SUNDAY,  FEBRUARY 24,  2008

Hooray for...not really

Tonight is Oscar night.  Notice the difference?

A great mass of Americans used to look forward to the Oscars.  Today, the broadcast executives fear a ratings disaster.  Jon Stewart, who bombed once as host, is back again.  And why not?  Who else is there?  Apparently, the ace of aces, Billy Crystal, doesn't want to do it.  Whoopi made very little whoopi in the role, and David Letterman was the flop of flops.  Hate to sound nostalgic, but, if you believe in resurrection, please put the names Johnny Carson and Bob Hope on your list. 

Then there are the nominated movies and performers. 

Okay, we've covered that subject.

Well, let's be fair.  Some of the nominated movies are very fine.  They're well made, beautifully acted, often elegantly written.  There is talent in Hollywood today.  The problem is, there is very little showmanship in Hollywood today.  The great traditions of showmanship haven't been handed down.  Hollywood hung on through the 1970s and into the 80s because a generation of great showmen was still around to offer some guidance.  That generation is gone.  The mentoring generation today is the sixties crowd, and they're destroying Hollywood the way they've destroyed so much else.  They don't seem to care much about the audience, and they demonstrate a certain contempt for their own country.

Of the nominated pictures, I hope "Juno" wins, not because the others are bad.  They are good.  But at least "Juno" has some showmanship.

I will also exit the room when "best song" is presented.  There was a movement in the industry years ago to abolish the category because the quality of the songs had gotten so bad.  After all, the Oscar used to go to songs like "You'll Never Know," sung by Alice Faye during World War II.  The abolitionists failed.  The music merchants have kept the award going.  Quick:  Name the last five winners. 

I hear silence, which is preferable to listening to those songs.

Some readers know that I spent a chunk of my career in the movie and TV business.  Over the years I saw the level of incompetence and indifference increase.  David Lean, the great British director of "Lawrence of Arabia," said just before his death that Hollywood forgot how to tell stories, and he was partly right.  The industry still tells stories, just not the ones most people care about.  That is the problem with tonight's Oscars.  While admiring the ability that went into some of the nominated films, we just don't care that much.

Oscar Hammerstein II, the great lyricist, was often criticized for the sentimentality of his lyrics.  Once, a critic asked him why he wrote about the things he did, like parents dreaming of their kids' future.  Those, he replied, are the things people care about.  Yes they are.  If Hollywood would learn that lesson, maybe the audience would care again as well.

The Obama watch

Not much has happened since our last evening update.  The main political story is that Hillary struggles to stay alive, with the psychology of the race turning strongly against her.  The question:  Will she get a sympathy vote from those tiring of the Obama hype?  Answer:  I doubt it.  She's never drawn much sympathy.

As said before in this space, plenty of conservatives are deriving joy from watching Hillary squirm.  Their joy is misplaced.  Obama is a much stronger candidate, and seeing the Clintons go down should not be the main objective in this election year.  Electing John McCain should.

The choice in November will be stark:  This is the greatest ideological division since Ronald Reagan ran against Jimmah Carter in 1980.  In 1980, however, Reagan was the better speaker, by far.  This year Obama is the better speaker, and has already sparked a movement of groupies and tofu-chomping conformists.  This will be tough, very tough.

Great Brit reporters

Yes, you read that right.  With all the faults of British journalism - volumes one through eight - there are terrific British reporters, a small number right here in America.  They are doing some of the best reporting on the Obama business.  For example, Sharon Churcher, writing for the Daily Mail, demolishes some of the mythology around Michelle "this is the first time I'm proud of my country" Obama.  Not quite the rags-to-riches story we've been told.  More like Bloomingdales-on-sale-to-riches:

Despite the image she projects on the Newsweek cover, Michelle owns an impressive collection of diamond jewelry, designer outfits and £400-a-pair Jimmy Choo shoes.

When she is wooing working-class voters, however, she favours austere black skirts and white blouses. "Our lives are so close to normal, if there is such a thing when you're running for president," she declared during a campaign stop in Delaware, shortly before her husband's latest victories were announced.

"When I'm off the road, I'm going to Target [a U.S. chain store] to get the toilet paper."

She did not bother to mention, however, that the paper, like the rest of the family shopping, is taken to an £825,000 three-storey red-brick Georgian revival mansion, set amid beautifully manicured lawns in one of Chicago's most affluent districts.

Even the house became a source of controversy when it emerged that the wife of a Chicago slum landlord, Tony Rezko, helped them buy land to enlarge its grounds.

Renowned for leaving tenants of one of his squalid buildings without heat in the city's brutal winter, Rezko now is facing federal corruption charges.

