Academy Awards LXXIX: The Wrap-Up

The 79th Academy Awards was a pleasant evening of safe comedy, tasteful gowns, and almost no surprises. There were no shocking upsets; no shameful Academy shut-outs; no war protesters streaking in the background. No winners used their 47 seconds to petition for the release of Leonard Peltier, or for anything more scandalous than an end to global warming. No starlet forgot her slip or committed unfortunate hair.

That said, even the world’s most boring Super Bowl gets an hour post-game show, so welcome to the Academy Awards LXXIX Post-Game Wrap-Up.

First, a note to red carpet coverage producers: The only thing we are interested in on the red carpet is seeing the gowns. That is all. These are the only acceptable red carpet questions: “How are you feeling tonight?” “Who are you wearing?” Here are questions that are not acceptable: “Have you ever met Brad Pitt?” “What’s Brad Pitt like?” "If you ever meet Brad Pitt, can you give him this script for me?" “Since there’s no chance that you’re going to win, why have you bothered coming this evening?”… or its corollary, “Everyone thinks you’re going to win. What do you plan to say when you do?” And the most annoying unacceptable question (Ryan Seacrest, I’m talking to you), “When are you two getting married?”

E! distinguished itself early with some spectacularly bad red carpet coverage. While Ryan Seacrest babbled about his small red carpet work space and the hostess chicks with the interchangeable heads congratulated each other on their outfits, actual movie actors drifted by unnoticed in the background. When they actually managed to get a star in a gown to stop to talk to them, the cameras would suddenly cut away to show George Takei wandering the red carpet aimlessly in a kimono.

ABC offered E! some stiff challenge in the stupid department, particularly when the two hosts on the red carpet could not get anyone to stop to speak to them. It was really pathetic watching these two self-important poseurs in tuxes yelling “Mr O’Toole!” “Nicole!” “Mr. Takei!” to an unflagging train of stardom passing by. Occasionally they would cut away to their fashion “experts”, a plastic man and woman being catty in a sky box, and a strange-looking automaton of a man, theoretically from Vogue, who would lunge at people with his microphone and robot questions to them in a loud monotone.

Article Author: Kati Irons

I am a film and music librarian for a public library system. Like many of my kind, I suffer from RKS, or Random Knowledge Syndrome. These musings are the inevitable end result of that condition.

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