Letters From Bobby

I have been devoted to watching the annual Oscars® telecast ever since I was a kid in grade school. Not just because I love films. If you grew up in Los Angeles, you knew that Hollywood was basically a factory town and films were the factory product — like beer at a brewery in Milwaukee. The Oscars was the annual company party.

The Oscars telecast has become like the lovable but crazy aunt that comes to visit once a year. You try to make her seem a little less goofy to folks outside the family. I was interested but a bit concerned as to how the producers were going to re-invent this year’s show. It is what it is. I thought Hugh Jackman was pretty cool and did a fine job with the material given. The heaviest piece of furniture he had to move was that clunky musical number assembled by fellow Australian Baz Luhrmann. Just like he did with MOULIN ROUGE, Luhrmann proved that he is not Vincente Minnelli. His musical numbers always come off like rummage sales with a downbeat. He just throws everything from different eras in and puts it out there for the public to buy. I may be one of the only “showtune-friendly” men in America who didn’t care for MOULIN ROUGE. That was not the highlight of cheese in the show. I think the cheesiest element was ABC constantly cutting to shots of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt while Pitt’s ex-wife, Jennifer Aniston, was onstage presenting with Jack Black. OK. We got it ABC. Brad and Jen broke up because of Angelina. Allegedly.

If the Oscars telecast is the Gay Superbowl, the Red Carpet coverage has now become the pre-game show. There’s an old saying. “Those who can…do. Those who can’t…teach.” I think those who can neither do nor teach become entertainment correspondents on E! The make-up on Ryan Seacrest was terrific. You could not see the lobotomy scars. To Marisa Tomei, he mentioned that it had been ages since Tomei was at the Oscars. She’s an Oscar winner who was present last night because she’d been nominated for the THIRD time. She was at the Oscars in 2002 when she was nominated for IN THE BEDROOM. To Viola Davis, he remarked that her film posed many questions but those questions weren’t exactly answered at the end. Duh. That’s why the movie was called DOUBT, Miss Seacrest.

From the Red Carpet to the final ten minutes, the night was bookended with a FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH “Where Are They Now?” Oscar winner Kevin Kline was on the carpet with his wife, Phoebe Cates. We haven’t seen her in years! There was “Linda Barrett” looking very lovely hours before ” Jeff Spicoli” won his second Oscar for Best Actor. Oddly, Kline now looks like a new “Mr. Hand.”

My favorite thing about the Oscars this year was the staging and new way of presenting the acting awards. Five previous winners in the acting categories took the stage to directly congratulate each nominee for a job well done. It made the presentation more personal, more fraternal. It was like an embrace from one’s peers that truly seemed to touch each nominee. Think about it — if you were nominated and screen greats such as Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine, Eva Marie Saint, Robert DeNiro and Ben Kingsley stood an a Hollywood stage and globally praised your work right to your face…well, that’s got to make your heart sweetly beat the faster. I’ve long dreamed of getting an Emmy nomination for some of my TV work — a local or national Emmy. If I ever got a nomination and someone like Oprah Winfrey or Ted Koppel complimented me on my broadcast skills, I’d feel very validated.

There was one moment during one such presentation that worried me. In the Best Supporting Actress presentation, one of the five previous winners was Goldie Hawn. At first, I didn’t know it was Goldie Hawn. I thought it was Mickey Rourke in a dress. Frankly, I’m concerned.

Today, the morning after Hollywood Prom Night, we have network weathermen covering the Oscars. Sam Champion did some male drag “schtick” on GOOD MORNING, AMERICA. He appeared dressed as Mickey Rourke’s THE WRESTLER, Spandex and all. He covered the parties for ABC. Al Roker, with his usual over-the-top style, covered the parties for NBC and also talked about Oscar fashions. He talked with a some big stars. I didn’t see all of his segments. I was curious to see if the Republican Roker spoke to the very non-Republican winner from last night, Sean Penn.

OK. In full disclosure, I am jealous of those two network weathermen. With well over ten years of national entertainment interviewer/correspondent work to my credit, I was never sent to Hollywood to cover the Academy Awards. That would have been another dream come true, like getting an Emmy nomination. Maybe it’s for the best. If I had gotten the opportunity to be close to, let alone, spoke to la bellissima Sophia Loren, my legs would’ve become spaghetti al dente while I uncontrollably wept with joy. It would not have been a pretty moment in live entertainment news coverage. Memorable, but not pretty.