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JUST WHEN YOU'RE READY TO GIVE UP ON AWARDS SHOWS ALTOGETHER, THE OSCARS TURN OUT TO BE HALFWAY ENTERTAINING.

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BY CINTRA WILSON

It seemed we'd just gotten over the tiresome, sleazy commercial horror that was the Grammys, and now we were already being forced to witness the year's largest, most unregenerate, most obscenely grandiose self-congratulation orgy in the culturally moribund entertainment world, the Fucking Oscars. What is it about our society that loves to decide that a certain select group of people are Super-Untouchable Caesar-esque Divine Royalty that get to have the most material possessions and unceasing, sycophantic attention and love, and then, what compels us, the Great Unwashed, to watch awards shows where the same 52 reshuffled people get to lick on each other and pat each other's silky asses and squeak out corporate valentines for the same mind-blowingly mediocre accomplishments, over and over again, ad nauseam?

Nevertheless, just when you finally decide that all awards shows must be officially destroyed, they finally crank out a semi-entertaining one. They seem to have that sixth sense, like obnoxious dogs, that if they act real charming once in a strategic while you might not have them carted away and/or put to sleep. This Oscars, for once in a blue moon, wasn't another groaning night of relentless unworthy bastard fondling; it was actually kind of entertaining and all of the winning decisions didn't make your head spin with outrage and venom.

For example : I fully expected that my favorite movie of the year, "Pleasantville," a soulful, unexpected delight, would get all the nonattention of a 9-year-old's first efforts on the camcorder, but was pleasantly shocked to see it get nominated for a series of technical yawner awards. Hey, it was something!

And Whoopi Goldberg was surprisingly good. Very funny, even. She said "shit" a lot! Too quickly to be bleeped! It made the whole event seem almost warmly human for a minute or two.

The big question of the night was: What the fuck were the makeup artists thinking, with this Damp Actress look? Was this glittering, unpowdered facial effect supposed to simulate a youthful dewy fecundity? It looked like the malaria sweats from where I was sitting, and no white woman was immune; La Paltrow, Helen Hunt in her Ally McBeal anorexia scare dress, Christina Ricci, Lisa Kudrow, monotone-ing off the cue cards like she was reciting the eye chart at the DMV, Uma with her new bad Grace Kelly faux Americo-Brit-snob enunciation efforts; they all looked like their foreheads were runny. Nobody's going to be happy when they see the tape at home. It's going to take more than a SWAT team of AVID editors to fix THAT fashion travesty. Coiffed heads will roll down Rodeo Drive Monday, mark my words.

That Captain Luc Picard guy! That fucker shore is British! Cate Blanchett is a real fox and she's British, and that Geoffrey Rush guy (well, they're Australian, but close enough) and Dame Judi and Christ, Queen Elizabeth was British too! And Emily Watson with her big sad eyes and frowny little mouth, and wonder-homosexual Ian McKellen, and that Redgrave chick who was the Weight Watchers lady before Fergie! Why do the Brits have their own Academy Awards when we slobber all over them just fine right here in our own frisky little country?

Well, at least we had Gwyneth. She's not a Brit, she just played one on the Big Silver TV. She was there, moist and nervously lovely and shellacked, trying to look happy with no boyfriend.

James Coburn received his Coveted Verge of Death Award, and they let him ramble a bit with his painful-looking arthritic fists. He dedicated the award to his 19-year-old wife, Paula, who had outrageous EE-cup techno-hooties. The music came on to drown him out. It got slowly louder and louder.

And then there was Roberto Benigni, Italian, leaping around like a big pink bunny, twizzling in the air like St. Groucho, effusing goldly all over the place, spitting candy and emeralds and foolish cardboard hearts. Watching him win for best foreign film was a spectacle like Baby's First Christmas, with puppies and Big Wheels for all. Sophia Loren, wearing a demure breast maturity veil, burst into hysterics. So did Goldie Hawn; Roberto Benigni freaking out is a great thing to watch. Everybody would listen to him talk and stop crying, and their plucked eyebrows would bend up and assume a puzzled "Huh?" expression. It happened every time.

