Honestly, the TV Land Awards barely qualify as part of awards season -- like, say, the People's Choice Awards, they're kind of decided on who says they'll show up to accept the trophy (which look like they're made of Styrofoam spray-painted silver) -- but that doesn't mean that they don't lure a galaxy of stars. The casts of "Cheers," "Good Times," "Batman" and "Dallas" -- including the big names, like Ted Danson, John Amos, Adam West and Larry Hagman, not just supporting players poignantly intent on keeping their faces in front of the public -- turned up in a Santa Monica Airport hangar Sunday night to receive awards for shows that have long since left the air (except, of course, for syndication). It's a cheeky ceremony that, reasonably enough, refuses to take itself seriously.

(Here's the point where you're grateful that I didn't elaborate on my nightmare, 2 1/2 drive from Echo Park to Santa Monica on the day of the LA Marathon. But my head almost exploded and I'm still bitter.)

Here's a question: What accounts for TV Land's success? (Last year, the network says, 24 million people watched the TV Land Awards, though not at once -- it was repeated several times; nonetheless, that's how many people see an original episode of "Grey's Anatomy," which was named Future Classic on Sunday.)

Which is another way of saying, I suppose, what accounts for nostalgia in general? Are TV Land's shows really that good and enduring, or are viewers more intent on escaping today's grim realities by retreating to days that seem relatively safer via the TV shows of their childhood? (Interestingly, many of TV Land's shows come from the '70s, when the U.S. was also embroiled in a seemingly unwinnable war, so how innocent were those days/shows?)

Not a powerfully original thought, I concede. But still, here's a question for TV Land viewers: Why do you watch? The shows or the memories?

Posted by David Kronke at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jay Leno has apologized for telling a joke that wasn’t funny.

Leno’s sorry

Now, when is he going to apologize for all the others?

Posted by David Kronke at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"We’re doing God’s work,’’ proclaimed David Shore, creator of the Fox medical drama "House.’’ He was responding to a woman who runs a foundation for – or rather, against -- vasculitis (and for those who suffer from it), who thanked him for bringing awareness to the disease by mentioning it on the show. He was also kidding.

It was "House’s’’ turn for the Museum of TV and Radio's Paley TV Festival treatment tonight at the DGA. An audience that was a little more fawning toward the stars and creators than the "My Name is Earl’’ crowd was the night before were treated to an upcoming episode in which House – the crank played by Hugh Laurie whose medical brilliance is rivaled only by his anti-social misanthropy – got to solve a crime as well as a medical mystery.

The panel discussion afterwards was a little foursquare, nuts-and-bolts affair for a while, detailing the show’s creation in a fashion that if you were enough of a fan of the show to attend the event, you had probably already read in one or more articles on the series. Creator David Shore joked, "I tend to take all my characters and attach the word `hostile’’’ in their descriptions. Or maybe that one wasn’t a joke.

But things got more interesting when the actors started talking out of school. Robert Sean Leonard decried the kind of scripts actors receive: "Just watch the Sid and Marty Kroft Saturday morning shows – that’s what most scripts you get are.’’

He discussed, for example, an audition for the CBS cop procedural "Numb3rs:’’ "I said, 'Really interesting – the guy solves crimes with math.’ That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.’’

It was revealed that a Fox executive balked initially at casting Lisa Edelstein as hospital administrator Lisa Cuddy because the suit couldn’t imagine her, of all things, as a woman. See, she had appeared on "Ally McBeal’’ as a man in the middle of a sex-change operation. "I hadn’t cut off my penis yet,’’ Edelstein offered.

''Cuddy’s back story hasn’t come out yet,’’ cracked Jennifer Morrison, who plays Dr. Cameron.

Couple of general observations: Before each Festival event, they run a series of clips from each TV program being honored this season and, for some reason, some people in the audience find the need to applaud their favorites (whatever's on that night's schedule gets the loudest cheer, naturally). Both nights I've attended, no one has applauded "How I Met Your Mother" or "Everybody Hates Chris."

Also: If you arrive early, you'll still probably have to park down on the third level of the parking lot -- you might even have to hand over your keys to an attendant -- and it'll take an ungodly amount of time to escape after the event. (The parking lot across from the DGA is gone, which accounts for the traffic headache.) But, as I discovered last night: Show up just as the program's about to begin and they'll slip you into the street-level lot and you'll be the first one out. (Imagine the nightmare if everyone actually tried this.)

Posted by David Kronke at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Howard Stern hasn't exactly been shy about slagging CBS CEO Les Moonves since the latter slapped the former with a lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for plugging his move to satellite radio on CBS Radio's airwaves. And now, according to the most tersely worded press release I've ever received from CBS, he'll get to pound away at Moonves on CBS itself, with David Letterman as his corner man.

Stern will appear on "The Late Show with David Letterman" on Monday, March 13. The press release makes no mention of the lawsuit, but you'd be a fool if you think Stern will be so polite as to do the same while chatting with Letterman.

The main question is, how far will Stern have to go before Moonves -- or someone -- decides there's no point to running anti-CBS propaganda on CBS.

Here're a few quotes from Stern's recent appearance on Sean Hannity's radio show to give you an idea of what he'll likely be telling Dave: "I'm a CBS stockholder. I'd like to know why (Moonves is) spending money on frivolous lawsuits."

