The rosiness of memory - Oscar version

This is about as untimely as can be, but I tend to write what rolls through my head, so here it is. The ads for the new Wolverine movie starring Hugh Jackman had me ruminating on the reviews of his stint as Oscar telecast host. In general, they seemed to be negative, with the most positive of them liking his personal charm but finding him unfunny; the worst branded his performance as a disaster.

I wonder what magical Oscar telecast people are remembering. I've been around long enough to remember some of the Bob Hope and Johnny Carson-hosted Oscars, and you know what? They were never drop-dead funny, never the transcendent event that people seem to think they watched when they were kids. The basic formula hasn't changed in years, and you can bring Billy Crystal out on a burro, or drop Whoopi Goldberg in from the ceiling, but the show's the same: an opening comedy bit (except for those years they started with a musical number - curse you, Rob Lowe!), award presentations preceded by unfunny banter, Best Songs (no matter how you present them, they are still usually pretty bad songs), dead people montage, and so forth.

We want to believe that the Oscars are significant, so they have to be the greatest entertainment extravaganza of all time. But it's an awards show, and they're honoring something that they cannot possibly show (there would be an interesting broadcast, show every nominee in full). The Grammys finally figured out that they were different, that they could be a music show interrupted occasionally by awards. They hand out a fraction of the total statuettes, but, because the statuettes are there, they can command amazing talent. (Then they do the odd slice-and-dice thing, where we stand to honor the once-in-a-lifetime collaboration of Yo-Yo Ma, T.I., Garth Brooks, and Jimmy Sturr, whose record was nominated in the Best Rap, Classical, Country, and Polka Song category.)

The Oscars can't do that (hey, look, it's Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet doing the famous taxicab scene from On the Waterfront - the Tonys used to try stuff like this until someone realized it's totally unwatchable), so it is all that it can be. It's an awards show, it cannot transcend that, and Hugh Jackman can pirouette around to his heart's content and it won't transform the Oscars.

So cut the telecast a break, think seriously how you might improve it (and most of the lists that come out every year would make it a lot worse), but understand the limitations come from the inherent nature of the enterprise.

Shameless

It almost seems pointless to criticize the "entertainment news" shows; they're ridiculous parodies of real news shows (which are massively pointless as it is), and it's a measure of how we've debased public discussion that Brangelina and the octomom are given the massive attention that they are. We should take no pride in the success of Entertainment Tonight and Extra and so forth. They probably don't represent the death of our civilization, but, as the saying goes, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Occasionally, though, it gets bad enough that I find it really irksome. As I'm watching rather too much basketball this weekend, I have been treated to a barrage of ads for Monday's ET. The big story: the world says a tear-filled goodbye to Natasha Ricahardson.

I'm willing to bet that ET hasn't devoted more than a few minutes to the entire life of Natasha Richardson. She was, by all accounts, a great stage actress, but her film career was spotty; she may have received some attention for being a part of the great Redgrave acting family, and I'd imagine there was a flurry of stories when she left one marriage to be with Liam Neeson (maybe not, I don't really remember, maybe Neeson himself was not a big enough star at that time).

She was just not a "star" in the ET/Extra sense, but now it's blanket coverage - why? Because she died in an "interesting" way, and there is no end to the medical experts who want to weigh in with their opinions on a case they know nothing about. So these entertainment journalists can whip up some frenzy, accompanied by pictures of famous people dressed in black, and they've got hours of stories at hand.

It's disgusting, and the people who produce these shows should be ashamed, and the people who are tuning in to hear every detail of the death of someone they never valued in life should turn off their sets and think seriously about how they spend their time.

I want to dislike him

I want to dislike Justin Timberlake, really I do.  The whole Mickey Mouse Club, boy group thing seems like a career path calculated to make him famous and rich.  To see him as a male version of his erstwhile girlfriend, the insufferable Britney Spears, is almost too easy.

Yet, he is putting together a pretty decent career.  His music has continued to grow and develop since the 'N Sync days.  I don't know what portion of this is due to Timberlake, and what to producers and songwriters, but he's doing some reasonably complex stuff.  He even almost redeemed Madonna's 4 Minutes (but only almost).

His public persona has become appealing as well, despite certain missteps at, say, a particular Super Bowl halftime show.  He has a real chance to become one of the go-to hosts for Saturday Night Live, in the same company as Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.  I can't hear Beyonce's Single Ladies without picturing the SNL skit where Timberlake appeared as a backup dancer.

Jimmy Fallon's late-night debut last Monday, that meltdown disaster, was almost saved by Timberlake.  Supposedly, he volunteered to fill in and do an extra number at the Grammys when Chris Brown was, ahem, indisposed.

JT seems like a good guy with some talent; maybe his biggest talent is seeming likable, but I remain to have it proven to me that he's actually a jerk.