But what is wrong with Tom Hanks? He was wearing a thickness of unsightly hair on both cheeks. Is he turning into a weird patriot, or a Rasputin-like recluse à la Matthew Broderick? He doesn't even seem affable anymore. Has he embraced a backwoods snake-handling cult? He looked Serious and disturbed, with the flat nail-head eyes of someone who has suddenly learned to fear Jesus. This World War II thing got him all spooky; he looks like he wants to salute astronauts or wade bravely through billowing flags. Snap out of it, Tom.

Whoopi made a couple of pussy jokes, and every time, the cameras cut to Warren Beatty, looking sculpted out of raw beef! Caving in from his own four-decade struggle with the dread Pussy Sickness! Anybody who gets that much pussy becomes gradually rotten and demented; Beatty is jittery with it; so is Nicholson.

The appalling parts of the Oscars were the ones that were the same goddamn hack musical embarrassments that we sat through at the Grammys -- Celine unctuously meowling with her pet blind opera guy again, the desiccated mummy of Aerosmith, in danger of collapsing into small piles of ash. Whitney and Mariah were fighting in mortal diva combat, clawing each other's wrists, trying to arpeggio each other into pulp, with another gratuitous gospel choir in holy robes of soft-jam holiness.

What the fuck was that all-wrong, Debbie Allen music-interpretation jazz-dance boner?! We were all howling when that sweaty ridiculous Red Hot Chili Pepper guy started his staccato Irish breast dance to that incongruous piece of swoopy film music! Then they made Savion Glover tap out the beat-less violin mush of the "Saving Private Ryan" song! And that long brown ballerina's vinyl hot pants rode all up her butt and there was nothing anyone could do about it; it was super bad art and everybody had to shudder through it and look appreciative.

I thought Costner would be doing Chuck Wagon commercials by now; you know, expressionless commercial cowboy jobs. Loathsome polystyrene egomaniac hick-honky dunce stuff. He presented for best director: Spielberg again?! The sky above the stage opened and a mystical sun came streaming through the hole in the jellyfish-like Bat Dome: "Look!" my friend D. screamed. "God has come to collect his favorite Jew!" That was just what it looked like, no Jewish offense intended. Costner was muttering in the back, not listening, hitting on the tall boobie girls who escort the stars on and off the stage.

Roberto won again. "I wish I was Jupiter!" he screamed. "I collect you and lie you down in the firmament and make love to you all!!" Whadda joy bomb. What a human treat that man is.

The whole Elia Kazan mess turned out to be a non-event, but De Niro had a frightful toupee hairdo. He looked like a fat mean pineapple. If people left for the award, you didn't know it because extras took their places; Nolte scowled with his arms crossed, but that was the only visible dissent. Kazan mumbled a couple of old man words, took his little statue and slunk away.

Nicholson was there, leering Nicholsonesquely. They must keep him in a big tank of grain alcohol like a giant, prehistoric frozen squid, then lift him out by crane once a year and wring him out, ironing the tuxedo directly on his fearful body and letting him be that scary spike-toothed Nicholson thing he is, in that aisle seat. He Nicholsoned the best actress award to the Lady Gwyneth. She was shivering and stuttering and being sweaty and weepy and awfully lovely, despite the fact that her dress was designed to look like she zipped it on and promptly sweated six pounds off, all in her chest, from nerves. She had to get the award; she's our only legit, American, young, beautiful, gracefully romantic, big money movie star. She's our new Grace Kelly, and she's the only one we've got. (I personally dig the feisty tang of Reese Witherspoon, but she's a different creature altogether.)

Well, "Shakespeare in Love" was the only nominated movie I saw, and I really liked it. It was driven by all the right things; a real knowing, mature reverence of theater and Shakespeare and poetry and romantic love. It had great writing, and it won. So unlike the smarmy horror of "Titanic." So I guess we'll let Oscar live to see 72; he's still on probation, but we won't Kevork him just yet.
SALON | March 22, 1999

Cintra Wilson is a frequent contributor to Salon.

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