"I was a loyal player, and this is no way to repay a guy after all of this hard work. When you know the lawsuit has no merit, this is vindictive. This is vicious. This is jealousy. This is being green with envy. It's a shame on CBS. The once great CBS, the home of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite. What a -- what a knock. This is not the CBS any more."

Stern seemed distraught in the video when he first discussed the lawsuit, so his Les-bashing isn't just an act. And Letterman should prove an enabler -- he's done plenty of Moonves mauling on his show in the past. As I said, it'll be interesting to see just how much of this'll actually get on the air.

Posted by David Kronke at 1:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Honestly, this wasn’t unforeseen: A bunch of people are really hacked off that “Crash� beat “Brokeback Mountain� for the Best Picture Oscar. Guess that’s why they call it an “upset.�

A reader clued me into this, which offers a good overview of the controversy, wondering if Hollywood is as progressive as George Clooney proclaimed it to be and (inevitably) raising questions regarding lingering strains of homophobia in the industry:

another step toward irrelevance?

And then, there are the folks who just thought “Crash� was somewhere between undeserving of Hollywood’s highest honor and an unrelentingly overheated cheesefest. Here’s just one of many items from defamer.com, which in its live-blogging of the ceremony, concluded, “WORST. OSCARS. EVER.�:

Oscar hangover

If you agree and haven’t checked it out yet, defamer.com has plenty of amusing barbs blowtorching “Crash.�

Posted by David Kronke at 12:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

``As far as being a 'renaissance man,' I haven't learned to spell the word yet,'' Gordon Parks joked to me in 2000, when he had just released a new book of photography and poetry, an exhibit featuring his photography, music, films and novels was being presented in Exposition Park, and HBO was premiering a documentary exploring his pioneering and versatile achievements.

Parks died today in New York at the age of 93. His was an amazing life, and he was an extraordinarily modest man, as that Daily News interview in 2000, reprinted here, suggests:

When Gordon Parks was taking his prize-winning photos of the devastating effects of segregation in Alabama for Life magazine, or when he was conducting an orchestral concert of his own compositions in Venice in the 1950s, or when he was directing ``The Learning Tree'' from his own autobiographical novel for Warner Bros., he wasn't considering the historical ramifications of his being the first African-American to break such ground.

``Everything I did was a means for survival, not necessarily genius,'' Parks says matter-of-factly today. ``I had to buy breakfast the next morning. It was a job; I wanted to try to excel. I wasn't working for all black people - I was working for myself. What I was doing just so happened to help young black people.''

And we haven't even gotten around to the three autobiographies and other novels and books of poetry; the Vogue fashion spreads; his influential film ``Shaft,'' which kick-started the blaxploitation movement; his ballet homage to Martin Luther King Jr. And there were numerous other highly politicized photo shoots that leapt out at readers from the pages of Life, including a profile of an impoverished Brazilian boy named Flavio that was transformed into a short film and inspired readers to send the child's family money. Likewise, we haven't mentioned the 45 honorary doctorates he has received - not bad for a guy who quit high school after a white teacher advised him to abandon his dreams of college.

``As far as being a 'renaissance man,' I haven't learned to spell the word yet,'' he adds with a laugh.

Despite Parks' self-deprecating remarks, he is one of the country's most versatile and enduring artists, and his work is receiving a long- overdue appreciation tonight - on his 88th birthday - when HBO presents ``Half Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks.'' A similarly titled exhibit of Parks' multimedia productions is also currently on display at the California African-American Museum in Exposition Park.

``Half Past Autumn,'' the film, not only takes note of his artistic and social achievements, but also delves into his similarly busy personal life, interviewing his three ex-wives who still seem to hold a fondness for him and children who wished he was around more.

``It's sort of crowding a lot in an hour and a half,'' Parks says, chuckling. ``It got me to reflecting on areas of my life that I hadn't thought too much about, like what my ex-wives thought about me, what my children actually thought about me. That's a little hard to realize until you see it.'' Of his children's wistful complaints, he observes, ``Well, I'm glad they did feel that way. I wouldn't want them to want me away more.''

Parks grew up in Kansas at a time when bigotry was the rule - the only reason the local school was integrated was because the towns' founding fathers didn't want to pay to build another school, but blacks weren't allowed to participate in any extra-curricular events. So Parks and friends formed their own basketball team. ``The team came to be so well-recognized - the white team never won anything - that the population would come to meet the train when we'd come back from a game,'' he recalls fondly.

Oh, that's another of Parks' achievements - he played semi-pro basketball when he moved to Minneapolis. ``I have to admit, I was pretty good,'' he says, betraying perhaps as much pride at that accomplishment as any of his others. ``When I got to Minnesota, basketball on a real court was child's play compared to the bushel basket in my back yard. I had dreams of one time of going with the Globetrotters - we played them once, twice, lost to them a couple of times.''

Minneapolis was where Parks embarked upon his career as a photographer and encountered the first proof in his life that racism didn't have to be the status quo. Filled with hubris after having just processed his first rolls of film, he sauntered into an upscale women's store and offered to shoot some fashion photos for the owner. The man, Frank Murphy, wasn't interested, but Murphy's wife, Madeline, challenged her husband: ``How do you know he can't shoot fashion?'' she demanded, and he returned the next day to shoot some models. Only one photo from the shoot turned out usable, but it was enough to impress the Murphys.

