2011: The Years the Oscars Died, And How Don Mischer Killed Them

Dear Oscar Producer and Director Don Mischer,

You’re an idiot.

How did you think that any of that was going to be good?

And don't say that it was the hosts' fault. People today are saying that they were a disappointment. But they can’t be considered a disappointment if you didn’t expect anything from them in the first place. Unless of course you did. Which you must have. Which mean that you’re an idiot.

And your "journey" that you prepared us for? What was it? The image of old movies that you played in the background? Were we supposed to be impressed by a large screen that showed moving images? Isn’t that kind of the whole essence of why we were even there in the first place?

And other than that what was your plan for the night? Show clips from old movies and play music to underscore everything? Had you thought it out past that? No you hadn't. And so what you were left with was an abomination. An abomination that made last year’s boringness seem like a virtue. Because at least boring isn’t painfully, uncomfortably bad. Which is what this was. Believe when I tell you that this year’s show will go down in the annals of terrible Oscar lore. Rob Lowe and Snow White are offically off the hook. And all because you, Don Mischer, are a stupid fucking idiot.

Just to show you how easy your job is, I'll do it myself. I'll take every memorable or noteworthy element of your show and show you in one sentence how you could have EASILY made each one infinitely better with even a minimal amount of work or brainpower. And yes I realize some of these things were out of your control, but I don’t care. I’m blaming you for everything that happened. Because I feel like it.

And hopefully, in the future, perhaps people will stop and ask themselves "will this be good?" before they ask themselves "will people watch this?".

But as it’s Hollywood I’m dealing with, I’m not holding my breath.

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Thing That Happened: No one wrote any jokes for the hosts.
I liked all of the jokes in that opening film spoof segment. All none of them. And then the hits kept coming. I mean James Franco standing there in drag telling a Charlie Sheen joke? Totally original and hilarious! What genius writes these things? And how DO they do it?

How It Could Have Been Improved: Let random people on the Internet contribute jokes.
The show was seemingly obsessed with new technology and the Internet, perhaps as a make good for its snub of “the facebook movie”. There were "jokes" about texting and apps and social networking. And James Franco was tweeting throughout the show. So clearly the show knows that the Internet exists. And therefore they must be aware that at this point people get way more entertainment from twitter and live blogs than they do from listening to the handiwork of Bruce Vilanch's corpse. So why not just have people tweet jokes at you and then use the best ones? I'll even show you how it’s done by sprinkling some jokes and comments from the Internet throughout the rest of this piece. And it will be better for it. Just you wait and see.

Thing That Happened: James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosted.
He may not have had great material, but wow, James Franco KILLED it out there. No, literally. He killed it. I think a few old ladies died from boredom. Also, I shot myself in the face.

Are we totally sure that he got the memo that he was supposed to at least try to be funny? Does he know that thats pretty much what his entire job description was? Does he even know what humor is? Like as a concept?

(BTW James, you can’t be six degrees of Kevin Bacon away from someone if that person is not Kevin Bacon. That’s not how the game works.)

I’m going to go out on a limb and make a crazy prediction here: James Franco will not be asked back to host the Oscars again. EVER. Ricky Gervais and Howard Stern will be asked to co-host before they ask James Franco back.

But he wasn’t alone in his badness.

Before I say anything else let me state for the record that I love Anne Hathaway. And when I say that I love Anne Hathaway I mean that I LOOOOVE Anne Hathaway. She’s probably my number one gal. But last night was not her finest hour. I mean, that musical number she did was…wow...it was…a thing that happened. And while I appreciate her trying to single-handedly save the show, she's not really a person who is equipped to do that. So while all the extreme vitriol other women in particular were throwing her way on the Internet last night really set off my women’s studies sensors and made me more than a little uneasy with its intensity, suffice it to say I too agree that future hosting gigs are not in her future.

How It Could Have Been Improved: Having Billy Crystal (or pretty much anyone else in the entire world) host.
This just in - young movie stars are attractive. They are not however, good awards show hosts. (Hugh Jackman excepted).

