Kanye West: A-hole extraordinaire!

OK, normally MTV’s Video Music Awards are totally fast-forwardable. Overlong, boring and packed to the gills with live performances by people who Christine and I can’t stand — last year offered us the Jonas Brothers and Lil’ Wayne, nuff said — but as you can tell from my previous post, this year, the show was kind of insanely watchable. Emphasis on the insane!

Host Russell Brand was almost as cheeky and hilarious as he was last year, and the opening tribute to Michael Jackson was very cool, even if Madonna got a little Madge-centric sometimes in her speech. I mean, come on, your worst review for “Swept Away” was better than whole years of Jackson’s life, so, stop with the comparisons already…

But the real fireworks last night came when Kayne West interrupted Taylor Swift’s sweet-ass acceptance speech to tell the crowd that he thought Beyoncé should have won instead.

Yep, the man who famously said that George Bush hates black people and gets all bent out of shape when he doesn’t take home enough gold at award shows is judging the winners and losers in categories he’s not even eligible for! WTF?!

Sorry, dude, I’ve seen every video in that category and Taylor Swift’s was the best in the bunch. The song rocked, the video told a story (shocking, I know, in today’s boring-ass video age) and it looked great. What else is there?

And honestly, whether you liked her video or not, for you to interrupt Ms. Swift’s speech like that to tell the world that she didn’t deserve the award she’d just won was just plain shitty. And on live TV no less? Yikes, ain’t no half-ass apology gonna make up for that shit…

I mean, seriously, you can make fun of George Bush and you can act like an egotistical prick all you want, but you verbally beat down America’s Sweetheart on national TV…well, that shit’s gonna haunt you.

Have a nice life, a-hole!

Wolverine at the Oscars…

OK, I know this mini-review of the big night is a couple of days too late, but I gotta say that, surprisingly, Hugh Jackman did not totally suck as host of the Oscars. The opening number was actually pretty funny and he tried his damnedest to keep a very bloated telecast light and lively, but, any way you look at it, that second big dance number was a total train wreck.

First off, Beyoncé needs to simmer. Seriously, she should go into hiding for the rest of the year, America has had enough of her. And if the bitch sings “At Last” one more time, I swear to God, Etta James is gonna have to get in line to beat her down. Enough with that already! Yikes…

The most annoying  thing about that colosally over-produced number — aside from the fact that it serves as further proof that Baz Luhrmann has just plain lost his mind — was that most of the songs they “celebrated” were never even nominated for Oscars. So, what was the whole thing about? The return of the musical? What, because there were three big musicals released last year? Please…that was such a stretch.

I was also really annoyed with the clips they played this year too, those comedy and action scenes were kinda cool, but, seriously, sometimes it felt like we were watching the freaking MTV Movie Awards: “And now, Will Smith will present the award for Best Kiss.” Y’all are the Oscars, OK? You do not need to pander to kids with a bunch of clips from movies that most of your craggy-old membership has never even seen. Aside from being a total time-filler, it’s just lame…

And though I am so down with most of the winners — especially all the Oscar gold for “Slumdog” and the “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto” quoting Japanese dude! — I have to admit that those creepy induction ceremonies with the past acting winners were just plain scary. Yes, it was great to see some of the old timers out there onstage, but, wow…that whole circle of five shit was freaky.

We kept joking that they were gonna give the winner a chalice of blood to drink from at the end of it all: “Welcome to the club. Now drink from the blood of Oscar and live forever…” Ahh!

Of course, being the Oscar nerd that I am, I went back later and re-watched each of the acting award presentations to see if maybe I missed something. I mean, were we just overreacting when we laughed through most of them? And guess what, we weren’t. That shit was crazy. Well-intentioned and very sweet sometimes, but still straight-up crazy.

I’ll write another post soon about the super cool Oscar-themed food we had at our party, but for now, here’s hoping the Academy works out the major kinks from this year’s show in time for next year’s bash.

Oh yeah, and I HATED the Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix bit. I think Stiller stopped being funny like, ten years ago, but when he kept on mugging for the cameras as the clips from the nominated films played behind him, seriously, I wanted to kill the dude. That is just plain rude, man. Even hot-ass co-presenter, Queen Amidala, looked embarrassed…

But like I said, overall, a pretty decent show. I was pleased. Dying to hear what you guys thought of the big night, so comment away…