Techtite's TV Reviews!

"She later thanked her 'writing partner Larry,' adding a thank you to the academy, for 'giving him this award as well.' Um...why wouldn't he get the honor as well, girlfriend? Isn't his name right on the marquee alongside yours, next to the words 'Screenplay' and 'By'...?"

---from the review

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Sidebar ::

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Oscar's Sidebar Moments, 2006 edition. Here's the moments that didn't make it in the review but are worth giving a "sidebar" ...for better, or for worse:

---Ben Stiller dressed in a green leotard, presenting the effects Oscar as if they were "supposed" to make his head look like it's floating. Man, did this joke drag on far too long!

---From the "Thank heaven you made peace with Pixar" department: Chicken Little's Abby Mallard, as "presenter" for Best Animated Short Film, ranted about how Disney animation never draws cartoon ducks with any pants. What. Ever!

---From the "We promise to not make another Brokeback joke if you don't" department: the winners of Best Animated Feature Film (for Wallace & Gromit) put miniature matching bow ties on their Oscar statues. Okayyyy...

---From the "so short yet so loooong" department: yes, believe it or not, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin's bickering shtick lasted only three whole minutes. Didn't seem like it, did it, now?

---Poor Jennifer Garner handled the near-trip on her evening gown with grace, complete with the line afterwards that she does all her own stunts.

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Feel free to contribute. As always, review submissions are accepted!

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The 78th Annual Academy Awards

A Review by Techtite

You can say this much for Jon Stewart; the man is nothing if not humble. Opening the telecast was a faux announcement, "Ladies and Gentlemen! Your host, Billy Crystal!" Cue parody of Brokeback Mountain, where Billy and last year's host Chris Rock are, um, "too busy." No problem: "Ladies and Gentlemen; Steve Martin!" No, says Steve; he's staying home with the kids this year. The list goes on. David Letterman? No. Whoopi Goldberg? In her own words: "Oh, heck no!" Mel Gibson? No; he's being chased by a mountain lion on the set of his new film. Cue another Brokeback joke with Stewart and George Clooney, and...

"Ladies and Gentleman...Jon Stewart!"

So how'd he do...? About as expected, I'd say...in a good way. Nobody was expecting him to topple Billy Crystal as Best Oscar Host, but I don't think anyone expected him to fail miserably. As expected; he did okay. How "okay"...? Well, here's a selection of Jon's jokes this evening, so you can judge for yourself:

• "Look at [who you're stealing from]!" muses Stewart, to the film pirates watching at home. "There are women here who can barely afford enough gown to cover their breasts!"

• About a lesson learned from Capote; "Not all gay people are gay cowboys! Some are actually effete New York intellectuals."

• "Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar night dress and Dick Cheney shot her."

• After a self-gratifying video montage about Hollywood's tackling of controversial "issues" in movies, Jon jests afterwards..."...And none of those issues were ever a problem again!"

• When the Best Original Song category is won by the rap song It's Hard Out Here For a Pimp, Jon muses, "For those keeping score at home: "Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars. Three-Six Mafia: One!"

...overall; I think he did well. What do others think? Let us know.

Let's jump to the big category: Crash won as Best Picture, while Ang Lee would win as Best Director...for Brokeback Mountain. Surprised...? I'd dare say Producer/Screenwriter Diana Ossana was! Having already won for Best Adapted Screenplay, with Lee winning as Director, she obviously felt that Best Picture was in the bag. So confident was she, it would seem, that just before Jack Nicholson presented the Best Picture Oscar, the camera pans to the cast and crew of Brokeback in the audience...and Ossana is casually sipping a drink! ...through a straw! I'm no advocate for Oscar night etiquette, but I'd like to think a film producer would know better than to sit in an Oscar night audience as if they were casually watching Police Academy XIV at the local one dollar cineplex. I'm just saying.

