I'D LIKE TO THANK THE ACADEMY

it's been a long time since i've read a film review by andrew o'hehir -- and even longer since i've picked a bone with salon.com -- but the occasion of the 85th academy awards has given me occasion for both. i can't remember the last time that i'd made a point of watching the awards, and i hadn't seen a single one of the nominated pictures before going to see a screening of the oscar nominated animated shorts on friday. "serious" filmgoers can't, of course, be expected to take the time to consider the films being considered by the academy. and the award show itself is, of course, even more generally considered to be just a holywood marketing pageant. but i watched it this year because of a good beer drinking opportunity (and one for drinking good beer), and i'm happy that i did. andrew o'hehir watched it too, of course, because even the most serious of film critics are expected to weigh in with general cultural punditry when anyone involved with filmistry walks down a red carpet. so be it. but even so, i was surprised by mr. o'hehir's response. i turned down an opportunity to see "argo" the night before the awards, and even after an academy awards show that made me reconsider wanting to see the rest of the nominated films, i still haven't been won over on that one. that isn't to say, however, that i wasn't full of hope that the academy would snub ben affleck, who looked unsurprisingly smug whenever the camera found him in the audience. in the end it didn't, and although mr. o'hehir didn't think that "argo" deserved to win best picture, he did think that mr. affleck shone as a "class act" when he took the stage at the end of the show to accept his picture's award. so be it. but he seemed to think so because he seemed to hate the rest of the show. "Of course it’s standard operating procedure for someone in my position [o'hehir says] (or yours, for that matter! [damn straight]) to mock the Oscars for all kinds of reasons." i just didn't understand the bent of o'hehir's mocking. in his criticism of its selections, he seems to acknowledge that the academy of motion picture arts and sciences isn't really in the business of rewarding the best in motion picture arts and sciences, but seems baffled that its awards show -- which was dedicated to movie music -- should have been produced the way that it was. "I hadn’t grasped quite how odd the choice of MacFarlane was until the show started and I realized that not only is he not a celebrity, but that “Family Guy” fans and people who watch too many talk shows would be the only viewers able to pick him out of a police lineup," he says (and not at all seeming to be aware that serious and non-serious filmgoers alike have been watching a lot of television lately). "Eventually," he says, "it dawned on me that all this warmed-over and self-indulgent postmodernism didn’t have anything to do with giving awards to people who make movies, and that MacFarlane was just going to keep telling increasingly distasteful fat-chick jokes and domestic-violence jokes and John Wilkes Booth jokes until it was time to segue into 'Why is this show so long?' jokes." i'd questioned the selection of mr. macfarlane myself until abc gave me the theme of the show and macfarlane was singing "i get a kick out of you" while charlize theron and channing tatum danced onstage around him. (mr. tatum, for what it's worth, had either learned how to act in rehearsals or he and his partner had just spent some special time backstage.) while mr. o'hehir was taking the time to come to his own realization, however, the rest of us were laughing along with the audience in the dolby theater. and what mr. o'hehir called the "terrible musical numbers" and the "doomed attempts to seem hip and relevant" had already made the show a fun one before any (terrible, irrelevant) awards were given. what mr. o'hehir seems to have demonstrated with his criticism of this academy awards show is only the terrible irrelevance of his punditry as regards the terrible irrelevance of the academy awards. or something. to be fair, mr. o'hehir doesn't really seem to know exactly where he stands. he liked "we saw your boobs," but then again he didn't really. he loved shirley bassey, but then again he didn't really. his criticism of the 85th academy awards show is all "sic transit gloria mundi" (and, granted, with his usual stylistic aplomb), but that in reference to jla's falling on the stairs on her way to accept the award for best actress. but so be it. maybe mr. o'hehir just wishes so hard that the academy awards were relevant that he won't ever let himself have fun if they're not. or maybe the show was just super gay and we were drinking while we watched it. but so be that too. hollywood still managed to be dazzlingly, momentously irrelevant for the length of two feature films, and for that i would like to thank the academy.