My Oscars postmortum: it’s not pretty

Stop, you're killing me.

It will come as no surprise to most of you out there that I, first of all, actually watched the Academy Awards Extravaganza, but also that I found the whole thing to be a boring, bloated, clunky, awkward snooze-fest of the first order.

Like many of you, I adore the new Alec Baldwin. I used to adore Steve Martin. I still have a soft spot for that jerk, but the Academy’s decision to frontline the dynamic duo from the recent Nancy Meyers flick, It’s Complicated, their jovial animosity and easy banter with Ms. Streep culled from the film, meant that this year’s Oscars, instead of being a boring overlong awards show, was a boring overlong advertisement for It’s Complicated.

Not that the Oscars-as-advertisement should really come as a surprise. I mean, that’s what the whole show is, right? One long ad for the movies. I’m sure at some point in the middle of the last century, a gaggle of pomaded men gathered round a smoke-clogged conference room, came up with the bright idea: an awards show! Ka-ching! If the idea of “love” can sell stockings, as Donald Draper said, then the prestige of a statue and honor among one’s peers can sell ten dollar tickets.

But Sunday night’s show just seemed stuck right in the middle of the eighties, like a mosquito in amber, and not just because of the faintly sickening John Hughes tribute (though I gotta say, Macaulay Culkin has barely aged a day; I wish the same could be said for Judd Nelson).

And whose idea was this?:

Sweatin' to the oldies.

A narrative dance piece interpreting the nominated movies. Can anyone say “bathroom break?” The director of the show, Hamish Hamilton, or “Mark” to his pals, comes from the music world, amazingly enough, because I thought music videos, especially now-a-days, you know, actually move. Actually have a pulse. Turns out, Hamilton hasn’t so much directed music videos as music concerts. Big difference. Still, you’d think that a guy who had directed Rammstein live in Berlin, or the Beastie Boys in Glasgow, or U2 (more than once), J-Lo, Robbie Williams, the list goes on and on, including half a dozen of the MTV Music Video Awards shows, would have been able to bring a little more verve to the night, a little less inertia. Guess not.

But maybe it’s not his fault. I imagine the show is one of the worst offenders of the “too many chefs spoil the broth” rule. Perhaps the fault lies with Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman. As producer, Mechanic is a former president of 20th Century Fox responsible for Fight Club and countless other films, some of them good. When he left Fox he made a splash (har har) with 2005’s Dark Water, the low-budget shark flick that could. Since then he’s produced Coraline, exec produced The New World, and now this. You would think a guy who embraced the talents of David Fincher and Terrance Malick would have been able to bring something to the table for this, his first Oscars. Guess not.

Shankman, who has done pretty much everything a guy can do in Hollywood, including dance behind Paula Abdul, certainly brought the gay to the show, but I’m not sure what else he brought. At the Oscars party I attended, our fabulous hosts came up with a drinking game wherein everyone in the room was given a note card. When – not if – what was written on the card transpired on-screen, you had to drink. My card read Cowboy Hat. I had a few drinks. My neighbor’s read “I’m sure I’m forgetting someone…” She had less. Nothing to cause a hangover. But there was one card that I was glad not to have in my hand. It read Vaguely Gay. I think we carried the owner of that card out that night. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

The worst offenders, of course, were the writers. The damned writers. You can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting a writer and this is as good as we get? By my count something north of 75% of all attempted jokes fell flat as a quarter in the blacktop around mile 29 on route 8 just outside Yuma, Arizona. Pretty freaking flat is what I’m saying. A handful (one hand) of the Baldwin-Martin routine was actually funny, and this had more to do with delivery (which is always the case with Baldwin) than script. The Paranormal Activity riff was the only inspired thing that transpired all evening, and even that could have been better.

Aside from the absolute debacle of timing – Shit! We forgot to announce Best Picture! – here are a few other things about the show that didn’t work:

The center stage platform thing. What the hell was the idea behind this floating square in the sea of people? It was for some reason under-lit, and was either so small or so high that everyone who stood on it looked frozen, almost afraid. What’ll they do next year? Put them on a trapeze over a shark tank? That, at least, would bring some excitement.

The fact that there was obviously a “start the music button” but not a “stop the music button.” I understand that they’re trying to stay on schedule, but please. Sometimes the second person up there, after the first person finally shuts up and remembers that no, in fact they did not do this totally alone, just wants to say a simple, “Thanks.” And we can’t hear it. Lame.

Where were the bouncers who should have clotheslined Elinor Burkett, the producer who ruined filmmaker Roger Williams’s acceptance speech. His film, Dear Prudence, won Best Documentary Short Subject. Though there was so little drama or excitement in the evening that I’ll take it wherever I can get it. Documentary Short Subject? What’s that? is the usual reaction. Not anymore.

I could go on, but it’s old news. Next year will be no different. They should scrap the whole idea. Somebody needs to either shake the thing to its core, bringing some radically new ideas to the table for 2011, or create an alternate Oscars, producing a show that would actually be fun to watch.