The Oscars...

I'm just wrapping up the damn book finally. It has been something I wanted to just get away from, having to handle transferring files and folders to my format guru and dealing with Dropbox and other silly names, each of which is enough to drive someone crazy.

So, I sat and watched the oscars to get away from the techie part of book publishing.

Was Seth great. In my judgment not all that great, most of my friends gave him a C minus. The William Shatner thing was way too long and not funny. I followed Niki Finke's blow by blow commentary with some spies inside that said nobody was laughing and that some women were not fond of the "boobs" song.

Then there were the politics. Here in LA the word is that nobody likes Spielberg because he just has too much and that made it unlikely that Lincoln would win. Personally I thought it was a good movie, worthy of an Oscar. But only DDL got a statute for his role as Lincoln and he sure earned it. 

Then there was the Bond thing; seems that for the 50th anniversary of James Bond, they wanted all of the Bonds to appear on stage. However Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan dislike the remaining Brocolli family, whose father made most of the movies and apparently didn't always pay the actors their promised shares. Not that it ever happens in Hollywood anyways.

So the audience ended up with 76 year old Shirley Bassey who still has some chops and brought back a memory for me hearing Goldfinger once again, still the best Bond song of the bunch.

Then there was the tribute to Hollywood musicals, mainly Chicago, which coincidentally was produced by the two producers who were also producing the Oscar show. Coincidence??

The jokes were a bit lame and not all that funny and I wonder if Bruce Velanche (not sure of spelling) was around, he is arguably the best comic writer for the awards, the big fat guy with a fantastic wit and memory.

Then the bigger controversy -- 3 movies, Argo, Zero Dark Thirty. Argo, as I mentioned before is not a great movie and Zero Dark is, but with baggage. Ironically both directors were ignored and thus the "Hollywood Saves America" Argo became the hero because poor Ben didn't get nominated.  I think it had to do with both directors as the DGA is pretty much an old boy's club and since Bigelow won for Hurt Locker, that was enough to satisfy the old boys. 

And for Ben, well I don't think he's a great director, he certainly wasn't a great actor as his last starring movies were bombs. I'm not including the movies where he's part of a bigger cast.

And of course, the movie Good Will Hunting came up. But it's well known that both William Goldman and Tarentino both did rewrites for that movie, so Ben's real talents are still vague. 

But at least he finally did thank Canada at the end.

So should Seth come back; younger people think he's great, older people can't forget Johnny Carson but it's a complicated issue. Johnny's gone now and nobody really will ever be as good as he was because he was one of "them", meaning stars. And he was just better suited than a new host every year.

So next year, if they lose the producers, maybe Tina Fey and Amy Pohler... or God forbid Chelsey Handler.

Back to the book, it has to be finished next week... or else.