76 Million and Counting

 It may be that The Guardian's YouTube clip of the now-infamous slap by actor Will Smith against Oscars host Chris Rock may some day eclipse the total number of views of "Baby Shark Dance," which is now over 10 billion views over a period of six or seven years.

Here is the uncensored clip once again:

There was no way this was in any way staged.  Will Smith has trouble controlling anger.

And his wife Jada has the unmitigated nerve to call for "healing."  She is the one who provoked her husband with her facial expressions.  If the pair had had any class at all, they would have talked with Chris Rock privately after the Oscar ceremony and voiced their concerns.  Chris probably would have issued a public apology, and that would have been the end of it.  Instead, Will Smith sullied an event which for 93 years has had its share of ups and downs but never, ever had an on-air assault.

And it was an assault, make no mistake of it.  Chris Rock should have pressed charges and even sued Will Smith over it.  He would have been within his rights to do so, but I guess he wanted to move on.  

I am hearing and reading bullshit that somehow the joke was "ableist."  I hate to break it to people, but from what I heard, Jada does not have "alopecia" that is a result of a disease but instead is a result of the abuse her hair took over the years with various constricting hairstyles.  This is not a disability of any sort, and to claim it is is an insult to the millions of people who have real disabilities and suffer discrimination and hardship because of those disabilities.

In this clip with Gayle King, actor Jim Carrey was having none of the excuses some were making about Smith's on-air assault:

If the Academy had any sense at all, it would ban Will Smith from the Academy, for attending all Oscar ceremonies from here on out, and would require him to return the award.

Punch and Judy Show Reads

 It looks like Will Smith will be off the hook legally after his antic last night against Chris Rock was seen all over the world, live and online especially.

Later on today, he decided to publicly apologize to Chris Rock about his assault on live television.

Smith should lose his Oscar.  The late Medina's Spirit was disqualified from his victory in last year's Kentucky Derby, and this was way worse.

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It's the Sign of the Times

In a way it is comforting to know that it isn't just Washington, D.C., that is in "la la land":

Only a minute earlier Faye Dunaway had said the words that Mr. Horowitz had longed to hear — “La La Land” — as she announced the winner for the 2017 Academy Award for best picture. Mr. Horowitz, a producer on the film, and colleagues and cast members raced to the stage. Mr. Horowitz spoke first — “Thank you to the academy,” he began — but his excitement quickly dissipated, as he recalled the shocking end to the night in an interview with The New York Times after the awards.

“I’m holding the envelope and the award, and I had just given my speech, and there are people on the stage with headsets, and I thought, ‘That doesn’t seem right,’” Mr. Horowitz said at the Governors Ball.

“They asked to see my envelope, which I haven’t opened. Clearly something was wrong. They open my envelope, and it says ‘Emma Stone, La La Land.’ So clearly something is not right. The guys in headsets were going around with urgency looking for the other envelope — it just kind of appeared,” he said. “One of the guys opens it, and it says ‘Moonlight,’ and I took it onstage and went to the microphone and said what I said.”

I completely missed that memorable moment. I didn't watch the Academy Awards last night at all. I didn't even watch the "In Memoriam" segment.


I had other things on my mind.

I hope nobody takes down this EPIC fail of last night:



Russell Rouse and Harlan Ellison couldn't have written this script.

That's Just the Way It Is

Very rarely do "Best Picture" Oscars consist of the best film of that year or the most popular one.

Oftentimes it is a film that makes one feel good or it is a biopic. Sometimes it is a critically acclaimed movie that simply needs more help at the box office, like Birdman.

What I would like to know is when the term "The Academy Awards" was jettisoned in favor of "The Oscars."


Well, I found the answer. The Academy "rebranded" it two years ago in order to attract a younger audience.

It wasn't necessary.

The Oscars

There were no surprises this year. Slumdog Millionaire was voted Best Picture at the 81st Academy Awards. Sean Penn won Best Actor for the title role in Milk, while Kate Winslet won Best Actress for The Reader.

Oscar results are here.

Man On Wire, the documentary about that wild and crazy guy Philippe Petit, who gained notoriety as the first and only person to have been crazy enough to cross the Twin Towers via highwire, won Best Documentary.

I bought the film on DVD, but there was no film footage of the actual crossing, since Petit and his co-conspirators had planned his walk in secret, although there are photographs. He plotted the walk for six years, as the Twin Towers were being built. In any case, it was actually a very interesting movie, emphasizing the fact it was an artistic "heist." Petit, now 60, looks none the worse for the wear. But it was still a batshit thing to do. Although 9/11 was never mentioned in the film, the movie really was a tribute of sorts to the buildings, as at least one critic noted. The World Trade Center was as much a star in this picture as Petit.

And the Winner Is...

An Inconvenient Truth starring President Gore, for best documentary.

The complete list of winners is here.