The Dead Montage Is Dead To Me

I tried to avoid the Oscars again this year but I couldn't because it shows up in places you wouldn't expect: punk clubs, bowling alleys, laundromats. But I'll usually wade through the second half of the Oscarcast™ because I love the Dead Montage, the part of the show where they show clips of the people that have died in the past year and the audience applauds in accordance with how important they think the person was.

Well this year they couldn't even get the Dead Montage right. I mean, how hard could it be to put together? You get a list of the people that died, assemble some clips of their best-known work, put their name on the screen and then show it with a nice, moving musical score provided by the Symphony Oscarstra™.

Nope, they thought it would be a good idea to have a live singer on stage to pull focus with a ballad. Add to that the fact that the live singer was Queen Latifah who for fifteen years was a rapper, talk show host, sit-com actress, and released the first album she sung on the same year Avril Levigne released her second.

What's worse is that for the Dead Montage segment of the show they kind of forgot to feature the actual montage. They showed the montage on large monitors on stage and then shot the monitors from across the damn room so you couldn't even read some of the names of the people featured.

Show the f-ing dead people full screen and let me figure out how important they are by how much applause they're getting, dammit! That's the whole point of the Dead Montage in the first place!

Who is that? Ricardo Montleban? I don't know! Did they show Khan? Who can tell? They're shooting the freaking monitor from a crane 200 feet away!

And though there's always omissions I thought it was pretty glaring to omit George Carlin. Granted he wasn't a big movie star, but anyone who was in both Car Wash and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure deserves to be somewhere between a couple of producers I've never heard of. He was Fillmore in Cars for crying out loud!

To make my point to the Academy in a way they can understand: I'm going to project this post onto a wall, videotape it with my webcam and then post the video on YouTube.

And finally, KHAAAAAN!!!!

I finally found a way to avoid the Oscars!

Every year I try to get away from the Oscarcast™, and every year I fail. It all started when I realized I can't go to Oscar parties without getting pissed off at the one person there who's so into the show she shushes people every 10 seconds. It's a freakin' 'party', I came here to see my friends, not sit in rapt attention listening to what Julia Roberts thinks about her life.

My opinion is if you need to hear every word of the show, don't go to an Oscar party, sit at home and watch it with your cats. That's like watching the Superbowl and sushing everyone after a big play because you want to hear Joe Buck and Troy Aikman's commentary on it. But I realize I'm in the minority, because every time I forget I'm not an Oscar party guy and go to one, I end up having to leave after the third or fourth shush.

So I've tried to go to bars, but the bars will end up playing the show. And I don't mean just showing it on the t.v. in the background, they inevitably turn up the sound. Bartenders and waitresses are usually actors after all, and watching the show somehow helps them forget they're working as bartenders and waitresses. Even my friend's crazy, anti-L.A. bar in L.A. had it on one year when I was out there during Oscar weekend. And is was a place that prides itself on serving Schlitz in 16 oz. cans. Who would have thought?

I guess I could sit at home and read, but that's where my discipline is at fault. I'll usually flip on the t.v. hoping to find something to watch for an hour or two, and since it's Oscar night no other networks put anything good on. I'll tune in telling myself "I should see what the host's jokes are" or something to make me think it's somehow my business, but I'll end up watching most of the show and then feel like I've wasted a night of the precious gift of life.

But this year I accidentally stumbled upon a foolproof solution, as I'm writing this post from the United terminal of Denver International Airport, stuck in a long layover before my flight to Bismarck, ND. So all you have to do to avoid the Oscars is book a flight to the middle of nowhere, and then sit and enjoy the comforts of flying the aggravated and cramped skies.

Seriously, the flight in was one of the most uncomfortable planes I've ever been on, and I've flown in C-17s. But on the upside, no Oscars.