IT’S hard to believe, but true: The Oscars can actually be funny.
Granted, out of three hours and 23 minutes, we’re talking about all of three minutes.
But what a three minutes it was!
Yes, we’re talking about giant-bearded, gum-smacking, sunglasses-donning Ben Stiller, who – along with straight-woman Natalie Portman – provided the most laugh-out-loud hilarity of Sunday night as they parodied
wastoid, and possibly master prankster, Joaquin Phoenix on the talk-show circuit.
For film nerds, please note: Stiller and Portman were possibly taking a cue from the previous night’s Independent Spirit Awards, which featured Steve Coogan as an angry Christian Bale and Frank Coraci acting as a seemingly strung-out Phoenix.
But Stiller’s bit last night? Way, way funnier.
“Certainly, Ben Stiller is one of the funniest guys in Hollywood,” acknowledges Martin Grove, columnist for Hollywood Reporter online. “Where Oscar gets into trouble is where Oscar has people who aren’t funny reading lines on the teleprompter that are meant to be funny.”
And while previous years had funny hosts such as Jon Stewart and Whoopi Goldberg providing built-in comic relief, audiences this year were perhaps even more laugh-starved than usual.
Best moment for Portman in the entire bit? Her line to Stiller: “You look like you work at a Hasidic meth lab.” And for Stiller? Taking his gum out and sticking it on the podium a la off-the-rocker Phoenix on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
Oh, and P.S.: How sweet was it that Letterman, who famously struck out as Oscar host years ago, ended up providing fodder for the funniest bit of the entire night?
“Sadly, one of the things we can’t do today is put together a Top 10 list of the funniest moments,” Grove says of the awards show. “Because I don’t think there were 10.”
Which is all the more reason why haters who say Stiller went too far in parodying poor Phoenix can, as Tina Fey might say: “suck it.”
“You can’t do that kind of comedy and worry about going too far,” says Grove.
“If you hold back, what you wind up doing is taking out the funniest essence. Plus, there’s a school of thought that if some people aren’t offended, it didn’t work.”