Billy Crystal however, is. His getting a standing ovation was a clear sign that we collectively as a people recognize that and really want him back. And he will be back. Next year in fact.

I promise.

And just remember when it's officially announced that you heard it here first.

Speaking of attractive people though...

Thing That Happened: Mila Kunis showed everyone up.
What were the odds during Season 1 of That 70s Show that Mila Kunis one day would be the most attractive person at the entire Academy Awards (narrowly edging out Kirk Douglas of course)?

I just hope she doesn’t go all Johansson on us. By which I mean that other than Lindsey Lohan, has anyone’s perceived level of attractiveness taken a bigger and more inexplicable hit in the past five years than Scarlett Johansson? At one point she was arguably the most attractive person in the world, and yet now I would actually think less of you as a person if you openly admitted to being attracted to her.

(Also, not to be rude, but that Natalie Portman sure has gained a lot of weight...)

How It Could Have Been Improved: Have Jennifer Connelly show up.

Thing That Happened: Kirk Douglas stole the show.
I think that might be a bad sign when your hosts get totally showed up in the comedy department by a 94 year old stroke victim. Thank goodness Kirk Douglas didn’t have a set scheduled last night at The Laugh Factory because I don’t know what the show would have done without him. I only hope that at 94 that I'm still awesome enough to be a trending topic on twitter. Speaking of which, my favorite twitter joke of the night was Alex Baze's "Kirk. See him again next year in montage form."

How It Could Have Been Improved: If Kirk Douglas had presented Best Foreign Language Film as well.
(Hey now at least I'll be able to keep Alex Baze company in hell)

Thing That Happened: Living Legend Roger Deakins inexplicably gotsnubbed for an Oscar for the ninth time.

This a fucking outrage.
Who does Roger Deakins gotta shoot to get an Oscar?
No really.
Who?

How It Could Have Been Improved: Three 6 Mafia finding him in the audience and laughing in his face.
(The essence of that joke courtesy of AV Club commenter Side Item)

Thing That Happened: Jack Nicholson wasn’t there.

How It Could Have Been Improved: He should never not be there until the day he dies. And maybe even after that. It should be a law.

Thing That Happened: Trent Reznor, Academy Award Winner
This is the most exciting thing that happened all night. I literally clapped and jumped up and down. And I could care less about Trent Reznor personally and would be hard pressed to name more than three NIN songs. It’s just really awesome in principle. Plus he’s now already halfway to EGOTing. And I have a feeling "The Downward Spiral: The Musical" is going to be a big hit at the 2014 Tonys.

How It Could Have Been Improved: Also giving Maynard James Keenan an Oscar.

Thing That Happened: Melissa Leo gave a terrible speech.
You knew you were probably going to win right, Melissa Leo? You’ve had at least three months to prepare, but really you’ve had your whole life. And that’s the best you could come up with? I never understand when people go up there and seem completely unprepared like that. It’s probably the biggest moment of your entire life - that’s not worth at least some modicum of advance preparation or thought? That’s just inexplicable to me. But then that’s why I’m not a crazy person.

How It Could Have Been Improved: Giving Christian Bale's speech instead.
I don't know how the speech she gave could have really been improved other when she said “Dick’s not in the room” having someone yell out “That’s what she said”. But what she could have done was just become a totally different person and give a totally different speech. Specifically Christian Bale. Because his was funny and human and touching and everything hers wasn’t. And that’s because, as everyone has always said about Christian Bale, he's such a nice charming young man.

Thing That Happened: Colin Firth was very, very British.
Colin Firth starting his Oscar acceptance speech by saying “I fear my career might have just peaked” is possible the most British thing that has ever happened. And yet somehow he only got more British from there.

How It Could Have Been Improved: If he had dropped a few F-bombs.
A verbose, articulate, witty, and self-deprecating speech? Hey Colin Firth, what do think this is, the BAFTA Awards? This is America, damn it. Start crying and make your speech rambling and incoherent already. Enough of your dignified charms. You're making the rest of us look bad.

