Oscar thoughts - The hosts, honorary awards and FYC

My recent absence from blogging has made me late in chiming in on the announcement of Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin as co-hosts. Simply put, I like the choice(s). I thoroughly enjoyed both of Steve Martin's recent hosting gigs and found him much more engaging and funnier than Chris Rock or Jon Stewart in either of his stints.   And I can't help but wonder if Baldwin's appearances on TCM's The Essentials factored into the decision to bring him on board. The man clearly knows movies. Should be fun to watch the two interact.

Finally, this year's honorary Oscars will be given out next Saturday, in an untelevised ceremony, and I roundly jeer that move. Yes, the ceremony is too long, and yes, the honorary awards are sometimes where people take bathroom breaks. But moving them to their own evening, and worse, not televising them, are BAD moves.  The honorary awards have provided Oscar with some of its best moments. Without them, we wouldn't have gotten to see Peter O'Toole graciously accept (after some initial reluctance) what may well end up being his only award from the Academy. We wouldn't have gotten to witness the fascinating polarized reaction to Elia Kazan's win.

And we would have missed what, in my opinion, is the single best awards acceptance speech, not just at the Oscars but anywhere: Director Stanley Donen, accepting his honorary trophy in 1998. I can't embed the clip, but you can watch it here.

So I extend my congratuations to producer-executive John Calley, to producer-director Roger Corman, to cimeatographer Gordon Willis and to Lauren Bacall, for whom no identifier should be necessary. You are all deserving of your honors; I only wish I could see them.

And finally, I saw this ad on a Web site the other day:

Ummm ... no disrespect meant to Betty White, who is a very funny lady, but

Really?

Really????

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

That's all.