``The fact that that woman opened her heart to me and gave me a chance made me realize that there were good people in the world,'' Parks recalls. The two remained friends, and, he says, ``I asked Madeline years later why she took a chance on me, and she said, 'Oh, more than likely I was mad as hell at Frank that day.' '' Parks laughs, adding, ``I don't know what possessed me to walk into that store; I can't tell you even today why I did it - I hadn't had a camera more than a short time.''

Before securing jobs at Life and Vogue, Parks shot photos for a visual essay on American culture for the Farm Security Administration. It was then that Parks created one of his most famous images - a washerwoman defiantly holding up her mop in front of an American flag, aping the painting ``American Gothic.''

In 1956, Parks risked his neck to shoot the famous Life Magazine feature, ``How it Feels to Be Black in America,'' choosing a man in Alabama as the subject. Unwittingly, Parks opened his subject to persecution when the magazine's bureau editor wasn't around to protect him, as had been previously arranged.

``I'd always thought of him as a pretty nice guy,'' Parks says. ``He said he didn't feel there was that much segregation down in the South. I got down there and found out that he had betrayed me - he didn't betray me so much as he was frightened; he might find himself in trouble (with other whites) if he helped us. But he was supposed to help the guy I used as a focal point for the story and he went on vacation. He endangered my life and that man's life. I was aware I was being followed (during the shoot), but I didn't realize there was a lynch mob wanting to tar and feather me until my editors went down there. They talked to people and found out I had gotten out of town about three hours before they would've caught up to me.''

He also acknowledges that he was allowed to work under extraordinary circumstances. ``When I went to Brazil for my photos of Flavio, I called Life and they said, 'Stay as long as you like to get the story.' Now, it's, 'Get back next week.' But then, it was your story, you'd stick with it if it takes you a year. I did one story for Life on my favorite poets - at the end of the year, I handed in about 15 transparencies. They said, 'That's a year's work?' I said, 'You asked me to think about it, and I re-created their poetry within my camera. That's it.' They said, 'OK, fine.' ''

Parks himself has no idea where his facility to succeed in so many art forms comes from, but says, ``If I had my druthers, if Providence would assign two things to me, I'd say, I want to write poetry and compose music.''

In the course of his celebrated career, Parks has received numerous awards, beginning with the first Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in photography in 1942. In addition to the many doctorates universities have bestowed upon him, Muslim Elijah Muhammad and the Black Panthers tried, unsuccessfully, to recruit him as a spokesman for their causes.

Still, he insists simple recognition remains his greatest prize. ``It still makes me surprised,'' he says. ``All those things come together mean one thing - that I worked hard.''

Even if Parks reduces his life to a cliche, it still feels heartfelt. ``The most important thing I learned about life - it's more important to give than receive; when I give someone something, I feel good,'' he insists. ``I receive a lot of stuff these days, but when I reach out and help people in the way that people helped me, it makes me feel good.''

Posted by David Kronke at 11:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are a few gems from the Paley Television Festival's tribute to "My Name is Earl," held tonight at the Directors Guild of America and sponsored by the Museum of TV and Radio:

"Worst Actor Ever:" That's Jaime Pressly (who plays Earl's ex-wife Joy) on one of her own colleagues, Jason Lee's stand-in. "He'll have to do some lines, and I think, 'Oh, my God, where is Jason?'" (If the poor guy was there that night, he didn't admit it.)

"I feel like an @$$#*!&:" Ethan Suplee (Earl's dim-witted brother Randy) after one of his many responses delivered monosyllabically (except, of course, for that last word).

And, after screening a very funny flashback episode (which has yet to air) that sort of revealed the origins of the group's dynamic -- they believe the Y2K bug destroyed mankind, so they begin living in a superstore and fumble about creating a new civlization -- series creator Greg Garcia explained, "We thought it would be funny if the one thing they planned for was Y2K and it didn't happen. And that they would be better people only if everyone else on the planet died."

It was generous of Garcia to allow his fans to get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. (The Y2K one was really inspired.) And the discussion was better than a lot of these Paley Festival things tend to be -- a nice blend of joking around and actually explaining what they do and just a smidgen of the self-serving blather that characterizes a lot of these tributes.

Invariably, these tributes go a little too far. The moderator declared that "Earl" "revolutionized the form" of the sitcom, and the program notes include this gem: "Unbound from a studio setting, it eschews the canned laughter and latte-sipping antics of Must See TV predecessors to explore, with an irreverent wink, a milieu typically depicted with buck-toothed exoticism." Why not just say it's really funny and leave it at that?

Other tidbits:

NBC actually quibbled with Garcia and Lee over Earl's mustache, a flop of facial growth that is funny -- well, it just is. Initially, Lee grew a Fu Manchu; the network wasn't sure it liked any facial hair, but, as Lee explained, in the end "We just lost the -chu."

NBC also initially rejected an episode that had Earl shooting a girl in the throat with a BB gun, which was based on one of the show's writer's real-life experiences. Garcia retooled it so that Earl shoots her in her butt, explaining to the writer that he "softened" the scene. The writer's response: "You're telling me that I'm worse than Earl?"

On the first day of shooting, Suplee stood slack-jawed, gazing at the sky. Garcia asked him why, and, he says, Suplee explained, "Randy has a deviated septum and he's always looking for aliens." Which wasn't anywhere to be found in the script, but Garcia was more than happy to go with it.

And a local vexed by the production's location work in Van Nuys queried, "How do you get all those permits to close Woodley Avenue?"