Gee, I didn't read much of that in the American press.  I guess there wasn't space.  You think that's it?

By the way, that 825,000-British-pound price for the mansion translates into approximately 1.6 million U.S. dollars.  Maybe you should paint your kitchen.

Politician or messiah?

Another British paper takes on Obamism, which apparently is a new religion, with a class of clerics mysteriously called "campaign advisers."  It's a new divine concept.

But there is worry about the impact of this religion, and the way it's growing:

A senior Obama official, who would talk only on condition of anonymity, told The Sunday Telegraph that the campaign was worried that the cult charges would stick and harm their candidate.

He acknowledged that Mr Obama generated wild enthusiasm and devotion among young fans - most of them voting for the first time - but insisted this was due to the senator’s “charisma and the political inspiration that informs his speeches.”

A brilliant speaker, Mr Obama often uses the rhetorical trick of rapidly repeating words and slogans and using catchy phrases that tend to attract young Americans, while having very little substance.

Favourites include the call: “We are the hope of the future. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

Dr Sean Wilentz, a Princeton historian and stern critic of the current administration of George W.Bush, said: “What’s troubling about the campaign is that it’s gone beyond hope and change to redemption.”

When Oprah Winfrey endorsed Mr Obama in Iowa last month she proclaimed: “I believe he is The One.”

I am saved, I am saved, by Obama.  Aren't I? 

Not so fast, Barack

The Washington Post, though, in a rare departure from Obama-worship, presents a more sobering view of the candidate's prospects in the red states.  Good reporting.  You know, there are voters who'll look carefully, and whether they'll vote for the most left-leaning member of the Senate, who promises us national unity, is a serious question:

"We aren't going to have 47 percent on one side, 47 percent on the other side, 5 percent in the middle, and they all live in Ohio and Florida and you only campaign in two states," Obama often tells audiences.

His talk of exploding the map has been helped by McCain's emergence as the likely GOP nominee, since McCain has received relatively weak support in many of the red states in which Obama hopes to do well, in the South and Plains. But while Obama has shown an ability to reshape voting patterns, his record in the primaries suggests that he still has a ways to go in making significant inroads in Republican states.

The red states where he has won have tended to be in the Deep South, where victories were based on overwhelming support from African Americans, or in mostly white states in the Midwest and West, where he relied on a core of ardent backers to carry him in caucuses, which favor candidates with enthusiastic supporters. He has not fared as well in areas that fall in between, with populations that are racially diverse but lack a black population large enough to boost Obama to victory.

All right, GOP, get to work.  If you don't, it will be a cold eight years.

Watch out!  Killer piggy banks!

Time for the real world.  In a righteous assault against one of the greatest threats to our way of life, a Dutch financial house has banned piggy banks:

Knorbert the piglet has been dropped as the mascot of Fortis Bank after it decided to stop giving piggy banks to children for fear of offending Muslims.

The decision has been viewed in the Netherlands as the ritual slaughter of a popular pig by political correctness. To some, it is the latest sign of uncertainty in Europe's most tolerant country about how far it should go to accommodate the sensitivities of minorities. It comes as the country is braced for a backlash against the plans of Geert Wilders, a right-wing politician, to release a critical film about the Koran.

Much of European civilization is dying before our eyes.  And, yet, it's Bush who gets cursed by presumably intelligent people.  But you can be sure that the head of that Dutch bank will be invited to Aspen next year for one of those I'm-rich-but-I'm-kind conferences, where he'll be given a plaque carved from environmentally safe materials. 

I must take a seasickness pill.

A medical service to our readers

It's important to keep you up to date with the latest medical advisories.  The medical profession is now warning against the perils of sexy dancing.  The healers cite as Exhibit A, a patient formerly known as Prince:

Pop legend Prince is having a secret HIP REPLACEMENT at the age of just 49—after being crippled by years of sexy dancing.

The pint-sized US star would develop a severe limp and have to use a WALKING STICK without surgery.

So he is booking himself into a private hospital. Aides are keeping his diary clear for two months to recover—but they're not letting on why he cannot work in that time.

During the two-hour op—more common for OAPs—the Purple Rain singer will have the ball and socket of his damaged hip taken out and titanium replacements cemented in.

A source said: "For months Prince has complained of pain every time he moves.

"He is totally crushed as he knows he will never be the same again."

News of the World GP Dr Hilary Jones said: "The op won't stop him dancing. But if he does anything too vigorous—for example the splits—the new joint may become displaced."

Into every life some purple rain must fall.

And, performing only the fox trot, I'll be back later.

Posted on February 24, 2008.