Oscar Observations

I watched some of the Oscars last night, up until right after Heath Ledger was announced as winner of Best Supporting Actor, Male, by one of the SuperFriends. Actually, I liked that whole set of having past winners introduce and announce the nominees and winners. I was stunned at how short Joel Gray was. I kept saying everytime the camera panned back, 'Look how short he is, Look, Look. See, He's short. Look at the guy next to him, he's like half his size. See how short he is?' My better half was like, yeah, so.
These are the things that strike me, what can I say.
I was also struck by Christopher Walken's hair. He looked like Shemp. "The Shemp" (see below) may actually be coming back in style because there was another guy who won for Key Grip or something who had the Shemp look. He was also wearing sneakers.



I was really pulling for the guy with huge teeth to win the Documentary Award. He had bigger teeth than Bababooey. I wanted to see those choppers up close as he made an acceptance speech, but he lost.
I don't understand short films. Why would someone make a short film? The guy who won spent 4 years making a 14 minute film! What?! If you spent that much time on it, I hope to God you won. The other guys who were nominated probably made their's in an afternoon. Can you even make a point in 14 minutes? The Stooges had it right. If you're going to make a 14 minute film, you may as well just wail on each other for 14 minutes. Get your licks in, because there's really no time for anything else. When the Stooges made short films they actually played short films before long films so it made sense. They don't do that anymore. If nothing else, have a separate awards show for short films, don't lump them in with the Oscars, it's too long as it is.
Instead of short films, they should have an award for best first hour of a movie. This year alone, I saw at least three first hours of a movie and never saw the end. I saw the first hour of Wall-E, King Fu Panda, and Leatherheads; and those are the ones that I remember. I'd probably go with Leatherheads -- a solid first hour of entertainment. I was starting to get bored when we had to turn it off to do something with the kids, so I'm sure an hour was about right. The last half hour would have ruined it. We just rented W, I'm looking forward to seeing the first hour of it.

I thought the skit with James Franco and Seth Rogen was funny, especially when they were watching those serious movies and laughing hysterically. Ben Stiller doing Joachim Phoenix on the Letterman show was also good.
I thought Huge Ackman did a good job as host. He was funny and seems like a very happy guy. I liked his line to Meryl Streep, saying she's racked up Huge numbers, like 15 nominations over her career. That leads me to wonder: Are you on steroids?
I hope they bring the SuperFriends thing back next year.
And maybe the Moe haircut will all the rage next year. There is, you know, a Three Stooges movie coming out in 2009. The long rumored Farrelly Brothers updated adaptation of the Stooges is reportedly being made an will be out by the end of the year. I smell Oscar!