Thing That Happened: Aaron Sorkin giving a boring speech.
WTF Sorkin?!? Just a list of people? No social statement? No quotable lines? No witty quips? Good lord man, Colin Firth showed you up with his verbosity. Hell, David Seidler showed you up. And he’s like a hundred and five. And he gave a shout out to stutters. Stutterers! What were people with high blood pressure and those with slight limps too controversial for him? And yes, I know his movie was about a guy with a stutter, but still…

How It Could Have Been Improved: Sorkin starting his speech by saying "An Oscar isn't cool. You know what’s cool? A BILLION Oscars." And then segueing into an unused Josiah Bartlett monologue.

Thing That Happened: No applause during the death montage?!?!?
Hey they got something right! And it only took them 82 years!

How It Could Have Been Improved: Have Adele sing under it.
Celine Dion is the Bob Hope of death montage underscoring. Adele will soon be its Billy Crystal.

Thing That Happened: The Academy coming off as overly sensitive about their perceived lack of racial diversity.
Lena Horne is certainly great and important. And it’s certainly a good thing to honor her. She deserves it. But it felt a bit like simply an obvious political ploy to address the lack-of-black-nominees pseudo-controversy.

Way It Could Have Been Improved: The Academy not feeling so guilty about its supposed lack of diversity.
It was an off-year for African American filmmakers and performers. I don’t want to say “it’s as simple as that” because whether it’s just an off-year or likely a broader problem with Hollywood as a whole and the way movies get made is a different and much more involved discussion. But as far as the Academy Awards are concerned, name one African American actor, actress, writer, director or producer who deserved to get nominated this year and then tell me whose nomination slot they should have had. The best I can come up with is Halle Berry for Frankie and Alice but that performance isn’t better than any of the five that were nominated (or even the unnominated Julianne Moore and Lesley Manville for that matter). And while the Academy at one point had a definitely deserved bad reputation for their shameful and embarrassing lack of diversity, those days are over, at least in the acting branch. Over the past ten years out of a potential 200 acting nominations, African American actors have gotten 22 of them, or 11%. And out of 40 acting awards, African American actors have won 7 of them, or 17.5%. Considering that during that time frame African Americans made up between 10-13% of the total population of the United States those percentages are certainly nothing The Academy should feel overly guilty about or apologetic for.

So sure, this year there were no African American nominees. On the surface that of course doesn’t look great. But there are deeper issues causing that. I mean, why are we still not seeing more diverse casts in indie, awards-season type dramas? Why has the entire African-American marketplace been apparently ceded to Tyler Perry and Ice Cube? Where is the next Spike Lee or John Singleton, and why have neither of them produced consistently good work in AT LEAST 10 years? Why are African American actors still largely not bankable oversees? When is the next novel by Sapphire getting turned into a movie? (Sorry, couldn’t help it.) These are all questions that should be legitimately discussed and examined. But viewing The Academy as latently racist or as having a poor track record of honoring worthy black performers? That ship has thankfully sailed.

Thing That Happened: Gweneth Paltrow sang a song.
So what, are we not allowed to have an award show without Gweneth Paltrow signing now? Who does she think she is, Neil Patrick Harris?

How It Could Have Been Improved: If she was backed up by Peacock Cee-Lo and the Muppets

Thing That Happened: Having Auto-Tune the News and PS 22 involved with the show.

How It Could Have Been Improved: Getting Sad Keanu involved as well.
(BTW, did anyone ask the PS 22 kids who they were wearing? I must know!)

Thing That Happened: Toy Story 3 won Best Animated Feature (of course).
To quote Todd VanDerWerff, "They're eventually going to just rename this award the Randy Newman Memorial Award for Pixar's Best Animated Feature Film."

How It Could Have Been Improved: Toy Story 3 NOT Winning Best Animated Feature.
The emperor is wearing moderately nice but not that impressive clothes people! Accept it. Deal with it. Move on. And start bracing for the inevitable reality that Cars 2 aint winning this thing next year.

(My Pixar Fan Club membership has now officially been revoked for heresy.)

Thing That Happened: Hillary Swank presented Best Director.

How It Could Have Been Improved: Hillary Swank presenting Best Actress.

