March 4, 2014-Oscars

I think I figured out why the Academy Awards are so boring.

It's not because neither Bob Hope nor Johnny Carson are available to serve as hosts. Though for me almost anyone other than Ellen DeGeneres would be an improvement.

It's not because the actresses are so afraid of what Joan Rivers will say the next day about their gowns on Fashion Police that they tend to pick and wear ones that are so safe and predictably "glamorous."

The show is not awful because there are so many technical awards--after all films are a technical medium and camera work, sound, editing, and special effects are much about what makes movies special. Besides, without all these awards the show would be over in an hour and a half and we would miss all the commercials.

And, though the winning songs tend to be the worst of the ones nominate (this year's for Frozen a case in point), this too is not why the Oscar's show is so forgettable.

It's because the winners are so interminably borrrrring.

If I had thought to do so, in the tradition that it's all right, even expected, to be bitchy about the Oscars' show, I would have used a stop watch to calculate how much time was spent by the winners thanking people. They get a couple of minutes to make their acceptance speeches before music is played to get them off stage and for the most part, with the exception of Jared Leto, who won for best supporting actor, and Steve McQueen, director of 12 Years a Slave, every winner spent virtually all their allotted time thanking everyone from their parents (inevitable) to their hair person.

This left no time for anyone to say something funny or pithy. Forget memorable.

I was left to thinking that Jared Leto saying a few words about AIDS and Ukraine was courageous and wondering if Cate Blanchett would have the "courage" to thank her director, Woody Allen. He's in trouble once more because one of Mia Farrow's 100 children two weeks ago again accused him of molesting her when Woody was living with Mia, which must have been a nightmare. I mean, living with Mia Farrow.

Cate did manage to muster enough courage to mutter something about how Woody was good enough to cast her for the film. Cast, take note, not direct. I guess that made what she felt compelled to say seem more benign.

So here's my suggestion--as an experiment, next year, tell all nominees that if they win they are allowed to thank only their families and God. (Thank God this year only Matthew McConaughey pointed to the heaven and gave thanks before lapsing into incoherence.)

This way, they could get someone to write something funny for them or, who knows, maybe even something clever, witty, or meaningfully political. Or they could just wing it and look ridiculous. That would give people like me more ammunition to make fun of the whole thing.

By the way, the best performance by an actor was Bruce Dern's in the best film, Nebraska.