Posted by David Kronke at 11:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Oscar night, everyone assiduously mentions how PriceWaterhouseCooperMcMandateCohenAlexandriaLoonDeTard (and whoever the accounting company has merged with in the past 45 minutes) has heroically prevented results of the upcoming Academy Award winners from getting out more than The United Arab Emirates may protect our East-Coast ports, yet tonight, it seemed just about all the pundits at ABC were echoing the same theme: There's always a surprise at the Oscars (which isn't really true); "Crash" could realistically upset "Brokeback Mountain" for Best Picture, and so on. And, indeed, "Crash" swiped top honors from the frontrunner.

Hence, a question for conspiracy theorists: Are these results really that protected? Were these guys tipped off in advance? Or are they just really good pundits, who divined the intentions of a capricious Academy far more sagely than widely-established-for-months conventional wisdom? At any rate, they sort of undercut the drama: Viewers for all the red-carpet nonsense were already primed to accept "Crash's" victory as something less than a surprise.

Posted by David Kronke at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, that's a lie. I love to say that there's no reason on Earth why the Academy Awards should be taken seriously as a worthwhile measure of cinematic quality.

The Academy of Morons Who Thought Crash Was a Better Film Than Brokeback Mountain just proved it. Next year, really, these clowns need to be ignored.

Posted by Bob Strauss at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

During all the endless post-Oscar prattle, the TV folks are talking to anyone they can get, and I don't want to name any names, but for God's sake, I must've seen what surely represents millions of dollars in malpractice suits against plastic surgeons. Honestly, some of these people look like their faces are covered in Mondo, that spackle you trowel on over dents in your car.

Posted by David Kronke at 10:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now that I’ve had some time to actually think about this, it seems to me that Jon Stewart’s rebound from his fairly weak start was something of a considered rebellion. All along, we heard that Stewart wasn’t going to do what previous hosts such as Chris Rock and David Letterman had done, which was shoehorn their sensibility into the Oscarcast, one reason being their efforts weren’t considered successful.

And, indeed, Stewart initially did the opposite – he inserted himself into the spectacle of the Oscar ceremony. There was that fairly lamentable opening short film, in which previous hosts for various reasons eschew the job, followed by lowly Jon Stewart getting the gig – and the chance to lounge in a bed with George Clooney and Halle Berry, besides. His opening monologue was hit-and-miss, with the bigger laughs coming from material that in fact wouldn’t have been out of place on “The Daily Show.�

So I’m guessing that he’s a quick learn, and figured out that whatever he would do for the rest of the broadcast would have to represent more his acerbic sensibility and less the sort of institutional once-over-lightly that defines most Oscar programs. After all, Stewart has built his reputation for puncturing self-important windbags, not coddling them.

Which I think accounts for how he conducted himself thereafter. There was an interesting friction between the ceremony’s dreary same old same-old – montages, trying too hard on the production numbers, etc. – and his responses to it. He had wittily cutting comments about the montages that had been lovingly massaged by the show’s producers: “I can’t wait ’til later,� he said after a particularly pointless one, “when we get Hollywood’s salute to montages.� He poked fun at the fairly pretentious production of the performance of Best Song nominee “In the Deep.� He was just sharper as the show went along, so whereas the personal approach was what torpedoed Letterman and Rock, it was what rescued Stewart in the end.

ABC’s post-game show crew is giving Stewart high marks, too – a B+, to be precise – but, hey, what’s ABC going to say? We were idiots to hire him?

Posted by David Kronke at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So now we know why Hollywood shouldn’t make any “issue� flicks: Because the Oscar will invariably go to the most obvious one of the bunch. “Crash� beat out what to my mind seemed a largely superior roster of movies for the Best Picture trophy; it was easily the least nuanced and tricky of the bunch, letting viewers know precisely how they were supposed to feel every step of the way, even having characters baldly state its themes. But, hey, now that it’s officially 2005’s Best Picture, here’s something that makes me look a fool.

Crash and burn, baby, burn

If you think that’s bad, here’s a really virulent and, to be honest, much better argued, attack on the film:

Crushing Crash

Oh, well, good on Lionsgate, the little studio that could. But this does kind of point out how the Oscar campaign can be affected by the time frame in which it’s conducted, how Academy voters can be put off when they hear too much about how a certain movie is a shoo-in. (In a way, though, it’s reassuring to know that even Hollywood can get sick of hearing about itself.) “Brokeback Mountain� won virtually every major (and minor) award there was to win this year, except the one that counts, the one that puts it in the history books. This is kind of reminiscent of the year “Saving Private Ryan� was considered the prohibitive favorite – until it wasn’t, and “Shakespeare in Love,� tortoise-and-hare-like, slipped away with the Best Picture trophy.

No rule changes need be made, I’d say, because “quality� is hardly an objective, uh, quality, and people whose favorites fail to win Oscars are usually over it by the next morning. But there might be a lesson here for future Oscar campaigners: Don’t strive for frontrunner status too early; don’t be a juggernaut (be glad if other groups spread the wealth by honoring other films); and, for God’s sake, don’t make a movie that both manages to commandeer the Zeitgeist and provide late-night comics with endless one-liners, because by Oscar night, people will be absolutely sick of hearing about it.

Posted by David Kronke at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jack Nicholson looked surprised as he announced "Crash" was Best Picture. Which was the only speech cut off by the orchestra all night -- huh?

