I Thought White Chicks Was Robbed, Too

Apparently, Tom Shales didn't like Chris Rock's performance at the Oscars...

Chris Rock jokingly welcomed viewers to "the 77th, and last, Academy Awards" last night but this Oscar show, nervously televised from Hollywood on ABC, will more likely turn out to be the first, and last, to be hosted by Rock. Though a brilliant and caustic stand-up comedian, Rock's stint as an Oscar host was strangely lame and mean-spirited.

...But the only real controversy generated by Rock came during a so-so monologue in which he insulted several actors, Jude Law among them, as being small-timers who got parts only when better actors were unavailable. Rock had also pre-taped a peculiar bit of man-on-the-street comedy in which a collection of Hollywood moviegoers, most of them African American, said they hadn't seen or even heard of many of this year's nominated films. It was unclear if this routine was some sort of commentary on racism or a gratuitous slap at Hollywood, but either option is hardly encouraging.

Shales (as he has in the past) missed the boat. Rock made an otherwise pathetic show watchable.

My biggest problem with Hollywood, as well as awards shows in general, is that the industry generally gathers to heap praise on one another, joke about the outside world and congratulate one another on how special they are. The preening and self-adulation deserves to be mocked, and Rock mocked it beautifully.

The bit at the Magic Johnson Theater could have been out of Chappelle's Show, and was nothing short of brilliant, including the cameos by Albert Brooks and Martin Lawrence. Hollywood should realize that there's a huge segment of America that hasn't seen Million Dollar Baby, won't see Million Dollar Baby, and still knows every line from White Chicks.

I loved the bit about Jude Law and how there are only "four" great actors in Hollywood. Rock wasn't dissing Law anymore than he mocked himself seconds later by noting that if a movie executive wants Denzel Washington for a part, they shouldn't settle for Chris Rock. Rock was hammering Hollywood for its penchant for pretending that certain actors are great actors and huge stars. Hey, I like Jude Law as an actor, but how many Americans know the difference between him and Jake Gylenhaal? Besides, if Rock had substituted "Ben Affleck" for Law, even Sean Penn would have trouble objecting.

And that might have been the funniest part of the evening for me. Sean Penn, the Town Jester of Baghdad, was giving one of the awards last night and stopped to chastise Rock by noting that he disagreed with the host and that Jude Law was a tremendous actor. The idiot didn't get it (and neither does Shales) -- what Rock was asking these pretentious schmucks to do was laugh at themselves, and they missed the joke. Sean, you're a freaking actor -- what you do for a living is not so serious that we can't mock Jude Law, or you, or the rest of the assemblage. After all, the folks in that theater were laughing like crazy when Rock threw jibes at President Bush. After President Bush, is Jude Law immune?

I hope Rock gets the job next year. If not him, let Dennis Miller host -- then we'd get the joy of watching Sean Penn's head explode as he tried to understand whether Jude Law was insulted.