FOR those of you who have never actually sat up for Oscar night, one word of advice - don't. Don't try to make a night of it; don't ask friends around; don't load up with drinks and snacks for the occasion. Don't even bring the telly into the bedroom on the assumption that you'll drift off after the first hour.
The fact is that the 68th Academy Awards are guaranteed to be an event of such stunning ineptitude and mediocrity as to make the National Song Contest - minus Riverdance - look gripping. But they exert a strange, unhealthy fascination - once you, start, you can't stop until the Best Picture winner is announced and the milkman is at the door.
It's difficult to understand why the ceremony itself is so awful. After all, this is one of the most famous annual live events in the world, beamed from the heart of the global entertainment industry, produced in the town that has provided the most memorable singing and dancing experiences of the 20th century. The world's best aid most famous, most, glamorous, entertainers will gather in the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion for four hours to watch an event that wouldn't make it past the first round of Tops of the Towns.
The grim format is set in stone award followed by so called "musical number", followed by cheesy presenter, followed by award Sickly sweet Disney ballads are "interpreted" by troupes of mediocre dancers dressed as furry animals. Camera angles are invariably badly chosen, editing is out of kilter and there are always at least three major technical glitches. Just what the hell is going on here?
Admittedly, the Best Song nominations are hardly at the cutting edge of popular music - any musical competition involving Tim Rice and Sting could hardly claim that but the lacklustre routines manage the difficult feat of making the songs even more boring.
Part of the problem will be familiar to the afflicted souls who have sat up for the Superbowl, misled by highlights programmes in expecting a fast, exciting ball game, when what they get is three hours of ad breaks, punctuated by an hour of one sided football. In the same way, the Oscars go on for ever, with most of the decisions proving predictable and disappointing. But it comes as a surprise to find that the production values are so unremittingly, hilariously, sub RTE dreadful.
The 13 1/2 inch statuette has a terrifying, Jekyll and Hyde effect on its recipients. Take Tom Hanks - an actor who for many years - presented a pleasantly unassuming demeanour to the world until he got his hands on the thing and started gushing like a geyser about God and America. This sort of behaviour is what we all expect from the likes of Sally Field (whose "You do love me, you do! still ranks as the apogee of Oscars peak) but from Hanks it came as a body blow. Watching it, you knew this man would never again make a movie as good as Big.
OVER the years the strictures on acceptance speeches have grown tighter and lighter, leading to a gabbled list of Dad and Mom and wife and kids and producer. It's noticeable that God gets onto this select list more and more these days, though whether He inspired the original performance or helped rig the vote is unclear. It's a long way from the cool 1970s, when stars like Marlon Brando, George C Scott and Woody Allen didn't even bother to turn up for their awards.
We are assured that stars will stop at nothing in their determination to look at their glamorous best for the Big Night. For months beforehand they pummel and pumice their already pluperfect bodies, for, weeks they negotiate with the world's greatest couturiers about who gets the honour of draping them for the occasion. So why do so many of them look like trussed up, over basted turkeys on the night?
It's partly due to the brutal limitations of television technology - the burnished glow painstakingly achieved by cinematographers for movie, close ups is not achievable in overlit live TV. It's also due to the vagaries of Hollywood style, which often appears to operate in a parallel universe. At last year's ceremony, the women all seemed to have opted for cantilevered contraptions which pushed their busts up to somewhere near, their eyebrows (this led to disturbing dreams when I did finally get to bed).
There are bright point's this year, though. David Letterman has been unceremoniously dumped after last year's disastrously self indulgent performance, and Whoopi Goldberg takes over again as compere.
How Goldberg survives her second outing remains to be seen, the best compere of recent years was Billy Crystal, whose old style Borscht Belt wisecracking hit the right note amid all the self adoration.
So, if the whole experience is so dreadful, why will millions of Europeans (including me) be disrupting their biorhythms to stay up till 6 a.m. on Tuesday, when they can see the highlights at a civilised hour the following evening? It's not as if I really care that much who wins. I can, only describe it as a pasty habit. I've tried to shake it - last year I swore that I'd go to bed after the first hour. Four hours later I finally hit the zapper and discovered I'd turned into Forrest Gump. If life really is like a box of chocolates, then the Academy Awards are the televisual equivalent of a Heishey Bar - cheap, nasty and addictive. Just say "no".
