Tomorrow the Oscars will be handed out in Hollywood. I thought I’d honor the event with a bit of the red carpet myself. Granted, while the red is there, there is no carpet in sight. But who’s to complain? Besides that ass is award worthy in its own right. And of far more interest than the celebrities who will be lining up to walk the red carpet tomorrow on their way into the ceremonies; most of whom will discover that they aren’t quite as good as they thought they were. If more of the actors with their beard du jour would dress like this, we wouldn’t have to listen to Joan Rivers ask from behind the mask she’s paid thousands for, “And who are you wearing?”

That could become a new Hollywood tradition. Finding out who Tom Cruise is wearing on his ass each year is something we all could look forward to. As for the fish, who cares? If you ever thought gay men don’t really hate women, the gowns they create for Hollywood’s hottest should dissuade you of that belief. I don’t find Nicole Kidman the least bit attractive, but do have to admit she is statuesque and might have a nice body. Designers evidently think differently. Or maybe they are just pissed at her for giving Tom an excuse for so many years. Regardless, whatever she’ll be wearing tomorrow will make her look worse than Courtney Love on crack. Or maybe that’s Courtney Love when she’s hasn’t had a hit of crack within the last 15 minutes.

The ladies all try to outdo each other for the Oscars, and most fail miserably at the job. Except Helen Mirren. Amazing that someone in her 80s can pull off looking beautiful and sensual while the starlets in their 20s all end up looking like skanks. I guess you can take the girl off of the casting couch, but can’t take the casting couch out of the girl.

Last year the Academy decided to reinvent itself and attempted a make-over to appear to be young and hip. I think they went to Joan for advice; they were no more successful than her latest face lift. But to give her credit, she is starting to look an awfully like Oscar himself. Both the little gold statute and Walter Matthau. So we got James Franco and some fish as hosts and James was too stoned to do much other than grin throughout the show. But grinning is what James does best. That and trying to make everyone think he’s straight and just acts gay. The Academy’s attempt at the young and hip thingy didn’t work, and it was embarrassing listening to the fish host repeatedly tell everyone how young and hip the ceremony had become. Someone should have clued the writers into the fact that ‘hip’ went out of use in the late 60s.

Billy Crystal is hosting this year. Nice to know he is, presumably, still alive. Even if his career isn’t. And nice to know the Academy has gone back to old and staid. They evidently went back to Billy because of his cutting edge humor. The dude is so hip. I don’t understand how an award show that honors the best and brightest of Hollywood can be so bad, but they do it well. That fat freak who writes the show hasn’t managed to come up with a funny line in all the years he has been doing it, but they keep giving him the job anyway. His jokes are not funny, watching the stars who have to mouth them, and their reaction to the bad material can be though.

The Oscars want to be edgy like the Golden Globes. I’m not sure just how edgy the Golden Globes are considering they bleeped Meryl Streep this year for saying, “Oh, shit I forgot my glasses.” I mean, really? Meryl Streep could fart in the microphone and they should just hand her another award. She is, of course, up for an Oscar again this year. She usually wins, but not always. When she doesn’t, I feel bad for whatever actress wins instead because her achievement is quickly forgotten and those who did remember she won walk around saying, “Yeah, but you know Meryl should have won.”

Angelina Jolie will win this year fro best performance by an anorexic. Good for Angie. The Academy has treated her badly in the past. She won once for Girl Interrupted, and then since no one did, decided to indulge in a bit of incest with her brother on camera. Since then she only gets to be a bridesmaid. And that’s only because the voters know how badly that pisses off Jennifer Aniston. If the Academy would embrace it’s bitchiness instead of trying to be what it ain’t, the show would be more enjoyable to watch. When Angie is up for something, they shouldn’t throw the camera to her, they should throw it to Jen so we can all laugh.