It sort of begs the question: Where was the tipping point where Academy voters tilted from the mainstream, which it hasn't done of late, and ignored "Brokeback Mountain" in favor of "Crash?" Had the voting been cut off sooner, would the result have been the same? Apparently, there's a downside to being the presumptive winner for so long -- people just kind of get bored with hearing the same old same old and say, 'To hell with it, I'll vote for something else.'

Winning Best Director, Ang Lee told his Oscar: "I just can't quit you." That alone kind of suggests he deserved not to win Best Picture.

Final thoughts on Stewart: Bumpy start, but overall, well done, sir.

Posted by David Kronke at 8:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, some political commentary: Larry McMurtry, winning Best Adapted Screenplay for "Brokeback Mountain," championed "the culture of the book, which we mustn't lose." Like they're California condors or something.

Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for "Crash." A nervous speech about hammers and mirrors, which I took as a concession that the film lacks what some might call subtlety.

So Best Picture, if what the prognosticators earlier in the evening weren't just blowing smoke out their backsides, is still a tossup.

Posted by David Kronke at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At this point, who has the most Oscars? Memoirs of a Geisha is sweeping everyone else, winning three technical trophies, for art direction, costume design and cinematography.

Jon Stewart with a pointed Oscar count: "Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars. 3-6 Mafia (Best Song winners for "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp"), one."

Again, as expected, Reese Witherspoon is named Best Actress for "Walk the Line."

"I never thought I'd be here in my whole life!" she enthused in a Southern accent she had lost quite a while ago and promptly proceeds to lose anew as her speech proceeds. Of her character, she noted, "She's a real woman."

Kind of the quintessential acceptance speech -- too many names thanked, emotional without really being affecting, rambling without completely falling apart, a requisite bit about self-empowerment, even nailed the humanizing moment where she told her kids to go to bed. (Wasn't that parodied in Tom Hanks' film at the beginning of the evening?)

She declared her intention to "make work that means something to somebody." Which explains "Just Like Heaven" and "Legally Blonde 2."

Posted by David Kronke at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As has been expected by just about everyone for the past three months, Philip Seymour Hoffman won the Best Actor Oscar for "Capote."

Probably the most rambling speech of the night -- "I'm in a category with some great, great, great actors ... and I'm overwhelmed," he said, being equally repetitive when thanking "(director) Bennett Miller and (screenwriter) Danny Futterman, whom I love, I love, I love, I love..." His homage to his mother was sweet, though.

Only five more awards to go. Barring any more montages, we should be done in under a half-hour.

Posted by David Kronke at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Crash won its first Oscar, for film editing. Which revealed Oscar's dirty little secret -- the longer the winner gabbles on, the less the music plays: When the winner, Hughes Winborne, announced he had passed his time limit, he told the orchestra to stop playing, and they did.

Posted by David Kronke at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The remainder of the live blogging of the Oscars will be presented in the style of the acceptance speech for Best Song.

Posted by David Kronke at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is up with all these montages? Chuck Workman did one a decade or two back that did kind of stir you in its evocation of decades of film history in five or six minutes, but that's no reason to do it every damn year. The idea, of course, is to get you all nostalgic about film, to say, 'Gee, you know, movies really are magic; I think I'll go to the movies every week!'

Except, well, if you're watching the Oscars, you're quite likely already a film fan, so they're just preaching to the choir here. All these things do is prolong an already overlong production.

Again, Stewart seems to agree: "I can’t wait till later when we get Hollywood’s salute to montages."

Posted by David Kronke at 6:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sid Ganis, president of the Academy, is ladling out the requisite long-winded self-congratulatory hooey. He's going on about how stirring the montage of scenes from issue-oriented movies was, apparently having missed Stewart's wonderful dismissal of said montage as it ended: "And none of those issues were ever a problem again."

And he's saying, (I'm paraphrasing because I was too bored to listen closely), "No actor ever finished a scene and said, 'That'll look good on the DVD.'" Actually, I'll bet there are a lot of them who say that these days.

Hey, Brokeback Mountain won its first Oscar -- best score, Gustavo Santaolalla, who gave what may be the longest acceptance speech to date.

Posted by David Kronke at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The guys who made "March of the Penguins" cavorted on the red carpet with giant plush penguins. And when they won the Best Documentary Oscar, they brought the things onstage with them, a bit of overkill if you ask me -- they could've used them as seat-fillers. Which apparently occurred to one of the filmmakers accepting their Oscar, who called the tuxedo-filled audience an "homage to our film."

The staging of Kathleen Bird York's performance of her Oscar-nominated song "In the Deep" from "Crash" asks the question: Does interpretive dance have any place at the Oscars? And answers it: No.

Stewart apparently agrees: "If you are trying to exit a burning vehicle, my advice is not to do it in slow motion." After a slow opening, Stewart's rallying.

Posted by David Kronke at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Um, did it not occur to anyone to see if Lauren Bacall, yammering on for some reason about film noir, could read her teleprompter?

And apparently, the answer to my question is, "nowhere." Just a pointless, time-killing montage of old movies with virtually nothing to do with this year's nominees.

Posted by David Kronke at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Demonstrative faces" is a kind of dumb phrase, and it tripped up Morgan Freeman as he delivered the Best Supporting Actress Oscar to Rachel Weisz for "The Constant Gardener." And the off-screen narrator had to spoil her moment by announcing she's "best known to audiences for her roles in 'The Mummy' and 'The Mummy Returns,'" which I imagine she wouldn't mind forgetting.

