I’m not your demographic: Holt’s 2011 Academy Awards review

FIRST OFF, my sincere apologies. My computer has decided to not allow me to post pictures for the moment. I’m not letting that get in the way of me destroying the last bit of culture that this site has while Hilson is away.

So tonight was the somethingth annual Academy Awards live from Hollywwod. As you could guess, I eagerly watched every second of it. Well, except for the end because once you’ve seen one inner-city choir, you’ve seen them all.

Anyways, let’s take a look.

The hosts

Alright was it just me, or was James Franco higher than Willie Nelson and Wiz Khalifa at a midnight showing of “Pineapple Express”? In all honesty, he was a vastly underused aspect of the show who completely carried his co-host. Yes, yes, yes, I know there are like a gabijillion Hathaway lovers out there who are foaming out of their Gyllenhall-envy mouths right now. But I’m sorry, Anne does nothing for me.

I know most actors were once theater nerds, but Hathaway just sticks to that original formula too much. She’s awkward and pale and not even getting naked over and over again in a movie can seem to make her cool. And the “closet bad girl” approach drives me crazy. Hathaway is a closet bad girl in the same way that the girl who plays third clarinet in the high school band is, and neither gets me too excited.

But Franco is kind of the man. He’s a PhD student at Yale but still finds time to make the occasional epic movie and provide the effortless cool that the 2011 Oscars needed. Did I see “127 Hours”? Absolutely not. A movie about a dude cutting his own arm off isn’t exactly my idea of an enjoyable Friday night. But I’m sure it was a great flick for those who like to make their cinema trips a little more meaningful than I do.

Oscars drinking game

This is what we came up with. Drink every time:

• Someone thanks the Academy
• The hosts appear
• The show goes to commercial break
• Someone makes a political statement
• A movie that you haven’t seen wins an award
• A clip from an old movie is shown
• Someone references Anne Hathaway’s nudity
• A black person is on stage during the performance of a nominated original song

Drink twice if:

• You guess the winner of an award wrong

Black people

ZERO black people were nominated for an Academy Award in 2011. Jesse Jackson has to be posted up somewhere ready to bitch about this, right? I mean country music is now a superior equal opportunity awarder in comparison to Hollywood. Liberals gots to be fumin’.

Christian Bale

I realize that I am speaking as the bullshit-proof, cultureless redneck who has no appreciation for fine cinema, but no one’s Oscar victory was more deserving on Sunday night than that of Christian Bale. Simply put, Bale made me think of him as a character instead of an actor more than maybe any performance that I have ever seen on the giant ass silver screen.

This is because I didn’t see Bale when I watched “The Fighter”. I literally saw an over-the-hill crackhead clinging to his smallest form of public respect. And that’s what the movie wanted me to see. It was brilliant. Christian Bale is brilliant, except for the whole not knowing his wife’s name thing.

Jennifer Lawrence

As you can guess about a number of the other nominated movies, I did not see “Winter’s Chub” or whatever that particular movie is called. BUT, holy bloody mouth Batman, I did pick up one thing from the film’s numerous ABC cameos on Sunday night.

Jennifer Lawrence is a year younger than me and stupid hot. A quick Wiki search also tells me that she’s  from Kentucky and got her start on the absolutely awful “Bill Engvall Show”. In short, I believe I have fallen in love.

“The King’s Speech”

Okay, obviously I never watched “The King’s Speech,” but that doesn’t stop me from giving it this piece of advice: GO THE HELL AWAY. No one likes you and your fancy British accents. George Washington led troops across the Delaware to kick some ass so that we would never have a movie like this dominate the Oscars ever, or something like that,

I saw three Best Picture nominees this year: “The Social Network”, “The Fighter” and “Inception”. I am in no way credited to make judgments for or against the Academy. But I will say this: movies about limeys with speech impediments are gay and they suck.

Melissa Leo

I thoroughly respect a lady that can be proper during the day, rowdy during the night and drop a solid F-bomb on live national television. Mrs. Leo, SC salutes you.

Short films

A word to Hollywood: No one watches short films. Not ever. Not unless it’s animated and they’re forced to sit through it before a Pixar movie. Stop awarding these people. It’s amateur and lame and makes me take THREE drinks during my aforementioned Oscars drinking game. Seriously, no one but actors who haven’t learned how to act when they’re not acting and that 12-year-old movie critic doucher that I want to ship to North Korea care about any of this garbage.

Major League Baseball doesn’t give out the trophy for Florida State League Single-A Champion when the fireworks clear after Game 7 of the World Series, so cut out the idiots who can only act for 12 minutes.

The Academy

I’ve spent a large portion of my opinionated life talking about how gay the Oscars are and how I’ll never watch them and blah, blah, blah. But the truth is, I’ve now watched the show in some capacity for a few years in a row. Has it got me fired up from time to time? Hell yes.

I flipped when Mickey Rourke didn’t win best actor for “The Wrestler”, and Sean Penn preaching to me didn’t make the matter any better.

I’m still completely disgusted by the elitist idea so many have that a movie that sparks mass appeal can’t be an “Oscar-worthy” flick. No, not every garbage summer movie that rakes in $100 mill deserves the black tie treatment, but it’d be nice if more movies that people actually watched got attention than low-budget foreign films. There comes a point where it feels like the Academy is just trying to flash its knowledge of obscure subjects in order to impress.

Not all of us go to the movies to see a world-altering show that makes us cringe and cry and think. Most of us got to the theaters after a few drinks at the closest bar on Fridays with the intention of letting stuff go and enjoying something meaningless for the first time all week. But too many people don’t understand that.

The Academy becomes the kid that stops listening to a band when they make money or stops liking a movie when other people have seen it. It’s the epitome of the liberal ideal that success and popularity is irrelevant in comparison to obscure sentiment.

The Oscars

A quick Google search has told me all I need to know about this year’s Oscars. According to Internet bitch-types, the show sucked. I’m not sure if that’s true or false. I do know that I’m in no position at all to judge.

So from the kid whose favorite part of the night was Jimmy Kimmel’s post-show infomerical. Yes, the same kid who is also kind of looking forward to giving “Hall Pass” a shot this week. Another year has passed, and whether you watched them or not, Hollywood has decided which movies should be remembered forever. Or until next year.

-Bryan