TO CATCH A CELEBRITY, THINK LIKE A CELEBRITY

By Truth or Derrick

 

"And the Oscar goes to ... Eminem!!" Ladies and gentlemen, it's official. On Oscar night, the minds of the academy were focused on things other than movies.

 

The 75th anniversary of the Academy Awards turned out to be a pretty strange night. The time-honored ritual where celebrities show off their flamboyant apparel on the Red Carpet was gone. This year, there was no Cher wearing a transparent bag of brown beads and an 18th century sombrero. There was no Bjork wearing a swan suit. Jennifer Lopez was wearing more than a green scarf.

 

Conservative gowns and tuxedos were the look this year because often celebrities like to dress up to reflect their political views. For example, during World War II the Oscar statuette itself was plaster instead of gold because it was making a statement that the entertainment industry should conserve more metal. After the conflict was over, the winners traded in their plaster awards for golden ones, but the statement had been made.

 

Thus, on Oscar night, the celebrity crowd was conservative - their styles anyway. No particular individual's style seemed to steal the attention; attention that, because of our unfortunate times of war, should be less on movies and style, even if it is the Oscars. In fact, many celebrities actually wore more clothing material, covering a record thirty square feet of human skin collectively.

 

While political expression was just dancing on the tips of many celebrities' tongues (there was more of that kind of dancing than the kind in the winner of Best Picture award, "Chicago"), most political comments were limited, although mild allusions to war with Iraq were sprinkled throughout the evening. However, one winner actually voiced himself with boldness during his speeches. Michael Moore, who won for the documentary feature, "Bowling For Columbine," was accompanied to the stage with all the "best documentary feature" nominees, because that way, what he was about to say would have a stronger effect.

 

His speech didn't follow the classic, "I'd especially like to thank my agent's cousin" formula which, although follows the rules of the academy, is also notoriously boring. Instead, his speech referred to a "fictitious world" where a "fictitious election" brought a "fictitious president" to wage war for "fictitious reasons." It was booed, it was cheered, the speech extermination music began to play and as Michael Moore cried out his speech, the whole thing looked like something out of ... a movie! A heartwarming, underdog movie about a young filmmaker boy who spites authority to save mankind forever.

 

Then it hit me. This was the Academy Awards! Suddenly, the "biggest party in Hollywood" had become a political debate show! I suddenly was overcome by a wave of opinion. I didn't like that the Oscars had become so glum and angry. But the wave of opinion soon changed.

 

I felt proud of the Oscars. Not because they took a stand on political views - for that I am furious. No, I am proud of them for their ingenious sacrifice of the "Best Direction" Oscar in order to finally catch criminal mastermind Roman Polanski. For those of you that are not up on your "America's Most Wanted," Roman Polanski was convicted in the late 1970s of statutory rape for having sex with a 13-year-old girl and immediately fled the country to avoid punishments. He also directed one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year, "The Pianist."

 

Crime-solvers have been after this guy for literally tens of years, and the one thing that was never considered valuable was his incredible ego. He once said, "the best films are because of nobody but the director."

 

Oscar understands this. While the Academy at first thought simply nominating him as best director would be a sufficient was to get Roman Polanski back into the country, they soon realized that he had already been nominated three times in the past; it would take a win.

 

So, the Academy plotted, all we have to do is give him his very first Oscar, and it will be all he can do not to jump on a plane right now and fly to America to accept it. Once he hits American soil, we will release the "Michael Moore Gang of Non-Fiction Filmmakers" to capture him "peacefully."

 

The results of this venture are still pending, but they look promising.