Brief Oscar Backlash

Here's one writer who can stay on strike for good, as far as the Siren is concerned: the one who decided it would be a kick to mock Sunrise during the Oscars. It takes some kind of four-door, chrome-plated, 400-horsepower nerve to diss that movie for being soooo old-fashioned and simple ("the Woman from the City"! "sounds like a fun shoot!" tee-hee!) when it's visually and thematically more sophisticated than a whopping majority of last year's Hollywood output. And then they hand that crass joke to Cameron Diaz, no one's idea of Janet Gaynor Redux, right before she gives out the cinematography award. Hey, if you're honoring cinematography, Sunrise is a natural choice for a bit of ribbing. Just like if you're handing out the Nobel Peace Prize, you wanna warm up the crowd with some well-chosen Martin Luther King jokes. The Siren only now has managed to get up from bed and remove the ice-pack from her forehead.

Aside from that moment, which should live in infamy, the Siren has a radical thought.

The Oscar show is too short.

Yes, you heard me, too short. Too short and too goddamn slick. No wildly inappropriate speeches, no gasps, no boos, no one going off teleprompter. Just patter, Oscar, speech, orchestra play-off. The show has become as exciting as watching a line of limos pull up to a drive-through bank and getting the statue from a Marchesa-draped teller. Thank goodness for Jon Stewart bringing back the charming young woman from Once, and Tilda Swinton putting her thumb in the eye of fashion editors everywhere with that deconstructed, proudly asexual velvet dress, like a monk's robe that the brothers forgot to finish sewing after vespers.

But that wasn't enough, was it? It's just no fun anymore. Between seeing some of the most talented people in the industry given the bum's rush off the stage, and stylists who insist on dressing every starlet like AudreyGraceAva, the Siren is seriously wondering if next year she should just watch old Oscarcast clips on Youtube.