The orchestral underscores of the acceptance speeches seems to be working: Weisz's was short and sweet. She kind of hit a thematic cul de sac by noting that real-life crusaders such as the one she played in the film "are far greater people than me." The irony that it was nonetheless her on a stage accepting an award tripped across her face, so she wrapped it up with a simple thank you.

Posted by David Kronke at 6:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, a gag that actually worked pretty well: Will Ferrell and Steve Carell presented the Best Makeup Oscar in really awful makeup -- not quite KISS bad, but bad. "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" won.

Do you really think the "Narnia" series is a legitimate tentpole franchise? They've already done the most famous book in the series, and they've already started the series out of order...

Stewart scores! Referring to another nominee in the Best Makeup category, "Cinderella Man," Stewart came out of the acceptance speech with this: "Imagine the difficulty of making Russell Crowe look like he got into a fight."

Posted by David Kronke at 5:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, we get it: they want the speeches to be really short. There was a film at the top of the ceremony in which Tom Hanks got mugged by the orchestra as his mock-acceptance-speech wore on. And this year, the orchestra is playing music as soon as the winner begins his or her speech, which is no doubt a distraction -- Colleen Atwood, Best Costume winner for "Memoirs of a Geisha," seemed thrown by it -- as well as a subtle but insistent reminder that it will only get louder as you keep yammering.

Back to Clooney -- he didn't thank anyone, just made an impassioned (if a smidgen self-serving) speech about Hollywood being out of touch -- championing civil rights and other progressive issues before the rest of the country embraced them. Which is a more interesting way of taking up your minute or so of TV time than reciting a laundry list of people no one watching at home knows.

Posted by David Kronke at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

King Kong won the Visual Effects Oscar, dwarfed by Ben Stiller's appearance in a green bodysuit playing a special effect gone very awry. The idea may have looked good on paper, but didn’t really work; it certainly wasn't as amusing as Stiller was trying to sell it. Spielberg's dismayed reaction to Stiller's floundering was actually funnier.

"Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" won Best Animated Picture. To underscore the category's cartoonishness, director Nick Park and his producing partner wore silly, outsized bow ties and affixed same to their trophies. Not nearly as funny as the movie itself.

Posted by David Kronke at 5:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Things started bumpy for host Jon Stewart, whose first few gags fell decidedly flat. Things picked up when he noted that "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck." both concerned crusading journalists in an impassioned search for the truth, adding, "Needless to say, both are period pieces." But the biggest laugh was at the expense of the eccentric pop singer who performed at the Oscars in a swan outfit: "Bjork could not be here tonight – she was trying on her Oscar dress, and Dick Cheney shot her." There were a lot of tight close-ups on Stewart than one ordinariliy sees on awards shows that felt oddly intimate and maybe a bit disorienting -- it was like they were trying to show the flop sweat.

George Clooney, Best Supporting Actor winner for "Syriana," had a better laughs-per-minute ratio: "All right, so this means I’m not winning (best) director," he said upon taking the stage.

Posted by David Kronke at 4:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The cast of “Desperate Housewives� offered Felicity Huffman, Best Actress nominee for "Transamerica," best wishes via videotape – you know, it’s good that that show managed to get a little free publicity. Nonetheless, their message causes Huffman to tear up. “You’ve ruined my makeup, so thank you very much,� Huffman mock-scolds Chris Connelly.

Jake Gyllenhaal, Best Supporting Actor nominee, concedes there’s not much left to say about his film “Brokeback Mountain:� “It’s pretty much all been covered.�

The theme continues: In a critics’ chat on the Best Picture nominees and favorite to win, Leonard Maltin and Joel Siegel both admit “Crash� could be the spoiler this year.

Co-host Cynthia Garrett concludes, “America seems to be ready to think.� Not that you can tell from the red-carpet show.

Speaking of thinking – or not – ABC’s promos for its upcoming sitcom “Sons & Daughters� make it look a lot dumber than it is (it is, in fact, pretty smart). If these promos are what the network thinks will lure people to watch the show, they should’ve just gone on and made a stupid show. They’re certainly not appealing to people who like smarter, edgier comedy, which is what “S&D� provides.

Posted by David Kronke at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Billy Bush calls the red carpet “a conga line of luscious luminaries.� Do they write this stuff in advance or just make it up off the top of their heads?

George Clooney tells Vanessa Minnillo, “We’ve been rather unburdened by success at these awards shows.� He’s recycling his material – he said the same thing to Roger Ebert.

Terrence Howard tells Cynthia Garrett, “This is the beginning of a dream come true.� Seems like he’s already put tonight past him – he wants scads more nominations in the future.

Posted by David Kronke at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Apparently, there's a celebrity shortage on the Red Carpet, because ABC is airing an incomprehensible montage of movies with monkeys in them in an apparent homage to "King Kong." Which didn't get any major nominations. "Going ape, Hollywood style!" gushes Cynthia Garrett, miraculously avoiding to grimace on air.

Posted by David Kronke at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And now we get to see the same people we just watched get grilled by Ebert and Pennacchio get asked pretty much the same dumb questions by a different round of people.

Co-host Vanessa Minnillo declares, “I can tell you there’s nothing in the world like the excitement of Oscar night.� Well, maybe for her. I can think of plenty of things more exciting than dressing up in really uncomfortable clothing and getting asked silly questions by TV personalities.

