Free Republic

“So Let it be Written; So Let it be Done!” by Norma Zager If only I could get through one Oscar night without blubbering. There is always a winner that has just lost a parent, one who thanks a parent or spouse for their encouragement and love or another who recounts a story of suffering and anguish guaranteed to turn on the waterworks. Some watch the Oscars with a bowl of popcorn. I bring a box of Kleenex. Watching the Oscars this week, the tears really flowed. The capper of the evening for me was Steven Spielberg and his mother...

Rock's presence goosed the TV ratings a bit, but the long-term slide of the Academy Awards show mirrors the long-term slide of the movie industry itself. So did Williams resign from the show in protest? No, he went onstage with a piece of tape on his mouth, and then peeled it off, proceeding to play out the snipped-up script. Of course, everyone in the audience cheered Williams' pseudo-martrydom. In the words of Oscar observer Peggy Noonan, "false courage applauded by the falsely courageous." Indeed, the Academy Awards seemed to specialize in making political points in a politically correct code. The...

HALF THE PEOPLE in America yelled at me last week for having the gaucherie to say Chris Rock shouldn't host this year's Academy Awards ceremony. I hate to be stubborn about such pettiness, but I happen to be right about this. Consequently, this week's words are spent re-proving my point. The following quotations came from a show Mr. Rock gave in Harlem in 1999 called "Bigger and Blacker," as well as a different show he later gave in Washington, D.C., called "Never Scared." Both have appeared on HBO. Illustrating his clear and abiding opposition to racism, Rock said: "If you're...

They really should have known it wasn’t going to work out when he suggested that “Ellen DeGeneres has crabs.” Sentiments like that are never positive. Perhaps they also should have reviewed one of his lively comic routines before hiring him. Maybe then they would have learned that he’s a racist swine with a penchant for ideas that would make death row inmates blush. Abortion in America is “beautiful”? Not good. No serious person was really surprised to learn that Chris Rock believes only gays watch the Oscars. After his position on gay marriage was recently exposed—“f*** them fa**ots,” he explained...

Question: Elizabeth Taylor said she was going to make her "swan song" at this year's Academy Awards. Why didn't she show up? - Doris Friedman, Harrison, N.Y. Answer: "I was looking forward to the Oscars but decided at the last moment not to go," the 71 year old screen legend tells us. "I support our troops in Iraq, and I thought it inappropriate and disrespectful to celebrate while people were being killed."