Marty, Jerry bask in Oscar spotlight
NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – An Oscarcast first: the award show host (or in this case hostess) running a vacuum cleaner in the audience. As amusing as it was, DeGenerously speaking, it did take the glamour of the Oscars down a notch or two.
And if it seemed as if Jerry Seinfeld was maybe auditioning for a future Oscar host gig, fuggedaboudit. He’s been asked to do so by the Academy several times but has always said no. However, his time onstage as a presenter Sunday added such zing to the show that one hopes he’ll reconsider one of these years.
Vacuum cleaners aside, the night did deliver one of the all-time great Oscar moments: the sight of Martin Scorsese, at last an Oscar champ, standing onstage with Spielberg, Coppola and Lucas. Talk about a memorial photo op.
And although Oscar quibbling is a tradition in itself, one certainly can’t complain about a show that not only brings an Academy Award to Scorsese and such talented people as Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Alan Arkin, Jennifer Hudson, Sherry Lansing, Ennio Morricone and the others honored at Oscar’s 79th but also offers for any reason Catherine Deneuve.
One little post-Oscar cautionary tale for you winners: Enjoy your triumph to the fullest, but give a compassionate thought to some gents who celebrated with all their might back on April 14, 1969, when their movie “Young Americans” was named best documentary feature. It was a joyful time for producers Robert Cohn and Alex Grasshoff.
But on May 7, it was learned that “Americans” had first been shown in a theater in October 1967, which made the movie ineligible for consideration. Soon after, the fellows had to give back their beautiful, shiny Academy Award statuettes; on May 8, the first runner-up in that category, “Journey Into Self,” was declared the official winner.
It was, to say the least, a bummer for Cohn and Grasshoff but an unexpected and belated windfall for “Journey” producer Bill McGaw. Hiding your new Oscar, just in case, won’t help if that should happen to any of you Oscared on Sunday. But you can take comfort in the fact that such a kerfuffle has happened only once in the Academy’s 79-year past.
Philip Seymour Hoffman didn’t have time to linger in L.A. after being a presenter at the big O festivities. He’s already back in Manhattan for Tuesday night’s first preview of “Jack Goes Boating,” the new play he’s starring in for the Labyrinth Theater Company at the Public. It opens March 18.
Previews also begin Tuesday at the Al Hirschfeld on “Curtains,” the Kander & Ebb murder mystery satire with David Hyde Pierce and Debra Monk, which did a test run in Los Angeles. Its opening night is set for March 22. On Thursday, “Altar Boyz” at the Dodger Stages begins its third year off-Broadway.
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