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Saturday, March 19, 2011

Radical idea for an Oscar host

The idea came to me when I read that a Botoxed Billy Crystal would consider returning as the host of the Oscar telecast if the Academy made certain changes to the show, like reduce the number of awards that are handed out.

The Academy should ignore Crystal's idiotic demands and go in the opposite direction. It should finally decide to drop the idea of a "host" completely, eschew any and all attempts at comedy patter and, instead, concentrate on the awards and the films.

The show opens with the orchestra playing a medley of recognizable film scores, then an unseen announcer says "Please welcome (actor) and (actress)." The two come out to present the first award. There are no attempts at humorous banter between the two. Instead they announce the award they are going to present and after each nominee is announced, an extended film clip is shown that clearly illustrates why the nominee was selected. This process is repeated for each presentation.

The reason the Oscars are not as popular with the public as they used to be is because they are no movie stars anymore. The Oscars have lost their star power. What attracts people to movies these days are the films -- not the actors/actresses in them -- and the films that draw the crowds are not the ones that will be nominated for the major Oscars. If they are nominated at all, it will be in technical categories so give more, not less, time to those categories by showing more clips of those films when they are nominated. And have the actors in those films paired as your presenters: Robert Downey Jr. and Cameron Diaz from Iron Man 2, Maria Wasikowska and Johnny Depp from Alice in Wonderland, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson from Twilight, Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page from Inception, etc. You get the picture.

One more thing. Absolutely, positively find a way to prohibit Oscar recipients from reciting a list of "thank-yous" in their acceptance speeches. If they start in that direction, immediately cut to another clip of the winning film.

It may not be foolproof, but I have yet to hear a better idea.

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