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M O N D AY, F E B R U A RY 2 6 , 2 0 0 7Oh, OscarNo, no, no. Pilobolus was not the low point of the evening. It was theHIGH point of the evening. (Perhaps literally.) No other event ofsimilar proportions manages to come up with bizarre, unexpected,laughably awful touches as consistently as the Academy Awards.Nothing in our lifetimes will ever match the surreal spectacle of RobLowe dueting with Snow White on "Proud Mary" amidst dancing,twirling tables, of course. But what was producer Laura Ziskin smokingwhen she decided to invite Pilobolus to the show? How did such athought even begin to occur to her? Hmm, how can we recreate thelogos from those movie posters? Where can we work in someinterpretive dance? Don't you just love shadow puppetry?In any case, Pilobolus had my Oscar party laughing and shaking theirheads, guessing the shapes Pilobolus would attempt, delivering mockapplause and shaking their heads in delighted confusion over the entireridiculous spectacle. Nothing makes Oscar as compulsively watchableas absurd moments like that.THE PRE-SHOW -- It's an all-day affair and I didn't even watchBarbara Walters on DVR. But the highlight of the coverage I did seewas the sad spectacle of Jennifer Holliday belting out "And I AmTelling You I'm Not Going" for E! They gave her a nice buildup, with astory about Holliday being bankrupt and attempting suicide just a fewyears after "Dreamgirls" ended its run on Broadway. And her actualsinging was good, though Holliday has performed the song so manytimes that she's added in grunts and groans and other tics that at timesalmost make it unrecognizable. But the staging of it was strange andsad. There was Holliday standing on top of a local hotel in LA, aloneexcept for a cameraman or two and the backing tracks. Down on thestreet below her were some people, most of whom seemed unaware shewas singing. For lengthy stretches of the song, the camera would pullfar away from Holliday, showing her tiny and alone. At another point,while Holliday was belting out the fact that she refused to go away, wesaw people streaming onto the red carpet, making her isolation fromthe real event all the more poignant and Norma Desmond-like. RyanSeacrest gave her a few more moments in the spotlight after the songthat restored her dignity somewhat but it was an unintentionallyNext Blog»sal1mineo@hotmail.comSEARCH BLOG FLAG BLOGFOLLOW BLOGP O P S U R F I N G . C O MS U R F I N G T H E WAV E S O F P O P U L A R C U LT U R EB Y M I C H A E L G I LT Z & F R I E N D SPOPSURFING.COM: Oh, Oscarhttp://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2007/02/oh-oscar.html
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POPSURFING.COM: Oh, Oscarhttp://popsurfing.blogspot.com/2007/02/oh-oscar.html
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