Moore got his standing O for winning the Oscar for best documentary, for his film “Bowling For Columbine.” “Columbine” is a tough look at America’s gun culture, just the kind of subject that delights liberal Hollywood. But even the most liberal liberals didn’t sound very happy once Moore took the stage to accept his statuette. Rather than bothering to even thank his mother, Moore launched into an anti-war diatribe that started by asserting that President Bush was an illegitimate president and ended by saying the entire battle in Iraq is phony. “We live in fictitious times,” said Moore, standing amid the other best-documentary nominees, whom he beckoned on stage with him. “We live in a time with fictitious election results, with a president who is sending us to war for fictitious reasons. We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush.”
So much for the academy’s concern that the Oscars would come off as frivolous. Still, you’ve got to wonder if the Hollywood community, despite all the dove pins on their lapels, wasn’t enormously embarrassed by Moore’s outburst. He was practically booed off the stage, and when Martin came back after the commercial and joked, “It was so sweet backstage. The teamsters were helping Moore into the trunk of his limo,” the audience cheered. By the time Pedro Almodovar got up and made a vaguely pro-peace statement after accepting his award for best original screenplay, he looked relieved to get out of there alive.
The irony is that Moore’s diatribe will almost certainly overshadow what was a genuinely memorable year at the Oscars. Brody’s triumph for his role as a Jewish Holocaust survivor in “The Pianist” was such a stunner, neither Jack Nicholson nor Nicholas Cage could suppress huge, shocked grins, even though Brody beat them both. Just as surprising was Roman Polanski’s victory as Best Director, also for “The Pianist.” There isn’t an Oscar maven alive who picked Polanski to win, not least because he’s been living as a fugitive in France for years after being charged with the statutory rape of a 14-year-old girl in a Hollywood hot tub. Needless to say, Polanski was not present to accept his award. (Do you think the Academy will mail it to him?)
Say what you will about whether the Academy should have canceled the Oscars altogether, this year’s awards were remarkably tasteful. The 75th anniversary tribute to winners of the past managed to avoid the extra schmaltz that often afflicts the evening. Martin’s self-effacing brand of humor never makes you fall down laughing the way Billy Crystal or Whoopi Goldberg at their best do, but he was a pleasant enough person to spend the evening with. (And making Nicholson as the butt of a gay joke was truly inspired.) Peter O’Toole, who had initially turned down the lifetime achievement award only to think better of his hauteur, delivered an utterly charming acceptance speech, including his acknowledgment that he was, in fact, “honored” to be recognized as he “totters into antiquity.” And special kudos to Meryl Streep, one of the few presenters who had the nerve to stray from her canned, Academy-approved introduction, and was hilarious to boot.
Not that the show didn’t suffer from it usual case of intermittent tedium. For some reason, instead of starting with one of the best supporting actor categories, the academy delayed the major awards, which made all those animated-film categories seem to drag on even longer than usual. There seemed to be more people introducing non-categories than ever, which wouldn’t be so bad if the academy would stop picking people as boring as Richard Gere to do the honors. When the show did a filmed tribute of its own productions numbers over the 75 years, it made you yearn for a good dash of zip, or at least something a little silly, like one of Debbie Allen’s wonderfully incongruous dances that used to string together the best song nominees. Maybe now that Best Picture “Chicago” has officially resuscitated the movie musical, the Oscars won’t be afraid to try a little song-and-dance action. And now that Rob Lowe is out of work, maybe he’ll agree to team up again with Snow White? Still, it’s hard to complain about an Oscar ceremony that was historic in at least two ways. One, the show managed to finish exactly at midnight Eastern time, which makes it the quickest program in years. Even more astounding, Hollywood’s concern over appearing dignified meant that Joan Rivers became a prisoner of war–banned from interviewing stars as they entered the auditorium. Whoever finds a way to keep her locked up for the next 75 years should get a honorary Oscar of his own.
