3rd Annual Post-Oscar Oscars

It’s that time again. Time for another piece where I hand out the Oscars for the most memorable moments of the Oscars show. Are you ready? Well too bad, here I go anyway.

(The awards are handed out in relative order of where they happened during the broadcast)

The Oscar For Most Interesting Turnabout Goes To… Ellen’s Al Gore joke during her opening monologue. In the joke, she talked about how the people voted for Al Gore but he didn’t win and the audience went crazy for it. Now you’re saying, how is this a turnabout? Hollywood folks are crazy liberal and they always were. Well let me take you back to the awards show of 2003 when Michael Moore received the Oscar for Best Documentary for Bowling For Columbine and then got booed by the audience for suggesting that George W. Bush didn’t really win the election (an event which spurned his decision to make Fahrenheit 9/11.) Now do you understand why this joke got this award? I thought so.

The Oscar For The Most Awkward Standing Goes To… All the people who stood up when Ellen marched around the room with the gospel choir at the end of her opening monologue. All ten or fifteen of them. Boy, they must have felt awkward during that moment.

The Oscar For The Best Act of Sympathy Goes To… Jack Nicholson who shaved his head, for what I can only assume was an act of sympathy with Britney Spears. Or at least I sure hope it was. (Turns out he did it for an upcoming role. What a dissapointment.)

The Oscar For The Biggest Surprise of The Night Goes To… Alan Arkin, for winning the Best Supporting Actor award that everyone knew was going to go to Eddie Murphy. I notice that I never saw Eddie again during the broadcast which leads me to two thoughts: 1. Eddie left after not winning, or 2. Every time they tried to put him on camera after that, he flicked off the camera. (Sadly it turned out that the first thought was true, and not the second one, which is almost as disappointing as finding out that Jack didn't shave his head for Britney.)

The Oscar For The Best Original Screenplay Goes To… Nope, not the real winner for Best Original Screenplay, which went to Little Miss Sunshine’s, Michael Arndt. This one goes to Ellen’s screenplay which she handed to Martin Scorsese during the broadcast. She claimed the movie was “Goodfellas meets Big Momma’s House.” I really wish I had thought of it. And I hope she also thought to get some kind of copyright on that idea, because I’m sure some poor scribe is out there working on that movie right now thinking Martin Scorsese might actually be interested in it. Or at least that Ewe Boll might be.

The Oscar For The Worst Tribute of The Night Goes To... The tribute to writers. This was one of the closest battles of the night, with the tribute to America finishing a close second, simply because it aired when the show was already ten minutes longer than originally scheduled. The reason the writers tribute grabbed the prize over the tribute to America wasn't simply due to its cliches, but rather because it was put together by Nancy Meyers, who managed to find a place for a clip from her own movie about a writer, the awful Something's Gotta Give (by the way, what gave was my patience). What a ridiculous self-promoter.

The Oscar For The Most Awkward Acceptance Speech Goes To... Best Adapted Screenplay winner, William Monahan. For some reason, the first thing that Monahan said when he got on stage was "valium does work!" Uhh. What the hell does that mean? Scratch that. I don't want to know.

The Oscar For The Best Performance By An Austin Powers Character Goes To... Best Costume Design winner, Frau Farbissina!

I thought you needed to see this to believe it. And now you have.

The Best Self Depricating Joke of The Night Goes To... Robert Downey Jr. for his joke about how the special effects in movies were like his drug induced hazes. You know, I really like Robert Downey Jr. and this joke only made me like him more. I'm really glad he's gotten cleaned up. See Britney, there is still some hope. If he can turn his life around, so can you.

The Best Live Edit of The Night Goes To... The cut to Borat star, Sacha Baron Cohen, while talking about foreign films. Just brilliant. They do know he isn't actually from Kazakhstan, right? (Yes, I know that he is British, but that still doesn't explain the cut to him.)

The Best Moment of Rubbing it in Goes To... Best Foreign Film Winning Director, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (and yes, that really is his name). FHvD managed to rub his ass against the back of the head of fellow nominee, Guillermo del Toro, after it was announced that he had won. I'm all for rubbing it in, but honestly, this may have gone too far.

The Best Performance by a Drunk Goes To... My roommate, Crayzie Chris, who's sing-along with the Best Song nominees from Dreamgirls put him over the top. (He believes now that possibly there was something wrong with the wine he had that night, and I tend to agree with him. I think it had alcohol in it.)

The Best Reference to a Movie That Is The Farthest Thing Possible From Being Oscar Worthy Goes To... It looked all night like this was going to go to Snakes on a Plane, which was referenced by the bendy dancers during one of their weird, but strangely awesome performances throughout the night. However, during the previously mentioned America montage we got to see a clip of Rocky IV, which while being one of my favorite movies ever, really is horrible. Probably not as stupid as Snakes, but since I like it more, it takes this much coveted award.

The Best "Finally" Moment of the Night Goes To... Tough call between the show ending after about 4 hours or when Scorsese took home the Best Director trophy. I'm going to go with Scorsese for two reasons though: 1. I Tivo'd the final moments of the show because it was going way too long, even for me, so I wasn't there for when it "finally" ended, and 2. If they had brought Steven Spielberg up there to present the Best Director award and then not given it to Martin Scorsese, that would probably have been worse than when that German director rubbed his ass on Guillermo del Toro's head, because you really can't rub it in any more than by having it pointed out that Steven Spielberg has won a Best Director award and the infinitely more talented Scorsese has none. (Unfortunately this win for Scorsese does end a funny joke where you could point out surprising winners and compare them to the previously shut-out, Scorsese, such as Three 6 Mafia 1, Scorsese 0, or Eminem 1, Scorsese 0, or for a brief time, Jennifer Hudson 1, Scorsese 0. However you still can do Spielberg 2, Scorsese 1.)

- Ben

More posts coming up later this week, including Lost recaps and a special tribute to a special show