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2001 |
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Reviewing the Academy Awards for 1999 |
 Year 2000 Host Billy Crystal |
Without Billy Crystal, the Oscars
would have been an epic disaster
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
IT'S A DARN good thing the Oscar thieves didn't steal Billy Crystal when they copped that load of statuettes last week. Without the hilarious Oscar host, Sunday night's four hour-plus telecast of the 72nd annual Academy Awards would have been a total sleep inducer from the starting bell.
The problem? The Academy has tamed everybody down so thoroughly that even the wild and unpredictable Roberto Begnini admitted, on camera, that "they asked me to stay the hell off the furniture" this year.
When the flamboyant Cher even apologizes in public for "dressing like a grownup," you know things are heading downhill for the Academy. And, sure enough, nobody wore anything even remotely daring, spoiling one of the enduring pleasures of Oscar-viewing: Wallowing in Hollywood's bad taste.
As for the awards themselves, you can blame the the irresponsible Wall Street Journal for blowing all the suspense by printing the names of all but one of the major winners in advance, the results of their own poll of Academy members.
That didn't help keep us awake during the fourth hour as only Kevin Spacey managed to beat the Journal's predictions, nosing out Denzel Washington in the Best Actor category. Meanwhile, the show was running so long by then that host Crystal was stifled and nobody had any time to be spontaneous.
That doesn't mean the awards were a big disappointment. "American Beauty" was by far the most creative and satisfying film of the year - and it won Best Film. Spacey's performance in the film was his best ever - and he surely deserved his Oscar, even if it meant Washington was going to lose for his work in "Hurricane" and another of my favorites, Richard Farnsworth in "The Straight Story," probably lost his last chance at an Oscar because of his age.
My only big disappointment was seeing Annette Bening lose the Best Actress Oscar for her best work in a career already filled with glorious performances. Little known Hilary Swank took the prize instead for "Boys Don't Cry," a small independent film few have seen, but now will get to see as post-Oscar bookings are arranged.
In the supporting actor category, Michael Caine won for his lovable abortionist character in "The Cider House Rules," yet another grand performance for the veteran actor. I wasn't letdown that Angelina Jolie won the Supporting Actress Oscar for "Girl Interrupted," though her wacko young woman schtick is beginning to wear thin for me after a couple of years of it.
As a television show, though, the Oscar telecast started falling apart soon after the first hour, which Crystal had lifted to a great height with some inspired material. His opening bit, in which he was placed in the middle of a horde of classic film clips through digital trickery, was as funny as anything ever done on the Oscar show.
To fully enjoy what Crystal and the writers did with that segment, you have to know your movies. If you do, then you were richly rewarded. One example: Billy appears in the snowbound cabin of "The Gold Rush" with Charlie Chaplin and remarks, "I see dead people," a riff on the big line in last year's big hit film, "The Sixth Sense." Another example: Billy winds up in the passenger seat next to Gene Hackman in the wild car chase in "The French Connection" and, just when Hackman nearly runs down a pedestrian, observes, "Watch out! It's Stephen King!"
Crystal's now standard song medley about the five best picture nominees was deliciously funny. Example: His song for "The Green Mile" was sung to the theme from TV's "Green Acres" and his song for "The Sixth Sense" was Barbra Streisand's "People" - with an added line about people who see dead people.
In between, he fired off a large number of solid gags, including a clever one about "The Straight Story" being a biography of Dr. Laura Schlesinger, the radio talk show host who is currenty being pilloried for making anti-gay remarks. He explained she couldn't attend the awards ceremony because she couldn't get anybody in Hollywood to do her hair or makeup.
Reflecting on Italian actor-director Begnini's seat-hopping performance at last year's Oscars, Crystal said, "if Begnini gets out of control, I'll get the stun gun." Unfortunatly, it seemed as if someone had been using the stun gun on practically everybody who came to the stage Sunday night.
Oh, there were a few really nice moments: Caine's gracious acceptance speech, in which he personally addressed each of his four rivals and praised them copiously. Also superb: Spacey's humble acceptance speech - and his dedication of his award to colleague Jack Lemmon, who befriended Spacey during a performance of "Long Day's Journey into Night" some years ago and gave the young actor much sage advice.
One special event that should have worked better was the tribute to past Oscar winning or Oscar nominated songs. The songs they picked were all classics and some of the performers were at their best, especially Garth Brooks, who did a marvelous job on "Everybody's Talking" from the 1969 Oscar-winner, "Midnight Cowboy." Others, however, were not quite up to speed, especially Ray Charles, who struggled with some numbers that weren't in his repertoire, and Isaac Hayes, whose reprise of his Oscar-winning "Theme from 'Shaft'" sounded like a noisy car with a flat tire.
As a matter of fact, it was a bum idea to salute the great Oscar songs with a medley of wonderful tunes AFTER they'd already given this year's award to Phil Collins' "You'll Be in My Heart" from Disney's animated "Tarzan" feature, the only bearable song from a batch of seriously lame nominees.
It's clear that Hollywood just isn't cutting it in terms of great movie songs anymore. For instance, many of the songs performed in the salute were Oscar "losers," not winners. Among them, if you can believe it, Cole Porter's "I've Got You Under My Skin" and "Alfie." The song from "Midnight Cowboy" wasn't even nominated in its year of competition. It's so obvious that even yesterday's also-ran songs were a lot better than the ones we're hearing today.
Much of my past fun with Oscar shows has been gawking at the weird outfits, but there weren't any really outrageous ones on stage this year. My nomination for worst look of the year goes to award-winner Angelina Jolie, who affected a Morticia Addams look with a long, unflattering black outfit and a stringy black hairdo. The usually reliable Cher was a big letdown, too. She wore a hideous black outfit and looked like one of the dead people the kid from "The Sixth Sense" has been seeing.
But I stayed through the bitter end anyway - and was rewarded by witnessing a personal "special moment": When former Los Gatos resident Dan Jinks, the co-producer of "American Beauty," stood up to accept his award, he was hugged on camera by his dad, Larry Jinks, the retired newspaper editor who gave me my first job as a TV critic. For that one moment, I felt like I was getting an Oscar, too.
© 2000 by Ron Miller
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