By Scott Buckner
What can you say about an Academy Award show so hopelessly lame and lifeless that even the normally-interesting “Who Died Last Year?” segment is populated mostly by agents?
That was Sunday night’s show in a nutshell. In fact, the most entertaining part of the Oscars didn’t even happen during the Oscars. It came a short time later, when Jimmy Kimmel Live presented “I’m Fucking Ben Affleck” in response to Kimmel girlfriend Sarah Silverman’s video “I’m Fucking Matt Damon.”
There have been very few moments in recent television history as piss-your-pants funny as that, and very few people short of Bob Geldof who can put together a reprise of “We Are The World” that has nothing whatsoever to do with starving Africans or broke farmers.
Kimmel’s segment on actors who will probably soon be dead and mentioned during the Oscars (“You will be missed. Eventually.”) was just as priceless.
Sunday night’s Oscars telecast did provide some notable moments, though. Here were some you might have been smart enough to miss.
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Someone failed to tell Tilda Swinton there’s a reason her hairstyle is rarely seen beyond ancient Roman Empire statuary or Claymation models, and dyed a color not found anywhere in nature or outside Bozo’s dressing room. Despite that, she lives up to her award for Best Supporting Actress Who Got Dressed in the Dark because she appears onstage without makeup, her eyebrows, and a sleeve from one of the most hideous togas ever seen outside the gates of the ancient Roman Empire.
Swinton also becomes the first actress in Oscar history to use an acceptance speech to pay homage to her agent’s ass. She really did.
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It wasn’t so much Nicole Kidman’s dress, really. It was her decision to show off her Learning Annex class project on making chain mail that she gave up on halfway through.
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Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform “Falling Slowly,” the Best Original Song nobody’s heard from yet another movie nobody saw in the past year to show what can happen to an acoustic guitar when you use it as a shield during a drive-by or wait too long for the landlord to do something about those termites in your apartment.
Oddly enough, all Hansard needed to do was turn around and choose something from an entire boatload of brand spankin’ new guitars suspended in mid-air directly behind him.
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Proving that the American film industry can indeed be far too polite to the wrong old people, the Academy allows Robert Boyle to give a speech so long and rambling that the entire viewing public catches right up to him.
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Is it just me, or does Colin Farrell just make it seem like every foreign actor looks like he just rolled out of a Dumpster five minutes ago?
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See? Ron Popeil was right! John Travolta is living proof that there is at least one man in America fucking goofy enough to buy spray-on hair in a can.
Later that evening, the Church of Scientology issues a statement denying that it eventually forces its celebrity members to appear in public looking really, really stupid. It also issues a statement denying any involvement in writing the jokes used during the telecast just in case everyone wants to start blaming the Church for that, too.
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While boatloads of money can indeed buy love, presenter Tom Hanks proved that it won’t buy more sleep you obviously so desperately need. Hanks spends the rest of the night being accosted by fellow presenters mistaking the giant bags under his eyes for their celebrity gift bags.
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And in front of countless television sets across the nation, legions of women who spent decades blowing off the Coen brothers because they were too dirty or geeky were still thinking there isn’t enough money in the world that would make them do either one of them.
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For more outstanding Oscar coverage, see Mystery Oscar Theater 2008!
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What did you watch last night? Submissions to What I Watched Last Night welcome.
Posted on February 26, 2008