There's only one logical candidate to host the Oscars next year

It's always amusing to watch older people (and yes, I am one) try to figure out what "the kids" would like to see, because it's always so tragically, desperately wrong. I'll give the folks who put together the Academy Awards credit for trying to shake things up a bit, but if you're going to bring in the kids, a self-important, pretentious quasi-intellectual indie guy and a Liza Minelli-lookalike who did a couple of princess movies and seems to also be a big presence on the indie circuit is hardly the way to go.

Last night's broadcast, described today by Randi Rhodes as "the worst television viewing of our lifetime" started out promisingly, with James Franco and Anne Hathaway in an Inception dream sequence. But it went rapidly downhill from there, and as soon as it devolved into Hathaway bickering with her mom on worldwide television and Franco making sure everyone know he's still young enough to have a grandma, I knew that I was going to watch the American Masters documentary on Ahmet Ertegun that was being broadcast on Channel 31 instead. Because the only thing I really wanted to see from last night's broadcast was this:

Because I doubt there breathes a woman in this country over the age of thirty-five who hasn't been madly in love with Colin Firth ever since this:

So I wanted to hear what The Man Who Will Always Be Darcy had to say, and as one could have predicted if one had watched any of his interviews this season, he knocked it out of the park.

I dare say that Colin Firth could do a quite lovely job hosting the Academy Awards, with a light froth of self-deprecating charm mingled with the self-important ponderousness that this annual festival of industry self-congratulation requires. And after watching Joel McHale's obsessive tubthumping the night before at the normally very funny Spirit Awards about what he referred to as "having lunch down at the Y" and missing John Waters, who used to host the Spirit Awards, terribly, the show could do worse. But what a step down that would be for the Divine Mr. Firth, who having finally received the brass ring he's deserved for so long, should finally become a household name outside of those households occupied by sighing middle-aged women.

But that's not who I'm thinking should host this show. I'm not thinking in terms of George Clooney either, for while I like him as an actor, and respect his good works, his dimply adorableness would probably wear thin after three hours.

It seems to me that what the show needs is someone who can pull off the infusion of snark that this annual spectacle of self-importance so desperately needs, while doing it so quickly and so deftly that the bejeweled and botoxed divas and identically-tuxed men won't even know what hit them. It needs a man whose television work every week never fails to make me say, wonderingly, "HOW THE HELL DOES HE GET AWAY WITH THAT IN PRIME TIME???"

I speak, of course, of this man:

Listen to Seth MacFarlane's rendition of "Singin' in the Rain" and think of what he could do with the kind of cheesy musical number that usually opens the show:

He's already hosted the Writer's Guild Awards:

And while he doesn't wear a suite QUITE as nicely as Colin Firth, he wears it quite well.

So, if you're with me in believing that only Seth MacFarlane can save the Motion Picture Academy from dishing up three hours of this kind of crap next year, go tell them so.

Since I can't stay up, why not hang with the best?

Ebert is livetweeting the Academy Awards. And I finally understand the awesomeness that is Mo'nique.

It's about damn time

I just wish that Kate Winslet, with an extraordinary body of work behind her already at the age of 33, didn't have to, as she quipped in that infamous episode of Extras, make a movie about the Holocaust -- a clip that will now live in infamy. It's true that to some degree, Winslet has played a variation of the same character in every film in which she's starred. She's always the free spirit battling the Forces of Authority and Expectation. But aren't most good roles for women some variation of this character? And if you have a choice between playing Woman Triumphant or, say, Sophie in Sophie's Choice or Leticia Musgrove in Monster's Ball, who are YOU going to want to play? The fact of the matter is that women who buck societal expectations are far more interesting as cinematic fodder.

When Winslet's body of work is discussed, it's always in the context of That Boat Movie and the films she's done since. But to get a sense of just how talented this woman is, you have to look back at the work she did before anyone knew who she was.

Here's Winslet at the age of seventeen in Heavenly Creatures, directed by a guy named Peter Jackson:

In Sense and Sensibility at eighteen:

And in Jude at nineteen:

And all this BEFORE the boat movie.

Say what you will, the woman has talent. She has talent, she's built her career the way SHE wanted it, not the way others might have; dieting down to a size zero and exercising her way into a column of sinew and gristle. She swears, she smokes, and doesn't mince words. And women everywhere adore her. But in the industry and the press, there's been this undercurrent of Katehate for the last decade, with endless articles about her weight, her personal life, and this year, her unabashed longing for the golden statue. Does the entertainment press really believe that any of these people believe that "it's an honor just to be nominated"? Do they really expect us to believe that disappointed losers don't spend a little time in the ladies' room fixing their mascara after a few unbidden tears crept out?

Perhaps it's that women aren't supposed to openly want anything. The obsession with Winslet's weight (and is there anyone left on earth who still thinks she's fat?), the fact that her characters are all women who WANT -- they want love, they want sex, they want to LIVE -- all contribute to the impression that this is a woman with APPETITES. And perhaps that's terrifying to an industry in which anything over a size zero is considered to be an elephant. And she WANTED to win an Academy Award, which seems to be some kind of heinous covetousness instead of refreshingly honest.

This is a woman who, like the characters she plays, lives her life on her own terms. Perhaps the entertainment press found her unseemingly covetous in recent weeks. But for those of us who admire the gift of being able to draw us into the inner life of a character on screen, last night was a recognition that is long overdue.

(UPDATE: God knows there's plenty about which I disagree with Melissa on a regular basis. But about this post? Word. But I think I like this photo better.)

Obligatory Oscar® Post

I really don't have much to say, but ModFab does. So go read his recap of last night's Academy Awards. Besides, he does it better than I do anyway.