Bruce Vilanch is Turning Over in His Grave
Posted on | February 28, 2005 at 10:44 pm | 4 Comments
The Oscars are over for another year. I’ll leave it to the critics, pundits, and armchair quarterbacks to debate what the whole Sean Penn/Jude Law thing was about. (And why didn’t Sean defend Tim Robbins too?) I’ll just say that the telecast this year sucked. If not for Chris Rock, it would’ve been a total snoozefest. The only suspense with the actual awards was seeing if Martin Scorsese would be recognized, and since he wasn’t… eh. Oh yeah, there was the suspense of wondering if Hilary Swank would remember to thank her husband this year. Thank God she remembered to do that, and to thank her damn lawyers as well. Puhleeze. At least Sideways got a few nods, but not as many as it should’ve. I can’t believe Cate Blanchett won (over Virgina Madsen) with that annoying Katherine Hepburn impression. And as much as I got tired of Beyonce, I think she would’ve done a better job with the winning song than frickin’ Antonio Banderas. And why did Carlos Santana sound like he was playing a guitar part from a different song? Is that how the original sounded? At least the song’s writer/performer got his digs in, by attempting to sing it properly for his acceptance speech.
And didn’t it seem like there were a lot of people missing from the audience this year? Or maybe they just weren’t putting them on camera. I don’t remember the camera showing Jude Law or Jack Nicholson or Nicole Kidman or Russell Crowe or a myriad of others when they were talked about. Maybe they didn’t want to show them grimacing at the put-downs.
Though I frequently disagree with him, I think Harry Knowles nailed the problems with the telecast in this essay. In the interests of shortening things up, they took all the drama and interest out of it. I would not have minded a four-hour telecast if they had actually, for example, shown some clips from the nominated shorts. As it was, I had no idea what any of those films were about and so am not tempted to search them out. Heck, I was watching on delayed PVR and was able to skip through all the commercials and boring stuff anyway. Another 45 minutes of ceremony wouldn’t have killed me, if there was a chance something interesting might’ve happened during them.
So here’s a big Bronx cheer to the producers. Hey ya lame-os, let’s bring some fun and drama and entertainment and information back to the show next year. Thanks.
Latre.
Comments
4 Responses to “Bruce Vilanch is Turning Over in His Grave”
March 1st, 2005 @ 6:53 pm
We too are recovering from the Oscars, that magical time of year when traffic in Hollywood actually manages to get worse… thankfully, I missed most of the telecast (except for Rock’s monologue!) but our guest for the evening happened to be an Australian radio producer, here with an old comedian friend of my wife’s who was sent here to cover the festivities for a week. And I remember her saying that Nicole happens to be in Australia at the moment. So that’s one less question for you.
Now, how in the hell Rich Vos’ name got on the credits as a writer, I’ve no clue – since when does Chris Rock need any help from a guy like him? And even more startling to me was finding out he’s now engaged to Bonnie MacFarlane (who was also in Last Comic Standing but a different season from him). But this is quickly digressing off-topic…
March 2nd, 2005 @ 9:33 am
Hmmm… Rich Vos and Bonnie MacFarlane together. I bet they have some interesting dinner parties.
Hey, the latest episodes of Enterprise finally explained why the Klingons all looked like Rich Vos for awhile.
March 2nd, 2005 @ 2:42 pm
That’s funny! Never seen Enterprise but just read today on Slashdot that people have pledged $3 million towards another season. Where were they when Max Headroom got the axe at such a tender age, I wonder?
I’m still hanging in with SG1 but otherwise stick to comedy on TV (or reality shows my wife watches, if I don’t have a book and earplugs handy…). They’re building up to quite a melodramatic climax (almost last-season-B5-esque) for what should be their last season (what with most of the cast wanting to pull back, or out entirely, and the crappy spinoff doing well enough in the ratings).
But, I digress…
March 2nd, 2005 @ 10:39 pm
Yeah, I saw that about Enterprise. $3 million takes care of… what? Two episodes? It is actually too bad it’s being cancelled, as this season is by the far the best (probably because Berman/Braga aren’t the showrunners any more). At least they’ll be going out on a high note.
I’m watching SG-1 this season, though I never have in the past, so I’m basically Lost. I don’t mind Atlantis, as I’m not as lost there and the characters appeal to me more. It doesn’t have that annoying snarky Richard Dean McGyver. But I like the new Battlestar Galactica better than either of them. The Cylons got religion.
I doubt it will be the last season for SG-1. SciFi will keep throwing money at them.