I might just be tempted to watch the Academy Awards this year. It’s no secret that last year’s broadcast was an abomination, absolutely boring, and unintentionally farcical. However, the decision a few months ago to hire Brett Ratner to produce the 2012 telecast and Eddie Murphy to host might have defied the assumption that “it can’t get any worse.”
Before jumping into the significance of Ratner’s “resignation” from the Academy awards, let’s take a brief look at his body of work: a filmography that includes Rush Hour and its two unsuccessful abortions, X-Men: The Last Stand, a film that blasphemed two of the more critically successful superhero flicks ever, Red Dragon, which somehow made Hannibal Lecter laughable, and the most recent flop Tower Heist.
Truthfully, it’s scary to imagine the contrived performances that would have come from Ratner’s brain trust, but it’s conceivable that they couldn’t be any better than cramming James Franco into a dress while Hathaway prances in a suit. Perhaps the silence between presenters would be filled with the re-emergence of Chris Tucker, or if he’s unavailable, someone else to regurgitate the tired, racial-epithet-filled gimmick that sucked 270 minutes from viewers’ lives.
If that were too controversial for ABC or AMPAS, perhaps time would be killed with extraneous clips of CGI that did little to entertain or move the broadcast along to another award, but served as various extended breaks in which to do anything but pay attention to the awards – or Kelsey Grammar walking on stage looking like a pervert who’s late for a Furry convention.
Ratner fans might say that, if all else failed, he could always rely on Eddie Murphy – the man who was funny twenty five years ago, but has spent the last two decades raking in dough as hyperbolic, unbelievable characters in children-targeted films. In all seriousness, there’s nothing wrong with children’s films, providing they don’t treat the children like morons. Unfortunately, most of Murphy’s films do as they attempt to generate laughs through redundant and predictable bodily-function-based jokes and images of the grotesque: the lethargic, obese, The Nutty Professor(s) and Norbit, the tiny urinated on Dave of Meet Dave, or the feces holding Doctor of Doctor Doolittle.
This is not to say that Murphy is untalented. He had his moments up to 1996 and even a moment or two after that (Life, Dreamgirls), but he’s mostly remembered for the aforementioned string of films and the voice of Donkey, a character who seems to work its way into each Murphy film after the release of 2001’s Shrek. (See Tower Heist’s “seizure boy” scene and tell me he’s not a candidate for an exorcism.)
To be fair, perhaps Murphy would have returned to his Beverly Hills Cop or Raw form for this year’s Oscars. Perhaps it would have been his resurgence and re-entrance into adult comedy and perhaps Ratner would have been lauded as the genius who cleansed our memories of last year’s telecast.
At the same time, how reasonable could this prediction be given Ratner’s assertion that “rehearsal is for fags”? This line ultimately got Ratner canned – er, impelled him to “resign” because of creative differences. From AMPAS’s standpoint, it’s clear that they wouldn’t want GLAAD – or any equal rights group / supporter for that matter – on their case and calling for a boycott of the telecast or, in a worst case scenario, Hollywood.
There’s no sense in arguing for the retention of Ratner, but doesn’t his statement ultimately prove that the Academy Awards were doomed to flop again with him at the helm? First of all, did he really need to confirm that he didn’t believe in rehearsal? (The evidence seems rather empirical given his canon.) Secondly, he’s completely delusional:
Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. But as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words. (EW)
Storyteller? Look, it’s one thing to lie about your exploits with Olivia Munn and brag about bagging Lindsey Lohan, but it’s quite another to purport that Rush Hour was anything more than an extended, obnoxious gimmick, Last Stand had an arc, or Tower Heist isn’t a third-rate rendition of Ocean’s Eleven.
In the end, AMPAS has lucked out here. Admittedly, I’m a little disappointed that the potential resurgence of funny Eddie Murphy seems doomed, but if he has that much loyalty to Ratner, then it seems more likely we’ll be touting the virtues of Chinese Democracy. Speaking of which, I bet Axl Rose is available. Hmmm…