Thing That Happened: Tom Hooper won Best Director.
Really Academy?!? Tom Hooper? Really? A plurality of Academy members thought that Tom Hooper was the best director of the year? To quote this Raphael Bob-Waksberg tweet “WTF IS A TOM HOOPER? I NEVER HEARD OF NO TOM HOOPER WTF”

Also, name one thing he brought to The Kings Speech that Luke Matheny couldn’t have brought to it. The Kings Speech is the very definition of competent yet personality-less. And you bypassed David Fincher for it? To quote Bill Simmons, “Hooper over Fincher was a travesty. I forgot how much I hate the Oscars. What a farce. And I liked King's Speech. But come on...”

No wonder Christopher Nolan didn’t get nominated. You apparently have no idea what a director is or what they do or how to evaluate them.

On the bright side though, now Red Dust can join Point Break and In Love and War as movies made by Academy Award Winning Directors. So there’s that.

How It Could Have Been Improved: Immediately after he got off stage introducing Tom Hooper to John G. Avildsen and Robert Benton

And lastly,
Thing That Happened: The Kings Speech won Best Picture.

How It Could Have Been Improved: The Academy properly understanding the meaning of the word "best".

Comedy Night Done Right: The 2011 Golden Globes on NBC

Every year the Golden Globes are about one thing: drunken Meryl Streep.
Meryl Streep giggling, rambling incoherently, and just generally being delightfully Streepian, is, as anyone who has ever read this blog should know, the highlight of the year nearly every year. But as Meryl Streep didn’t appear in a single movie in 2010 there was apparently no way the Hollywood Foreign Press could get her to show up to this year's awards. I firmly believe that all awards shows should be contractually obligated to include Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in some form or fashion, but The Golden Globes wont heed my advice. Luckily this year though there was something else to improbably take Meryl’s place. Something to dominate the Golden Globes conversation. And that little globe of golden goodness was Ricky Gervais.

I wasn’t alive to see Bob Hope or Johnny Carson, but my earliest memories of awards show hosting were of Billy Crystal – a man cut from their same cloth. A man who told clever and well-crafted jokes about the nominated films more so than the nominated people. And even when he did he rib the stars he did it with a loving wink. It was always fairly funny, but also fairly safe and insider-y. And that was fine for its time. But we’ve changed as a society, and awards show hosting has yet to really catch up. With twitter and facebook and live-blogging, now the jokes the hosts tell seem weak and soft compared to the jokes we’re reading on our computer screens. They’re too polite and safe and nothing like the jokes you are simultaneously making with your friends. They are jokes told by insiders for the amusement of other insiders with the only problem being that the show is being watched by outsiders. Outsiders who no longer find Bruce Vilanch style one-liners particularly hip or funny. The Oscars have at least in the past decade seemed to acknowledge this problem and tried to get hosts from outside the establishment who could tell edgier jokes and get away with more biting material, but whenever they would hire a Chris Rock or a Jon Stewart the “establishment” would get cold feet and would neuter them to the point that a joke slamming Jude Law seemed so out of place that it caused a minor scandal. These young hip cutting-edge hosts never seemed like themselves in these situations. They seemed tame and safe and overly concerned with the feelings of the people in the room, which completely negated the point of having them there in the first place. And which made Ricky Gervais’s hosting gig last night seem so groundbreaking and buzz worthy by comparison. Because Ricky didn’t give a fuck. He told the jokes that we would tell. Jokes from an outsider intended to entertain an audience at home rather than a bunch of privledged celebrities we don’t know and will never even meet. Jokes with teeth and with a contemporary sensibility. And jokes that weren’t concerned with being nice but rather with, you know, being funny. He drank beer on stage, openly rooted for his favorite movie to win, and he spoke truth to power. He was one of us rather than one of them and in the process showed us what an awards show host can and should be in the 21st century. In today’s Everyone’s A Star Universe we no longer aspire to be one of them as much as we aspire for them to be one of us. Last night Ricky spoke for us and turned a thankless job into one we’re all thankful for. And even more importantly, he salvaged a Meryl-less Golden Globes.