Over on E!, an announcer orders us to “Look at Jessica Alba – so regal." He adds, "That almost depresses me, her skin is so perfect.�

Issac Mizrahi interviews "Brokeback Mountain" director Ang Lee and is interested in the guy's travel plans: "When do you fly out? How are you going to get the Oscar back to New York? I’m a little nervous about the metal detector."

Now, they're speculating as to whether Sandra Bullock is pregnant and discussing how much publicists get paid. Geez, these guys are making ABC's brain trust look like rocket scientists.

Posted by David Kronke at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pennacchio to Jada Pinkett Smith: “I love the fact that every year, you support the industry and walk this carpet.�

Pennacchio to Paul Giamatti, Best Supporting Actor nominee for “Cinderella Man:� “People love your work.�

That’s the last thing he gets to uncork, as the network red-carpet special begins now, meaning Pennacchio turns the buffoon baton over to Billy Bush.

Posted by David Kronke at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“I want you to win,� Ebert tells Amy Adams, predicting she will win in an upset (his predictions seem to be what he wants to win; he’s gaga over “Crash�); then he reminds her she was once a waitress in a Colorado diner. She concedes the point. He cites this as proof of the old only-in-Hollywood-do-dreams-come-true bromide. Don’t a lot of actors come from modest backgrounds?

Ebert then tells Larry McMurtry, “You’re a great author, as well.� In case Larry was unaware of the fact.

“You know, she wears clothes,� a fashion expert observes of Dolly Parton.

The Channel 7 red-carpet people are all about "Crash," not so much for "Brokeback Mountain."

The ever self-effacing George Clooney says of his multiple nominations, "That gives me three opportunities to lose, which is really exciting for me." Clooney and Ebert discuss the political content of his films, and discourse approaching an IQ is threatened, when Pennacchio gets to the pressing issue of the day: “(Clooney) said he was going to get a new tux – is this new?� It wasn’t, nor was Pennacchio's penchant for banality.

Posted by David Kronke at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The teeth-on-concrete ritual that is the Oscar red carpet is beginning, and already George Pennacchio is getting on my nerves. He and Roger Ebert interviewed Rachel Weisz, a Best Supporting Actress nominee for “The Constant Gardener,� and blurted to her, “More importantly, your birthday is Tuesday!� He added, with perhaps a little too much forced ebullience, “I know everything about you!� A restraining order may be in order.

Posted by David Kronke at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It probably doesn't compare to Phil Collins performing on both sides of the Atlantic during Live Aid, but Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet, is having a pretty sensational day.

Cuban began the day in Dallas, where his Mavericks played the Phoenix Suns, then hopped a jet for LA (he's still in the air as I type) for the Academy Awards, where he has two films up for trophies: He served as an executive producer on both "Good Night, and Good Luck.," and the documentary "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room." ABC interviewed Cuban midflight during its coverage of the Mavs/Suns game, to which Cuban was attentively attending on his plane.

Cuban's indisputably a pretty brilliant guy -- he's single-handedly injected life and energy into the NBA's ownership, and has made his billions being a few steps ahead of everyone else. He's been involved in smart, quality projects -- he also was behind Steven Soderberg's low-budget experiment, "Bubble," and its first-of-its-kind marketing scheme, in which it hit theaters, high-definition TV and DVD stores on the same day. And he even invites you to email him at his blog, blogmaverick.com, and sometimes, he'll even write back.

Though "Good Night, and Good Luck.'' may not come up a winner, "Enron" has a shot at Best Documentary. Bad omen, though: The Mavs blew a big lead to lose to the Suns.

Posted by David Kronke at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hard to believe, but E! is already doing pre-pre-pre- Oscar coverage; has been since 9 a.m., in fact. If the idea of someone who could possibly care that much to watch all this effluvium is frightening, the "coverage" itself is clearly designed to send viewers fleeing in terror.

There was a profile of some obscure actress who went through a bunch of spa/exercise/diet stuff to lose some weight, followed by some chick from MTV's Laguna Beach visiting all those swag shops that pop up over this week (it’s like charity for wealthy celebrities, who I’m sure appreciate the generous assistance while, hmm, isn’t there something going on down in New Orleans?).

And then a jaw-dropper: “The breast is back, baby, in a big way.� This per Debbie Matenopoulos, one of the hosts of this epic monument to profound superficiality, who actually presides over a segment on mammary glands. She’s accompanied by a young man who explains how to boost what Matenopoulos refers to as “the girls� to a flattering angle. The young man, it should be noted, doesn’t look as though women’s breasts are exactly his thing, and yet here he is, on national television as a breast expert. Yakov Smirnoff was right, after all: What a country!

And now, a shattering scoop: A report discovering that some of the other nominated actors had movies come out in some of the the same sundry years that George Clooney also found work. It should be noted that the hosts seem to understand that no one is watching – it feels like they’re addressing no one beyond their camera crews.

Back to the Mavericks-Suns game.

Posted by David Kronke at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“Brokeback Mountain� continued its sweep of the major awards today, winning the Best Picture trophy at the Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica. Ang Lee was named Best Director.

But the Spirits shared the wealth, awarding “Crash� two statues – Best First Feature for Paul Haggis and Best Supporting Actor (Matt Dillon) – and two to “Capote:� Best Actor (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Best Screenplay (Dan Futterman). Hoffman seemed to be wearying of collecting all the honors: “I’ve been given enough,� he said.