Maybe it was just the "mood" I was in while watching. But for whatever reason, Ossana's smugness was a sour note for me. When winning for Best Adapted Screenplay, she offered such philosophies as "The duty of art is to send light into the darkness of men's souls." So what about women's souls, dear? All bright and cheerful, are they? Harrumph. She later thanked her "writing partner" Larry McMurtry, adding a thank you to the academy, for "giving him this award as well." Um...why wouldn't he get the honor as well, girlfriend? Isn't his name right on the marquee alongside yours, next to the words "Screenplay" and "By"...?

Not that I'm trying to rib Brokeback Mountain. Not at all. But Crash was just as worthy of the Oscars it won. Yet to look at the biased editing of acceptance speeches tonight, someone would disagree...and quite unfairly. Not only was Ossana allowed to talk overtime during her Best Screenplay speech, but McMurty was allowed to talk as well, for a total speech time just shy of 2 minutes. But when Crash screenwriters Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco come on stage for Original Screenplay, not only is Haggis given a mere minute to speak, but poor Moresco wasn't allowed to talk at all. How does one screenplay get a two minute speech time, while the other gets only one? Even Crash's Best Picture speech was cut short, at 85 seconds! How does the best Picture speech get allowed less than 90 seconds but...oh, never mind. Any answer to that question is bunk. Think of it this way. What would various gay and lesbian groups have cried, had Brokeback's acceptance speeches been cut short? Think about it.

We're getting ahead of ourselves. Here's some of what happened in the first three hours. George Clooney won as Best Supporting Actor, musing in mock disappointment, "All right...so I'm not winning 'Director'...!" Reese Witherspoon won as Best Actress, offering a cute heartfelt speech. Speaking about cute: when March of the Penguins won as Best Documentary, having them come on stage holding toy penguins was a cute touch. And as a man born and raised in Rochester, NY, I have to give a big congratulations to Philip Seymour Hoffman, and his win as Best Actor. As for Rachel Weisz; we love ya, so we're all crossing our fingers that the rumored "Best Supporting Actress" curse doesn't exist.

Somewhere in between these awards was a black hole. At least that's what we're telling ourselves when there was clearly something lacking tonight. Mind you; we've had some years when there was less of a black hole, and more crap. We've heard "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head" at the Academy Awards more times than we ever wanted to. We've had idiotic acceptance speeches. We've had silly shticks where Martin Short and Carrie Fisher come on stage wearing "the same dress" to Oscar night. Yet nothing until tonight seemed lacking of so much...fun.

Presenters were a mixed bag. Yes it was cute to see Speed's Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves present an award together, but the problem everywhere else was the excruciatingly droll small talk written for these actors to say. Even Jake Gyllenhall had to take pause as the teleprompter coerced him to say, "They're called 'epics'...You can't properly watch them on a TV set, and good luck trying to enjoy them on a portable DVD!" Let's just say that Jake handled the pin drop you could hear from the audience rather well. But you might've expected more from Academy Award veterans Lily Tomlin and and Meryl Streep, as they presented Robert Altman with the Lifetime Achievement Award. One can only guess their bickering shtick was meant to show how Altman was always interested in "realistic" conversations on film. Yet they bickered on and on, to the point where even David "Uma/Oprah" Letterman was probably yelling at his screen, "The joke is old already! Let. It. Go!"

It must be said that it matters little, even to this east-coast couch potato, that the show went overtime. When it's Oscar I wouldn't even mind if the show went past midnight, so a mere half an hour overtime is no big deal. Just make sure the reason for going overtime is not one too many "history of film" montages. We had a montage about the history of film noir. We had a montage about the history of the epic. We had a montage about the history of political "issues" in film. We had a montage about the history of films about history! It was enough for even Jon Stewart to ponder if they were planning "Oscar's salute to montages." I'd dare say a return to dance numbers is in order. At least they were unique each year. Old film clips don't cut it.

As a parting thought, I think it's saying something when the most memorable part of the telecast was the stage itself. This impressive piece of architecture was only to be used one night, yet it was clearly a labor of love for the set designers.  Most years they just slap something together like a high school play. Not so for the 78th Oscars. The animated marquee that showed the presenters and winners names was a particularly cute touch. If only this stage's designer was in charge of the show as a whole.

---Techtite

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