Last thoughts on the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony

I watched all of the Academy Awards ceremonies last night for the first time in years. Some things I liked. Some things I didn’t like. Chris Rock wasn’t funny. When you hire a performer like Chris Rock, you’ve got to let him be Chris Rock. They didn’t and he wasn’t. I note that he did manage to strike two notes on which there appeared to be general agreement in the audience: they didn’t like President Bush and they didn’t like The Passion of the Christ. Noted. Not funny but noted.

I did like the streamlining of the actual award presentation either by presenting the awards in the seats or by placing all of the nominees on stage particularly the latter. But to what end? So the presenters and the MC could do more lame shtick? Streamline the award presentation, dump the shtick, and use the time productively. Let the winners give longer speeches—they’ve earned a moment in the sun. Show clips of more movies. The documentaries. The shorts. We’ve seen enough clips of the Best Picture nominees to make up our minds already. Show us something else. Show more commercials for goodness sake. But dump the lame shtick.

And BTW ABC News has just confirmed what Imus had conjectured this morning. The original form of Chris Rock’s jibe about Renee Zellweger was that she was going to gain 80 lbs. to play Star Jones. Not Deacon Jones. That would have been funny. A little. But Star Jones has lost enough weight recently that it would have been incomprehensible. So dump the whole thing, Chris. You’re clever enough to come up with some new material, aren’t you?

I also thought that the fashions were lame by and large. The three best gowns of the evening were all worn by Beyonce Knowles (and I’m not a particular fan of hers). They were reasonably flattering, reasonably tasteful, and showed a little pizzazz. Oh, well, it’s nice to see Hallie Berry looking presentable again after Catwoman. I used to think that it was impossible to costume her so that she didn’t look good but, obviously, I was wrong.

And the hair-styling. Don’t get me started but talk about turning silk purses into sows’ ears. I’ll leave it at this: Laura Linney, seek help.

I loved the duet between Carlos Santana and Antonio Banderas. The highlight of the evening for me. They were very obviously enjoying themselves. But who knew Banderas could sing?

As a final thought I’ll leave you with an observation of my wife’s. She said “The African Americans are cheering for the African Americans, the Italians for the Italians, the Spaniards for the Spaniards. We’ve come nowhere.”