For Thursday, March 26, 1998 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 737 words

No thank you

I watched the 70^th Annual Academy Awards on Monday. The best, funniest part of the show for me was the opening skit by Billy Crystal, where he cast himself a role in each of the winning movies. The Titanic bit with Billy playing Kate Winslet in the sketch scene with Leonardo cracked me up.

After that, the show tapered to a close, four hours later. Nothing exceptional or upsetting happened. No one acted foolish or blurted out any political statements. There were no one-armed pushups, hand-spins, singing butts, or incoherent ramblings. Those sorts of highlights are often referred to in the industry as blunders, and seem to have been edited out this year by vigilant directors of nervous producers.

The evening lacked any unexpected highlights. Billy's tacky joke about racist Republicans and James Cameron's claim to be the "King of the World" were mildly embarrassing, but nothing in the ballpark of, say, Sally Field telling us that we love her, that we really love her. The Academy needs to loosen up. They need to be more like the folks who hosted the Golden Globes.

What bothers me most every year are all the thank yous. "I want to thank my director, my co-stars, my family, my hairdresser, my aunt's neighbor" and on and on. The thank yous take up most of the evening.

I'm not against being grateful. I just wish there was a way to get around wasting so much time doing it. I hate to see these magnificent talents live on the screen on one of the most important nights of their lives, and then hear nothing out of their mouths but lists of names.

What a golden opportunity to say something profound, or profoundly funny. I would love to hear Jack Nicholson talk about acting, or hear Kim Basinger comment on how far she has come to win this award. I want to see tears and an outpouring of emotion. I want to hear philosophies of success and stories of luck. I don't want to hear lists of names, over and over and over again.

I miss surprise guest speakers, like Marlon Brando's Native American friend, who rose to refuse the Godfather Oscar for him back in 1972. I miss Vanessa Redgrave. I miss the streaker.

Let me qualify: I did enjoy this year's Oscar Celebration. I agreed with all the winners. Never once did I boo. The entertainment was pleasant enough. Celine Dion can sing for me any day. I also liked the male chorus line with their visual flapping-arm effects, and the flying girl who danced so gracefully. The video clips of all the winning films, the animals, the dearly departed, the musicals, all touched nostalgic chords in me. They just didn't add up to play a complete tune.

Perhaps a "Thank You" ticker would help. When a person wins, a news ticker could scroll across the bottom of the screen listing everyone the entertainer knows, or wishes to thank. Then the winner could spend his 30 seconds saying something memorable.

Perhaps when the nominees are chosen they could turn in a list of people to thank to the Academy, months in advance. This list could then be sent out with all the press releases. It could be spammed across the Internet. Everyone in America could be notified by including a complete list of thanked people inside each Publisher's Clearinghouse Final Round Winners' announcement. By the time the Awards rolled around, we'd be as familiar with the people responsible for winning the Oscars as we are with the people who actually win them.

Or perhaps the studios are overly concerned with the length of the Academy Awards Show. The movie industry has grown so large and become such a vital part of our cultural identities that we cannot do it justice in a mere four hours. Perhaps we should let it run until midnight. So what if a lot of high-paid actors' butts get sore.

Of course, we could keep the show short and interesting if we cut out the thank yous and replaced them with original comments. By doing that we would no longer need all the other time-consuming diversions, like the Oscar family album.

It just irks me to see the Academy give a performer one of the highest awards in the land, and then follow it seconds later with the bum's rush off the stage.