For years now when someone makes a slightly racist joke, all in good fun of course, the camera zooms in on a black actor or actress who has been cued to laugh so the audience knows it’s okay. I was watching some black comedian on TV recently and he told some white jokes. And sure enough, the camera zoomed in on a few white faces to show that they thought his racism was funny too. Equality between the races may not be here yet, but that Hollywood feels the need to show that white people are not offended over jokes about them shows you how far we’ve come. They’ve even done the same with gay jokes, though it is more difficult for the director to cut to gay guys laughing because he has to remember which are out and which are not officially gay yet. I think they should always cut to Tom, regardless. Unless Taylor Lautner is in the audience.

Even though they have been televising the Academy Awards for 58 years now, every year the show runs long. There is no excuse for that. There is also no excuse for a three and a half hour show, or for making us sit through the presentation of awards for crap we don’t care about. Like cinematography and art direction. The opening numbers always suck; they should have quit with Rob Lowe’s molestation of Snow White ‘cuz they’ll never top that. Elton John doing a duet with that little gay white rapper was interesting a few years ago, but otherwise the songs all suck too, so cut them.

We don’t need to hear jack about the accounting firm who tallies the votes, and we all get the importance of sound editing so quit with the cute little ‘world without sound’ skits too. In fact, no one is interested in anything other than the top acting and best movie awards. Since everything else is filler they could get rid of most of it. Then the winners could give whatever speech they want instead of the music being cued 45 seconds later.

Prior to 2010, they let the winners ramble on. They devised the sound cue because they said ‘the single most hated thing on the show’ were overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion. Wrong. The embarrassing moments are what we tune in to see. Jack Palance doing one-arm pushups, Sally Fields demonstration of how utterly uncool she is, Tom Hanks outing his high school acting teacher, James Cameron thinking he was Leo DiCaprio . . . these are what we live to see. And Gwyneth Paltrow teary, snot running down her face speech was not only stomach churning but should have tipped us all off to that she was in fact the only person on the planet smarmy enough to enjoy Cold Play.

Nothing will clear a room quicker than, “Oh, Gwyneth and Chris are dropping by.” Except perhaps for “Oh, Gwyneth and Chris are dropping by to sing tonight.”

I can’t tell you who will be the worst dressed at the Academy Awards this year but can tell you the competition will be fierce. As for the actual statues, I’ll save you from having to watch and tell you who will win now:

Best Actor:
This award should go to George Clooney because he is better looking than Brad Pitt. And all the others up for that award are foreigners. They have a category for non-Americans, they don’t need to waste a little gold guy on someone from beyond our borders.

Best Actress:
Uh, duh: Meryl. But they may give it to Michelle Williams in an sympathetic nod to Whitney by honoring some other dead drugged out celebrity.

Best Supporting Actress:
No one has ever heard of any of the actresses up for the ‘wasn’t the star’ award, so they’ll give it to one of the two from The Help. Doesn’t matter which, it’s the annual give-me to a black person and no one knows which which of them is. In fact, they could give it to that fat kid who won for Precious and no one would be any wiser.

Best Supporting Actor:
This is the annual ‘never will be a star’ award that has been won by some of Hollywood’s most forgettable actors in the past. It should go to Jonah Hill because he’s the only nominee under 90. But I’ll go with Christopher Plummer ‘cuz its become fashionable to give an Oscar to any actor brave enough to take on a gay role. Unless he is gay. Then it’s not acting.

Best Director:
With Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen both nominated in this category, the rest of the filed can skip the ceremony and watch from the comfort of their homes. I’m not really a Woody fan, but Martin needs to be sent a clear message that his milieu is blood and death and we won’t stand for any more of this animated kiddie flick crap. If De Niro can’t be worked into your movie Martin, just don’t do it.

Best Picture:
I’m torn between Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. But neither got the Oscar nod because they had to limit nominations to only 10% of the movies made last year. So they came up with nine flicks to choose from, three feel-good movies, three tear-jerkers, one ‘black’ film (‘cuz you have to nominate any film filled with black characters that isn’t a Tyler Perry flick), and two movies no one has ever heard of much less seen. The Artist will win. Because nothing shows the Academy is young and hip like giving the Best Picture award to a movie filmed in black and white.