Oh, Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. How could you do this to me? For weeks — weeks — leading up to the Oscars, I despaired. I agonized. I lay, sleepless, staring at the ceiling, wondering how I would describe you. The emerging-from-your-jar-of-formaldehyde joke? Used it. The beef jerky comparison? Done to death. I racked my brain for fresh new ways to mock your omnipresent sunglasses, in vain; I tossed and turned and considered not writing an Academy Award column at all, sure that I would never come up with a sufficiently inventive way to describe the trademark desiccated Nicholson sleaziness. Then, late one night, I hit upon it: hummus left out overnight! It’s dark beige and crusty, just like you! It’s a formerly appetizing dish rendered revolting by age, just like you! I decided to forge ahead with an Oscars piece after all — and then you didn’t show up! Damn you, Fusty Hummus! And Fusty Baba Ghannouj (a.k.a. Warren “The Rambler” Beatty) didn’t show up either! I’ve got nothing here!

And I really don’t. Sure, people looked terrible, and ridiculous, and suddenly terribly old, but nobody really defined the terrible or ridiculous or suddenly terribly old genres this year. Okay, Jennifer Lopez’s dress confirmed that there’s no sartorial low to which she won’t stoop (as well as substantiating reports that the Shrine Auditorium gets rather chilly), but compared with the Versace bathrobe-cum-Post-It-glue she wore to the Grammies, last night’s outfit seemed quite tasteful. And yes, Björk wore a waterfowl. It’s Björk. She has to wear a waterfowl. It’s, like, a law of nature. Judi Dench busted out the butt-chest look again? Shrug. Winona Ryder looked like a rained-on Linzer torte? Yawn. James Coburn alone made me shudder away from the screen in disgust, and that’s only because Maggie’s husband Mick suggested that Coburn recreate the role of the streaker from the 1974 ceremony, and every time the camera cut away to Coburn for the rest of the evening, I pictured him naked, snow-white pubes whipping in the air-conditioned breeze, and Wing Chun had to fetch the smelling salts. But other than that, nobody really plumbed the depths of vulgarity this time around.

With that said…I do need to address a few remarks to the men of Hollywood. First of all, I know I decried the black-on-black-on-black-is-the-new-black trend of the past few years, and I stand by that; it’s a formal event, not a night at the social club on Mott Street. But I’d eat every word of that criticism if it meant that I’d never again have to see the tortured spawn of formalwear and Hee Haw sported by Tinseltown’s menfolk last night. Almost every male nominee looked like an 1880s gold-rush card sharp, and it’s not a look most of them can pull off. I know that the tuxedo doesn’t allow for much in the way of personal fashion statements, but it’s not like we sit at home like, “Who’s that, Samuel L. Jackson?” “No, no, no, he’s in a patterned vest. That’s Nick Nolte.” Come on. If you got an invitation to the Oscars, we know what you look like, so you can calm down with the kooky tux variations. The set of Bonanza: Back In The Saddle is thattaway.

And I know I’ve said this before, but…combs. Razors. Easily available. Eminently usable. Yeah, yeah, it’s Hollywood, artists need to express themselves, blah blah blah, but it’s the biggest industry event of the year, watched by 800 million people around the world, with a date set months in advance. I think it’s safe to assume that Joaquin Phoenix had the date marked on his calendar back in February, so there’s really no excuse for him not to have combed his hair. I think Ben Stiller probably knew what he’d be doing on March 25th, so there’s really no excuse for him not to have shaved. It is a formal event. Your attire should not appear slept in. You need to shower, and to shave, and to coif yourself using something other than a fan set on “high.” And the same goes for the women. Yeah, Amy Madigan? You can either not clap for Elia Kazan like a big pretentious baby, or you can get a bad perm that makes you look like a Sheboygan housewife and let it air-dry, but not both. Sarah Jessica Parker? You can pin one of the weighted donuts baseball players put on their bats to warm up onto the top of your head, or you can wear a too-short Guns-‘n’-Roses-video “dress” to present an award, but not both. If you want to hop a limo to the Seaside Heights boardwalk after the festivities, that’s your business, but it’s the Oscars, not a frat party on 90210. Dress the part.

One other thing. There’s a very short list of colors that fair-skinned blondes can’t wear at all, and it looks like this:

1. Orange
2. Yellow.

Renee Zellweger, please tape this to your refrigerator so that you can refer to it next year, along with that note from your publicist begging you to lay off the Southern Comfort while you get dressed. And speaking of clip ‘n’ saves, here’s one for the older gentlemen who attend the Academy Awards. You can either print it, cut it out, and tape it to your dressing-table mirror, or you can memorize it and repeat it as a daily affirmation, but you’ve got to learn that that Quentin Crisp-y old-man’s-red hair dye you all use to cover the gray only heightens the sense of ancient dissipation, and does the exact opposite of fool anyone. Michael Douglas, this means you.

