Mmmm…Oscar!
Last night during the “revamped Oscars” that felt not unlike the old Oscars, the show employed an oddly cluttered nominee graphic that cropped up during the mushy five-way best performance presentations. The graphic had two configurations, both made up of a number of different screens showing little loops of clips pulled from other nominees playing around the main “screen” which showed the nominee, or presenter. For whatever reason, during the right-side configuration graphics, and prominently displayed at the bottom-center of the TV every few seconds, there was Kung Fu Panda, jumping into the frame, eyes all a-googly, mouth open, huge tongue lapping at some flying object. The group I watched the show with laughed at it throughout, but when it ran underneath Sophia Loren’s tribute to Meryl Streep (did the Academy let them write those things themselves?), we all disintegrated. I imagine this was unintentional, though it certainly went further than anything else in the show towards deflating the event’s pomposity. Hugh Jackman’s The Reader bit comes a close second.
Relive the best moment from last night’s extravaganza here. Better than Harrison’s record-setting run, hotter than Holmes’s game-winning catch. Jungleland, indeed.
In the great tradition of our yearly 11 Offenses column, the absolute bottom of the shit pile (this year, Towelhead; in the past, Trade, The Quiet, and London) is left off, partly because we’ve already said all that needs to be said, but also because lending more brainpower to such soul-sucking experiences would do neither us nor the perpetrators of this refuse any good. We don’t need to swallow back any more vomit as we type precious words; they don’t deserve to see their names further mentioned in any publication.
Nevertheless, there was a surfeit of cinematic swill in 2008, and as usual, it oozed throughout action blockbusters, greedy Oscar grabbers, and foreign imports alike. You know you’ve been waiting for it: here are eleven headache-inducing horrors. Capsules written by Jeannette Catsoulis, Eric Hynes, Lauren Kaminsky, Michael Koresky, Kristi Mitsuda, Jeff Reichert, Michael Joshua Rowin, and Chris Wisniewski.
Click here to read the rest of Reverse Shot’s 11 Offenses.
Check out: http://www.idrinkyourmilkshake.com/ for all the There Will Be Blood discussion you can handle. Or, ignore the discussion and just play the audio of the year’s best line over and over and over again…
Not only is it great, but its apparently historically accurate as well—I hear it’s based on an actual speech given in Congress dealing with the issue of DDDDRRRRRAAAAAAIIIINNNNNAAAAGGEEEEE!!!!
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