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"I'm F*ck*ng Matt Damon" is the Media Smash of the Season
Last Updated: March 21, 2008 at 09:41 PM GMT By Ed Martin Say this for the Oscar telecast: At three hours and twenty minutes, it was one of the shortest in recent memory. Given the pervasive lack of enthusiasm and emotional connection between most of the nominated movies and the television audience, a ceremony stretching four hours or longer would have been a disaster.
And say this for ABC: The network served up one of the funniest things I have seen on television this year -- and created an Internet sensation in the process. It came during the special telecast of Jimmy Kimmel Live that followed the Academy Awards, but it featured enough star wattage to rival the Oscar show itself. Responding to a recent raunchy and riotous video produced by and starring his girlfriend Sarah Silverman titled I'm F*ck*ng Matt Damon (featuring one of the most ingratiating performances of Damon's career), Kimmel unveiled his own instant masterpiece, I'm F*ck*ng Ben Affleck (featuring one of the wildest performances of Affleck's career).
I'm F*ck*ng Ben Affleck included brilliantly funny appearances by no less than Brad Pitt, Robin Williams, Cameron Diaz and especially Harrison Ford (who knew?) and Josh Groban (the funniest of them all and, again, who woulda' thunk it?). What a smart, clever, entertaining piece of work. Like the Emmy-winning Saturday Night Live digital gem D*ck in a Box, Silverman's and Kimmel's F*ck*ng shorts are as funny as they are and build such powerful comic momentum throughout because the bad words are beeped and the naughty bits are blurred.
Here's a sentence I never thought I would write: Maybe Jimmy Kimmel and His Superstar Friends should host next year's Oscar ceremony!
As for the Academy Awards telecast, although it wasn't one for the history books there was nothing at all disastrous about it, except for someone's decision to rudely cut the microphone on Marketa Irglova, one of the two winners for Best Original Song (Falling Slowly from Once). While I continue to believe that this is a category best deleted from Oscar consideration – one frequently filled with silly choices that cheapen the Awards and consume entirely too much time during the actual ceremony – one of the best moments at this year's event came when host Jon Stewart brought Irglova back on stage after the break to make her brief acceptance speech.
On that subject, the other best moments of this year's Awards were the acceptance speeches, all of them short, most of them engaging – especially those by the winning actors. Javier Bardem and Marion Cotillard were joyful and touching in their expressions of appreciation for the extraordinary honors they received. Daniel Day-Lewis was a distinctive class act, acknowledging his grandfather and father. Tilda Swinton offered what may have been the most entertaining star turn of the night, dryly ribbing her Michael Clayton producer and co-star George Clooney about his starring role in Batman & Robin, recalling how he would squeeze into the bat-suit and hang upside down at lunch. She also said she would give her Oscar to her agent who, she explained, looks very much like the actual statuette, from his head to his buttocks. The disarming Swinton clearly hears her own music wherever she goes.
Regarding Jon Stewart, back for his second gig as Oscar host, I had the same response watching him work the imposing Kodak Theatre that I had two years ago, and also in 2001 and 2002 when he hosted the Grammy Awards at the canyon-sized Staples Center – his humor is somewhat dwarfed in a cavernous room. Stewart is a clever, thoughtful, wry guy who easily fills a television screen when he is seated behind a talk show desk (or in the guest's seat) and effortlessly commands an audience in a club-like setting. But he is not larger than life, as an effective Oscar host must be, given the scope of the occasion. (I did enjoy his riff about watching movies on iPods, and I thought his Wii moment in front of a huge screen on the Kodak stage was the top visual of the night.)
The accelerated clips of previous winners that preceded the major categories were a nice touch – in fact, I would have preferred that each little clip had run a few seconds longer, as the sense of history within them deserved more than a fast flash. That said, it was surprising that the Academy did so little to mark the historic occasion of its 80th anniversary. In my previous professional life I worked as a celebrity usher at the Academy Awards at the time of their 60th anniversary and I was on stage (though behind the curtain) when the producers tried something truly special that year. So what if it was the memorably disastrous performance by Rob Lowe and Snow White? People weren't bored, and everybody was talking about it. They still do from time to time!
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