But we’ve all grown accustomed to these offenses against taste. When Tom Cruise clomps out to the podium wearing four-inch platforms, much like the ones on the twerpy guy with the cork wedgies who got his girlfriend pregnant and then hurled himself off of the Brooklyn Bridge in Saturday Night Fever, we barely even notice. We scarcely register any surprise upon finding out that Meg Tilly is, in fact, still alive. Nic Cage’s slow transformation into the missing link has long since ceased to amuse and delight. Bob Dylan’s hair snagged the Oscar for Best Performance In A Topiary Role…again. Russell Crowe looked dour and humorless…again…and just what does it take to get a chuckle out of that guy, anyway — nitrous oxide? You’d think a guy who had Jerry Lee Lewis do his hair would crack a smile now and then, but not Goodness Gracious Great Balls Of Fire My Stylist, ohhhh no; he just sat there chomping on about sixteen pieces of Nicorette and buffing the Croix Du Témoin Matériel Dans Un Divorce De Hollywood pinned so ostentatiously to his lapel while Meg Ryan knocked back the last inch of a bottle of Old Granddad and wailed into her pillow, “My husband is dancing on the bar at Hogs & Heifers and my ex-boyfriend thinks he’s Sheriff Pat Garrett — SOMEONE KILL ME!” Russell Crowe is a good-looking guy, no doubt, but he starred in Mystery, Alaska, so he’d better learn to laugh at himself; after that story about him calling out his own name during sex started circulating, god knows the rest of us did.

The peanut gallery greeted Crowe’s glum reaction shots with weary cries of “get over yourself,” a sentiment frequently voiced at Oscar time. “It’s just a movie.” “Nobody’s curing cancer.” Well, yes. But if you’ve ever participated in the making of a movie, even tangentially, or read a book about the making of a movie — The Devil’s Candy, say, or Killer Instincts — you know that it’s a huge job to make a movie. It’s an enormous, complicated undertaking, and it’s a small miracle that it gets done at all, but when it’s done well — when everything comes together, when everyone from the lead actor to the assistant cameraman brings his best game — it can transport us. As a group approach to great art, a film is often a crapshoot, but when it works, it’s still great art, and that’s not unimportant in the grand scheme of things. So it’s a pity that Gladiator took home Best Picture, because it’s not great art. It’s a lavishly funded B-movie. I didn’t dislike it, but the pacing is off, the “love story” is trite, and the special effects didn’t get it done, and while it had its moments — the twinkling beauty of the Roman front’s volley of fire viewed from a distance, for example — it’s like Titanic: impressive in scale, merely average in execution. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, on the other hand, is great art. The film looks beautiful. It makes no assumptions about anything and takes nothing for granted. It trusts the audience to keep up and rewards us with an achingly lovely ballet composed of equal parts Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Fantasia. It’s crisp and elegant, but dense and deeply felt also. I felt disappointed when it ended, disappointed that it didn’t go on longer. That’s great art. I wish it had won Best Picture.

And I wish Laura Linney had won Best Actress for You Can Count On Me — and if there’s an Academy Awards outrage this year, it’s that Mark Ruffalo got overlooked for a Best Actor nomination — but she didn’t, and I don’t have a problem with the woman who did. Given that one of my first essays in this space vilified her very existence, it pains me to admit it, but admit it I must: Julia Roberts is slowly but surely winning me over. It started when I read an interview with her and Brad Pitt in Entertainment Weekly. They’d sat down with a reporter to publicize The Mexican, and I found myself laughing at some of Julia’s comments. She seemed…smart. And nice. And down to earth. And then I watched Erin Brockovich, and I really liked it, and her in it. It’s not a flawless film by any means, and I still don’t know that she’s got much range, but Julia tore into that role like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. She owned it. I knew I’d gotten manipulated, but I didn’t care. When she snarled, “Bite me, Krispy Kreme,” at Conchata Ferrell, I giggled. Then I thought, “What’s happening to me? I should hate this movie. I want to hate this movie. I don’t hate this movie. And I don’t hate Julia Roberts right now.” And then she won and gave her little speech where she told “the stick man” not to tell her to shut up, and then she went to meet the press, and she kept laughing happily and cracking jokes and beaming at people with her forty-eight thousand teeth, and it occurred to me that, although I despise most of her movies and think she should try to get off the chick-flick train while she still can, I’d probably like her if we ever met in real life. She comes off like kind of a cool girl. So, consider my official position on Julia reversed. She’s not Meryl Streep, but she can stay.

And that’s my take on the Oscars this year, folks. It’s not much, but they didn’t give me much to work with. When the best line I can come up with involves speculating on whether “I left my tuxedo in Nova Scotia” is a euphemism for something, it’s a slow night. See you next year.

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