Example 4: Roman Polanski, who won the best director award for "The Pianist." OK, it's another Holocaust movie, and there's something kind of icky about that right now, in light of the whole Middle East rat-fuck mess, but whatever. The guy is a felon in exile, and that somehow makes it OK. Don't ask me how; that's a very complicated karmic hat trick, but it all balances out. Talent forgives everything, eventually, even pedophilia and a glut of Holocaust films.

I was unsurprised that Julianne Moore did not win anything. She has made a personal cottage industry out of looking haltingly vulnerable and on the verge of pressing thumbtacks into her veins with that pathetic smile on her face -- that, and being unflinchingly nude.

For this troubled year, I figured she would probably seem a little too controversial. This is wartime, and we've all seen her pubic hair. Not this year, honey.

Thank God Jack Nicholson did not win again. I'm sorry; Jack Nicholson is not an Everyman. I don't think he can adequately represent anyone's life anymore, except maybe Warren Beatty's. He's too louche and unregenerate. Soldiers sometimes get a look of horror frozen on their face from witnessing one too many atrocities; Nicholson's face is frozen in the eternal conquest of young snatch.

Then there was the whole "Chicago" thing.

I was unsurprised that Catherine Zeta-Douglas-Jones won, but not for the right reasons. She did not look surprised, nor did anyone else. Not for nothing did she marry into the Douglas camp, and yesterday was payday. She is nothing if not the prize company brood mare, birthing future company Douglases. And the part was a jewel: What actress doesn't dream of being in a film where she's in jail, but can still wear full hair and makeup?

While Zeta-Jones looked great in "Chicago" -- she's a nice, fulsome size -- looking at Renée Zellweger in a tiny little flapper dress is like looking at Iggy Pop in a tiny little flapper dress, only on Iggy it would at least be subversive, and therefore sexy. I don't want to see all of the divots in a woman's sternum when I am looking down her cleavage. Collarbones should not look like BMX handlebars. Legs, preferably, should lead to an ass. Preferably, somebody singing and dancing should be able to sing and dance. And she can't stop squinting. How the hell did Renée Zellweger get that role?

"Chicago," while fun and basically entertaining, really could have been great if it had been performed by actual pop-music-type people. Imagine the Catherine Zeta-Jones role performed by Madonna, and the Roxie Hart role performed by Christina Aguilera. How slick would that have been? How much better the singing and dancing? How much stronger the commentary on the fleeting nature of fame? Or what if they'd used an all-black cast of Alvin Ailey dancers, and made it a comment on the disproportionate number of black people in jail? As it was, "Chicago" was a lot like watching hammy girls enjoy themselves on karaoke night. The casting for that whole film felt like pact-with-the-devil-company-shit, and the devil, as we all know, is the blobular Harvey Weinstein, who, like the neighborhood mobster, seems to have Hollywood in a painful scrotum-hold. Please, Mr. Weinstein, have mercy ... Give the man his Oscars already, Paulie, for the love of God!

While the prosthetic nose was patently absurd (naturally, there are no homely actresses in the world, certainly none of any ability, no, we must use and uglify one of the world's most coddled beauties) Nicole Kidman, in "The Hours," came off like a very smart woman with superstrong chops and surprisingly candid depth. But she looked like a dreadful bimbo once she got up to take her trophy. Write a speech, ladies. When you don't, you look stupid. Nothing unravels the spell of an exceptional performance faster. "Um ... the world ... is ... in turmoil, and stuff ... and ... uh ... I'd like to thank Miramax ..."

Christ. In one dumb minute, she succeeded in reminding me that she was married to Tom Cruise for 10 years, a fact that I had blissfully forgotten in appreciation of her talent.

Who can get it up to enjoy the Oscars, if the Oscars can't get it up? There's so much cheap sentiment, so much hackery and political confusion. Billy Wilder is dead. Fifteen of our boys died in Iraq and 12 were taken as POWs while Catherine Zeta-Jones sang a duet with Queen Latifah that wasn't even in the film. One could barely ignore the dripping derision when Peter Jennings growled, "Now back to the Academy Awards," after the dismal newsbreak.

It's all about Miramax. Harvey Weinstein is probably producing the whole war. Osama bin Laden is probably hanging out in Palm Beach with Jon Bon Jovi, and Saddam Hussein and Don Rumsfeld probably play Grand Theft Auto III in the craft services tent at the end of every shooting day. For the 76th Oscars, maybe Hollywood will stop trying to accommodate the souring mood of the world and do what they are supposed to do: Wear Harry Winston chandeliers, show their shoes to Joan Rivers, wear push-up bras and Botox and Look Pretty. It's better, when you're ogling a beaver shot, not to have to think too much.

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