Yes, Virginia there might not be a God but there is a Santa Claus.

Now on with the show….

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*What the fuck Christian Bale? That speech was supposed to be a fucking train wreck and yet it totally wasn’t. It wasn’t fucking amateur. It was really fucking good. But I’m trying to fucking do my job here, and how am I supposed to write jokes with you fucking being all fucking sane and reasonable and coherent? What the fuck is it with you? What don't you fucking understand? You got any fucking idea about, hey, it's fucking annoying having somebody deliver a good speech when you already have a good joke ready to go regarding their speech being a train wreck? Give me a fucking answer! What don't you get about that? So you can deliver a good speech - ohhhhh, goooood for you. I hope it was fucking worth it, because my well crafted joke - it's useless now, isn't it? So get it right at the Oscars okay? For fucks sake.

*Speaking of speeches, I have no idea who you are Chris Colfer but your speech warmed the cockles of my cold cold heart.
(Also, you know you went to a performing arts college if as soon as Colfer’s speech was done your facebook news feed blew up like 9/11.) (What, too soon?)

*Why is Michael C. Hall’s beard a completely different color than the rest of his hair? Is it a cancer thing?

*I’m pretty sure that those people who came up to accept the award for Boardwalk Empire were associated with it in some way, but it was hard to tell because none of them were naked.

*I love how NBC acts like its relevant what time its shows air. It’s quaint.

*Lord knows I’ve been wrong with my predictions before, but I feel pretty confident that they should just start describing Perfect Couples as The Single Guy meets Inside Schwartz already. It would save us all some time.

*Only the Golden Globes president would still be able to personally remember a time when movies weren’t taken seriously or considered a respectable form of entertainment. You know because people were too busy with their gramophones and books of sonnets.

*I’m pretty sure that the existence of the Best Original Song category is how Burlesque got greenlit.

*I wonder if Michelle Williams is pissed that Diane Warren stole her haircut?

*Also, Annette Benning, you’re never gonna win and Oscar with hair like that. Only Al Pacino can win Oscars with that hair.

*Also: Bieber.

*Charming though he may be, absolutely nothing Robert Downey Jr. said made any sense.

*Whenever I listen to Nine Inch Nails I’m always struck by how much Trent Reznor sounds like a potential Golden Globe winner, so I’m glad that that’s finally come to pass.

*I don’t really keep up with celebrity news but I would venture to say that Sandra Bullock’s hair is probably the worst thing to ever happen to her.

*Aaron Sorkin has a way with words. And even though he used his speech to do the least necessary damage control ever, I loved every minute of it. Smart girls really do have more fun.

*Hey, does anybody know if Johnny Depp has an animated movie coming out any time soon?

*The new Green Hornet ads don’t really advertise the movie as much as they advertise how shockingly well “Gangstas Paradise” has held up.

*I love how Helena Bonham Carter seems to view fashion as a dare

*Robert De Niro – King of Comedy
also,
Claire Danes – Awards Show Juggernaut
                    (and User Of The Phrase “Holla”)

*Speaking of The Robert De Niro Comedy Hour, I’m glad he mentioned Awakenings as I was just thinking how’s that easily the most unjustly forgotten movie on his resume. You should really check it out.

*Time has not been kind to Tim The Tool Man Taylor

*At awards shows over the next month David O. Russell is gonna really start to hate sharing a first name with David Fincher

*By the end of February Natalie Portman is officially going to be able to claim the award for biggest disparity between weight when acting and weight when receiving awards for said acting.

*Gays, Jack Kevorkian, Jane Fonda, and atheism – it sure was a big night for all my fellow liberal pinko coast-dwelling elitists

*Congrats Social Network - well deserved. As Ricky Gervais said, justice prevails. And it’s nice that my favorite movie of the year is the Best Picture frontrunner for a change. I could get used to this.

*Lastly, now that the Big 8 categories other than Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Screenplay have been locked in, the next six weeks are about figuring out the nominees, bitching about the impending Winters Bone snub, giving the front runners time to work on their speeches, and writing jokes about James Franco and facebook. Fredtheonlinejournal likes this.