This year's Academy Awards will take place on February 9th, and it should be a doozy of a show. After all, think about the stories that 2020 has already produced for the host: Harry and Meghan have divorced from the Royal Family; Major League Baseball has had its worst cheating scandal in a hundred years; the New York Times endorsed Elizabeth Warren AND Amy Klobuchar for President; and a tennis player got scolded at the Australian Open for asking a ball girl to peel his banana for him (seriously). Man,with that kind of material Oscar's opening monologue is going to be LIT!
Oh that's right, Oscar is gutless. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced earlier this month that they will NOT be using a host this year, and so that potential comedy gold is now on the cutting room floor. Apparently last year's experiment without a host didn't bomb sufficiently for the Academy to come to its senses, and so they are making the same mistake again this year. It's the kind of "genius thinking" that leads Hollywood to sign off on things like Robert Downey Jr. as Doolittle -- it's safe, it's cute, and it's awful, but they can cram it down people's throats anyway.
Look, I get it. The country's divided, and Hollywood takes itself way too seriously. Thus, Ricky Gervais' performance at The Golden Globes might scare some people. After all, Ricky had people laughing! and talking about the show afterwards! They can't have that sort of commotion at The Oscars. Nope, The Oscars would rather stay in the ignored, irrelevant lane. What a shame. Think about what a field day an Ellen, a Seinfeld, or a Jimmy Kimmel could have with the treasure trove of news this year -- "And the Oscar for best performance by an actress goes to... the woman in the Peleton ad!" -- but instead we'll get nothing. If the question is "does this town know how to throw a party or what?", the answer in L.A. on Oscar night is simply, "No." Is the irony wasted on the Academy? All year Hollywood puts out movies in the hopes of entertaining us, and now they are putting on an awards show for those movies that is guaranteed NOT to entertain us. Why? Because you can't spell 'Academy of Motion Pictures' without the following letters: S-T-U-P-I-D. Ah well, like everyone that loses on Oscar night always says, there's always next year.
-VB