Felicity Huffman won Best Actress love for “Transamerica,� and Amy Adams of “Junebug� was named Best Supporting Actress. “Paradise Now� was named Best Foreign Film and “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room� won Best Documentary honors.

I’m not sure about this and am way too lazy to research it, but this may be the first time in the Independent Spirit Awards’ 21 years where all of the winners were also Oscar nominees.

Posted by David Kronke at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the past, the Independent Spirit Awards served as an alternative Oscar ceremony for those who, reasonably, couldn't bear the idea of things like "Titanic" or "Gladiator" or "Braveheart" getting officially declared the best film of any given year. This year, not so much -- "Brokeback Mountain," "Good Night, and Good Luck.", and "Capote" are Best Picture nominees for both ceremonies.

The Independent Spirit Awards will take place Saturday at 2 p.m. and you can watch them on IFC, the Independent Film Channel (which will repeat the ceremony repeatedly over the weekend). Sarah Silverman, who is so funny that if she plays her cards right -- or wrong, depending on your sensibility -- might be hosting the Oscars within a decade, will host. Usually, this award is a terrible barometer of the Academy Awards; this year, that might not be the case.

Posted by David Kronke at 2:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The gods of technology willing, the Daily News will introduce a new entertainment blog on Monday, which will allow all of our loquacious and opinionated critics to weigh in on everything from political filmmaking to Lindsay Lohan's disastrous fashion sense. And though Hollywood's feverish necessity to distribute awards to one another will diminish significantly -- for a while, at least -- after Sunday's Oscars, this weblog will still be up and running, as well.

So I'm going to jump the gun just a little bit (well, actually, I've already done it in the past with sundry screeds) by addressing the frankly crazy media coverage of Barry Bonds' loopy Paula Abdul imitations. You've likely seen a lot on this, particularly on ESPN; what very little of that coverage has told you is that Bonds has signed a deal with ESPN for a reality series. Which thoroughly explains why a guy who has betrayed almost no sense of humor in the past is suddenly yokking it up like he's Robin Williams in Mrs. Doubtfire.

The unasked question in so much of recent reportage of Bonds has been, Why is he doing this? Clearly, it wasn't his idea. There was a given wisdom in the past regarding reality shows: If the protagonists visit a psychic, you know they've run out of ideas and the producers are clearly grasping. To which we can now add this amendment: If a subject appears in drag, apropos of nothing, a reality show's producers are really sweating their career choices.

Posted by David Kronke at 1:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In honor of Oscar finally honoring Robert Altman, a number of movie bloggers – OK, there’s really no other word for this: nerds – will offer up essays upon essays appreciating the maverick director’s considerable contributions to film art.

As weirdly obsessive as this is, I also think it’s a wonderfully appropriate way to honor a guy who loves what-the-hell improvising. And a lot of those participating – including my longtime pal Matt, who explicates the endeavor in the link below – are impassioned cineastes who get it more than the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tend to.

So: If you’re a longtime Altman fan, this sounds suspiciously like how you’re going to spend your weekend. And if Altman’s brilliance has always eluded you, here’s how you can discover what you’ve been missing.

Matt Seitz explains the Altman blog-athon.

Posted by David Kronke at 1:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I became a TV critic because my parents were murdered by an impoverished TV actor and I decided to devote my life to championing their work so that no performer would have to become so desperate as to turn to a life of crime.

Well, not really. Not at all, actually. My parents are still alive, in fact. But it makes for a stirring story, no?

Nancy Grace, she of those teeth-on-tin-foil Court TV and CNN Headline News series where she declares every suspect guilty-before-proven-innocent and every defense attorney a soulless traitor to the human race, would apparently agree. The New York Observer reported today that she sexed-up her admittedly tragic past to justify her cartoonish on-air contempt for criminal defense attorneys.

What’s indisputable is that Grace’s finance was murdered in 1979. The rest of the story as she has told it – the killer was a stranger with a long rap sheet who insisted he was innocent and has filed appeal after appeal to get released from prison – is bunk. As, apparently, is her assertion that she testified in the case that she didn’t think the killer deserved the death penalty.

Grace’s fiancé was murdered by a former co-worker who confessed immediately to police and was spared the death penalty because he was mildly retarded.

How cynical is it to not only exploit the death of a beloved one but to enhance the circumstances so as to promote one’s own career? Keith Olbermann, on his MSNBC show, named Grace “The Worst Person in the World� today. That’s letting her off light.

And I thought Grace’s TV shows were reprehensible.

NYO: Nancy Graceless

Posted by David Kronke at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I was down at the Kodak Theatre today, getting my sandwich-sign-sized credential for Sunday's Academy Awards, and I picked up a list of Oscar-related goings-on for the press put together by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. One that stood out was a Pink's Hot Dogs event tomorrow that promises "five well-adorned, ready-to-photograph hot dogs that depict and celebrate Oscar's five Best Picture nominees." Hmmmm...

How does one decorate a hot dog to capture the essence of "Brokeback Mountain?" We'll leave that to Gloria Pink and Beverly Pink Wolff, who run the family business and brought this awkward dilemma on themselves by sanctioning this publicity stunt. They should be thankful, anyway, that "Transamerica" did not get a best picture nomination. If it did, they probably would be dressing an empty bun.

Posted by Valerie Kuklenski at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)