March of the Penguins

By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 6, 2006 5:01PM

In the spirit of last night’s Oscars, we present this montage of thoughts:

* Forget pimps: it was hard out there for Jon Stewart. Stewart is and was frequently hilarious, but what works on the Daily Show doesn't work for the Oscars. Like most unconventional hosts (Letterman, Chris Rock), Stewart was done in because he was expected to bring his sharp, cutting wit to a venue that doesn't appreciate it. An organization that rolls three montage celebrations of itself isn't going to take kindly to being mocked.

* Every Chicagoan nominated went home empty-handed, but that was no surprise. Phillip Seymour Hoffman had a lock on Best Actor from day one so Terrence Howard got skunked and Frances McDormand’s nomination just seemed to be a courtesy. Like inviting your boss to your wedding.

* We’re not as charming as George Clooney, as blessed with comic timing as Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep or as flat-out awesome as Dolly Parton. Maybe we will be when we grow up.

* Isn’t it just a little disingenuous for the head of the MPAA to slam those who rent movies when so many movie studios use the theatrical release of a film as a marketing campaign for the DVD release?

* Mickey Rooney: Still not dead.

* Hear that? It’s the sound of whomever messed up the Teleprompter during Lauren Bacall’s speech typing their resume into Monster.com.

* Attention, haters: Crash won. Suck it. Sure, this is the same group that once called Titanic the best picture of the year, but face it: if Brokeback won then you’d be crowing about that, too.

* We decided not to live-blog the Oscars this year since it’s really hard to balance a laptop and a gin and tonic at the same time. Plus, the dailies have discovered TypePad now so the Tribune’s Marc Caro and Maureen Ryan and the Sun-Times’ Paige Wiser did the deed. Caro was backstage at the Oscars, which gave his blogging a you-are-there immediacy while Ryan echoed most of the snark we heard at our house last night. And Wiser…well, it’s hard to balance a laptop and gin and tonic at the same time.