Joe Queenan sums up the Academy Awards in Sunday’s L.A. Times:
It’s not so much a case of the industry presenting itself the way it would like to be seen; it’s the night when the industry gets tanked up and forgets what it does for a living.
But that’s one of the nicer things he wrote, so you’ll want to RTWT.
You do realize Queenan is a comedian and you linked to a joke, right Karl?
Linking to anything to do with modern Hollywood is a joke, as are the Oscars. It’s just a Lefty Love-fest nowadays by those out of touch with reality. (Actually, that describes the Left in general).
An example?
Dream Girls had THREE songs vying for Best Song. The award went to Melissa Etheridge for her song from Gore’s movie – and they are calling this an “upset”.
Yeah, who coulda predicted a breast cancer surviving gay woman’s song, in an ex-Democratic VPs pretentious lecture disguised as a movie winning anything.
Queenan is a comedian and a reviewer. But if you want to show how unfamiliar you are with the Wall Street Journal and other pubs he writes for, by all means pursue that line.
We don’t have cable (or rabbit ears), but I read about the Will Ferrell/Jack Black musical bit and had to see it (you can get it on YouTube – “Ferrell Oscars” should bring it right up). Funny. And Ferrell’s line, where he’s going to get a role playing “an armless, legless man who teaches gangbanger Hamlet”, so he can finally be respected in Hollywood? Priceless.
P.S.:
So I guess Jack and Will can keep on dreamin’ . . .
(Actually, I do think Will Ferrell is quite capable of being a good actor. And Jack Black actually looks quite good on the VF cover . . . ACTING!!! [Jon Lovitz voice])
Because comedy can never have any truth to it.
Oh yeah? Well if it’s a joke, where’s the punchline? Smartypants.
Oooooh, that’s gonna sting Al Franken, who is, admittedly, a joke.
Hmmmm.
Will Ferrel?
“To be, or not to be muthafucka: that is the fucking question:”
You know. I think I’d go to see that movie.
Of course I realized it’s a humorous piece. Kudos to alphie for figuring it out—though, as Robert Crawforn notes—not really understanding humor generally.
Had Queenan been serious, he would have pointed out that Hollywood’s main business these days is not Ben Stiller and Jack Black comedies, but the weekly, interchangeable, PG-13, unscreened-for-critics horror movie.
Sci-Fi Channel’s “giant CG creature of the week” or “natural disaster that is somehow horrific and hilarious at the same time” movies, for example.
Unless it’s told by Stephen Colbert.
If Joe Queenan is a comedian why have I never heard of anything funny that he has ever written? He appears to be a journalist from his byline. At least the actors that he rags on make movies that people outside of Hollywood actually see. If he is a comedian he must be one of those Al Franken, Janeane Garafolo types. The kind who are only called comedians by critics and liberals. The unfunny kind.
Actually, I was thinking of movies like The Grudge, which made 110 million on a 10 million budget. Its sequel made 65 million on a 20 million budget. The Ring made 249 million on a 49 million budget. The sequel made 161 million on an estimated 60 million budget. The remake of When A Stranger Calls made 67 million on a 15 million budget. The “remake” of House of Wax made about 68 million on a 40 million budget. Even a truly awful pic like Pulse made 28 million on a 20 million budget. In the past few weeks, we had The Messengers, which has made 32 million on a 16 million budget.
Had I included R-rated pics, you could throw in the enormously profitable Saw franchise, awful remakes of horror movies like The Hitcher, The Hills Have Eyes, The Amityville Horror, etc.
All (relatively) low budget, short-run, high ROI flicks for the biz. A continuing testament to the enduring dynamic of giving teenage girls a chance to grab at their dates in the cineplex. And the genre—unlike the Farrell-Black axis—does not even get to do a funny musical number at the Oscars.
Queenan is a sort of gossip columnist. He wrote a book called “If you’re talking to me, you must be desperate”, which is sort of OK but noot really funny.
In fact I think if he didn’t have an Irish name, he would be generally ignored.
If you believe the ladies at Feministe, it isn’t that, just that we like seeing attractive ladies gutted on the big screen.
…
You know, being Patriarchs and all.
“Humorist” is probably a better descriptor for Mr. Q (no relation) than “comedian”.
I do find much of his writing amusing, but he’s no P. J. O’Rourke. Who would be funny if he was Belgian.