The Voices of Reason: The Oscars

The Voices of Reason: The Oscars
by Various Authors

As the highest of high-profile events in Hollywood, the Oscars are sure to draw a lot of media scrutiny, as well as leave a number of viewers disappointed for a variety of reasons. The Voices are no exception.

Question: What was the biggest travesty at this year's Oscars ceremony?

Brenda McAlice—The biggest travesty was that they let Keanu Reeves in the door. He shouldn't even be allowed to watch on TV, never mind attend. This is an awards ceremony about the best acting, directing, etc. Alarms should have gone off when he tired to enter the building.

Vance Macdonald—Below are my top 10. It's not that the award show was all bad. Jon Stewart is always funny. George Clooney chose his words well. He is either on the verge of becoming one of the most powerful people in Hollywood, or being framed for unspeakable acts of immorality by the Rove machine. I thought Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep did a great job with their challenging shtick, even if it went on a little too long. And praise be to HDTV, which allows me to crawl right up inside Keira's dimples. Oh, and the fake ads were genius. Okay, on to the travesties.

10) The audience's reaction to Stewart's opening. He didn't nail it, but come on people, lighten up!

9) Dolly Parton. You have to love her, but that's why it was so tough to watch.

8) Playing music over the acceptance speeches from the start. Hey, I am ALL for doing everything possible to limit the boring blather. Say something pithy and move on. Anything more is just selfish, as you are directly taking time away from others in THEIR moment. Thank everyone via your web page. But that music was distracting and disrespectful.

7) John Travolta's hair. And I'm only giving Tom Hanks a pass because it's for a movie role (but...eww).

6) Even allowing Keanu and Sandra in the building. But putting them together, were they trying to create a powerful vortex to suck all the talent out of the room? Okay,I'll admit that's a little too harsh on Sandra, who has several upcoming roles in which it is conceivable that she redeems herself.

5) Charlize Theron's sour, disdainful facial expressions. This is a travesty because either they reveal her true personality, or they betray it.

4) What a down year for music (weak songs, weaker performances/presentation).

3) A montage can be very effective, or it can be hopelessly trite and cliche (Team America, anyone?). The Oscars not only overplayed the montage card this year (surely related to #2 below), but there were some pretty questionable movies represented. The Day After Tomorrow? Take your pick—several other highly questionable inclusions.

2) Using the entire show as a blatant, crass commercial to try to get people to go to the theater more.

1) Crash. It isn't the worst choice for Best Picture, but it is damn close. Let's see, 1994, 1976... how about we put it in the next tier with 1997, 2001, and that woeful 3-yr run from 1979-81. Although the longer I stew about it, the more I want to put it in that top tier.

Martell—The biggest travesty this year for me was the same travesty that occurred five years ago. It had nothing to do with any of the awards presented, the acceptance speeches given, or even any of the dresses worn. It had to do with the idiotic people I met at the Oscars party I attended.

This year, there were two primary culprits. The first was this fellow named Dan, who admittedly was only mildly annoying. He was just ridiculously competitive. See, everyone in attendance had entered this Oscar pool, and about midway through the show, Dan was narrowly in the lead over a couple of ther people (my wife included). I, on the other hand, was wallowing near the bottom of the pack. Mind you, at this point that majority of the awards that had been issued were of the "Best Sound Editing" ilk, so I wasn't particularly threatened by my lack of prediction accuracy in these areas. But Dan liked to make himself out to be some sort of Oscars savant.

Anyway, some pointless award like Best Dance Routine (Victorian Era) is about to be announced, and Dan asks me who I picked. I answer, and then ask him why he wants to know. "I just want to know who's not going to win. HA HA HA HA HA!!!" Yes, Dan, that was very funny. Good one.

The night went on in this fashion, and as my wife and I were heading out the door, we were telling the hosts that we would have to have them over for another home quiz (this weird house party/trivia contest we put on occasionally). From the top of the stairs, Dan shouts, "Trivia party? Can I come and win that too?" I'm pretty sure he wasn't joking.

But the most annoying person was this other woman whose name I don't remember. She was the brunette with the dour attitude sitting over on the end of the couch. A couple of minutes before the broadcast was to begin, the hostess was still in the kitchen preparing some food for the party. Her husband came up to me, gave me the remote, and asked me to pause the show if began before his wife was finished in the kitchen.

At this point, Miss Dour pipes up that she doesn't want to watch the show on delay. I try to point out the advantages of being able to skip through some commercials later, but she's not swayed. "But then we won't find out the results at the same time as everyone else!"

Lady, we're in a house. We're not in contact with the rest of the world. I told her, "It's not like there will be cheering in the street when they announce the winners of the awards." I don't know, maybe she has a twin sister that she shares a telepathic bond with. But it wouldn't matter anyway—this was being done to accomodate the owner of the house! Who was in the kitchen making food for you!!!

It's too bad we weren't at Eddie Murphy's house; he would have told her that if she doesn't like it, she can get the fuck out. I bet that would have really made Dan laugh.

To submit a topic for The Voices of Reason, or to be added to the VoR Shout Out List, send an e-mail to martell@babblog.com.