn't a li'l one like Viveca Fox's either, a little fox on her left upper arm which was even in "Independence Day." (I looked at her a lot. The Late Bloomer from Chicago had a shake dancer scene, not to speak of her humorous amorous scenes in the hilarious "Booty Call" with "Ray" Best Actor winner Jamie Foxx.

Cody also seemed a little like the character Juno, and thanked her parents who loved her "just the way I am." She probably has an interesting history which we will no doubt be exposed to. It turns out that she went to high school in Chicago Land area. She was always adventurous, her friends said of the former stripper and exotic dancer. We could tell that from Cody's dress, with a slit so high up her thigh you could almost see her Burning Bush!

We'll know much more of her; winning Oscars will do that to/for you, as well as pumping up the receipts of a movie that is still in theatres. Watch your papers for the ads, with the little man statuettes marking them as something you want to see.

RED CARPET MICROSCOPE TRAINED ON STARS;
COJO'S BEST & WORST DRESSED– SWINTON WEARS A TRASH BAG;

Jennifer Hudson, last year's Best Supporting Actress winner for "Dreamgirls" and praised for her fashion sense didn't reproduce it this year. She seems to be noticeably slimmed down this year. She should take Mo'Nique with her wherever she's been going.

Marion Cotillard, the Best Actress winning star of LA VIE EN ROSE period biopic on the life of French chanteuse Edith Piaf was mah-velous, and like "Muriel's Wedding" star Toni Colette was transformed back in real life into a lovely creature. Goo-gobs of raven hair spilling over her shoulders, she was in a cream coloured gown as she accepted her award in heavily French accented English.

Makeup was also simple. Celebs' mouths didn't look like they'd sucked on raspberry Popsicles before they came out of the house.

"Way too many people are getting dressed in the dark" complained the designer, commentator and Entertainment Tonight correspondent CoJo.

Anne Hathaway – "That wasn't a dress, it was a float in the Rose Bowl Parade," CoJo said of her red ruffled number. Red was the order of the night for women. Nobody much cares what straight men wear to the Academy Awards. They wear black tuxes.

There are some women who can do no wrong on the red carpet walk. They have their own style and seem to always know what works for them:

Nicole Kidman; Cate Blanchette; Kelly Preston; Cameron Diaz; Helen Mirren; Renee Zellwegger; Jessica Alba, Hillary Swank.

"This is what a star is supposed to look like," he said of Swank. The stringy actress and two time winner favours bare arms and shoulders, and simple but elegant designs.

"Take note, take pictures and study for next year, girls."

CoJo also liked Katherine Heigle's red Grecian retro one-shouldered number, and proclaimed her the night's fashion Numero Uno.

PASSION FOR FASHION SQUAD --
RIVERS DUO GET CATTY ON THE RED CARPET WALK;
THE ROCK IMPRESSES THE FASHIONISTAS WITH HIS COOKIN'

Mom Joan Rivers and her daughter Melissa The Merciless cover the red carpet, their acerbic wit and rapier commentary have become a part of the other broadcasts that cable has instituted. E! and other webcasts have become a growing part of the Oscar ritual which is a type of cultural Superbowl.

Tilda Swinton – "She looked like a guy;"

"…Like she was going to a kd Lang concert" both interchangeably said, like a verbal tag-team on WWF.

"Kerri Russell always looks good, retro old school;

"Her hair looked like a Donald Trump comb over" one of them said of another actress;

Anne Hathaway's thinness: "A lot of these actresses are too thin, like they're doing a remake of 'Schindler's list' Joan said, although she liked the train part of Hathaway's outfit;

Heidi Klum's "ortho neck brace" large collar to her red dress, "like she fell asleep in a Gay airline flight" and just kept wearing the neck pillow.

"I didn't like it either, but if you're 200 feet tall you can get away with it," added Melissa Rivers. Klum was on the arm of her hubby the British crooner Seal.

Joan gushed about Duane "The Rock" Johnson and his stylish tux, fitted to his athletic frame.

"Finally, Clooney has a run for his money, men are getting into the act. And this guy was a wrestler, now he's a movie star," and now one with fashion sense. That's a "Game Plan."

TILDA SWINTON'S VAMPIRELLA GETUP;
GET HER A BLOOD TRANSFUSION – STAT!!

MICHAEL CLAYTON co-star Tilda Swinton, another Brit much like fellow countrywoman Cate Blanchett who often plays red-blooded American roles, came in for a good ripping up over her shapeless black shroud looking getup.

"She looked like she was wearing a big old sack. 'oh look, were recycling...'

"She's a statuesque beauty, with those big green eyes; we need to see her body... and she was wearing a sack. Belted at least," sniped Jill, a commentator on NBC's Today Show.

About the pasty No Makeup look that a few others employed an unconvinced Joan opined "We want our movie stars to look beautiful."

"People don't want to see you the way you roll out of bed" said a Sistah actress.

Some of us have seen Tilda's physical gifts before. In the most excellent film "The Beach" she and Leonardo DiCaprio had some vigorous and sweaty edge of the bed activity, with her in the superior position.

The leader of the expatriate community near the Malay Peninsula then imperiously told him "Now get some sleep. I may wish to have sex again in the morning," as she turned away from him and plumped her pillow.

How come I never meet women like this?!

NEXT: We'll have a satirical, political list of contending films linked to the presidential candidates and those around them. –kjw