Ever miss those wild and crazy Oscar moments?

And so the sun has set on another night of Oscars.  No ostrich-feathered headdresses, no backwards tuxedos, nobody in drag.  Yes, we had Sacha Baron Cohen doing a pseudo-scandalous little red carpet promo for his upcoming film “The Dictator,” spilling the “ashes” of Kim Jung-Il on Ryan Seacrest, but it was a staged effort to build some buzz for his film.  

Bjork's Oscar swan song

It didn’t have the effortless grace of Bjork (rhymes with “jerk,” don’t forget) floating in a white tutu accessorized with a stuffed swan head.

I was hoping Brad Pitt would streak across the stage as much as the next person.  But it seems that the Oscars has become too formulaic, perhaps overly controlled and rehearsed in some way, for anything wild and crazy to happen anymore.  Now the stylists have made it impossible for celebrities to pull off an “I-did-it-all-by-myself” fashion train wreck.  The celebrities used to trumpet self-righteous political speeches left and right (well, let’s face it, mostly left) when accepting their awards.  

Bob Mackie made Cher look like the Black Swan does Vegas.  It was fun!

Brett Ratner, famous for liking
fast cars and faster women

If Hollywood bad boy Brett Ratner had produced as originally planned, I’m sure he would have worked in some big explosions and car chases.  He would have made the nominees battle it out for the awards, like real superheroes.  I would have loved to see the Iron Lady, Meryl Streep, dressed as a female version of Iron Man.  She would have jet-packed her way through the auditorium, fighting to the finish with Viola Davis, who would be dressed perhaps as Storm from X-Men.

And pole dancers instead of Cirque du Soleil of course.  

But Ratner revealed his true colors when he dropped an anti-gay slur at a post-screening Q&A session.  He was fired from the Oscars, rightly so, and now he’s trying to backpedal by tweeting sickly sweet messages to those he offended.  Thus we’ll never witness the spectacular Oscars shake-up Ratner would have delivered.  He probably wouldn’t have even wanted to call them Oscars anymore.  A name like Magneto is much cooler.

Nostalgia was in the air at the Oscars this year.  But I didn’t mind.  In fact, I loved it.  I like remembering that movies are, as Barbra Streisand put it, where we go to dream.

Rumor has it that Billy Crystal keeps a toothbrush in his pocket while hosting the Oscars, because he used to pretend that his toothbrush was an Oscar in front of his bathroom mirror.  Billy, I have bad news.  You’re probably never going to get that Oscar.  But a toothbrush is so much better than an Oscar.  I mean, you can’t use an Oscar three times a day.  Right?