This Sunday at 8 p.m. I’ll be on the couch with my Cokes and snacks and wife and dogs and blanket, fortified and comfortable and ready to watch the 76th Academy Awards, because “The Simpsons” won’t be on.
They’re fun to watch anyway. Sure, they stretch on and on, and the right people never win, and by the fourth hour even genial host Billy Crystal looks like he’s ready to just start pitching Oscars out into the crowd to speed things up, but I love ’em. Where else can you see action heroes, romantic leads, glamorous leading ladies, and perky ingenues act just as neurotic and fidgety as the rest of us?
Besides, this year I’ve got a dog in the race. Most years I’m indifferent to the nominations since a little naked guy statue won’t change how I feel about a movie. I watch to see the winners pee themselves with happiness and cry all over the podium while they try to remember their mother’s name. But for the first time ever Johnny Depp has been nominated for Best Actor, and I want him to win, for all sorts of reasons.
— First of all, he deserves it. C’mon, without him the blockbuster hit “Pirates of the Caribbean” would have joined the ranks of such failed pirate movies as “Cutthroat Island” and the one with the Muppets. He did get nominated after all, so the love is there.
— He was robbed for “Ed Wood.” Martin Landau definitely deserved his Oscar for his incredible performance as Bela Lagosi, but Depp was Ed Wood. The Academy needs more cashmere-covered transvestites in its ranks.
— It’ll make up for having to sit through Joan Rivers.
— It would be a heck of an upset. The heavy favorites this year are Bill Murray and Sean Penn. Both fine actors, both deserving of awards, but it’s much more satisifying when the underdog comes out of nowhere and nabs the prize. Depp is the John Edwards of the Academy Awards; a nice guy, but no one expects him to win.
— Because he’s got to be the best pirate I’ve ever seen. Or so it would seem.
— The odds are good he’ll never get nominated again, not unless hostages are involved. Depp intentionally picks weird roles and few of them are the sorts of things the Academy will officially notice, like he was the Academy’s crazy uncle who keeps losing his pants at the bus station. Better get it while the getting’s good.
— By having his remarkable acting ability acknowledged, everyone will finally be able to move past his disastrous nude scene in the equally disastrous “Private Resort.”
— Because he’d be the only awardee without a tux. His standard award-ceremony couture is a baggy brown double-breasted, pinstriped suit with matching fedora. Wouldn’t that look great next to whatever body part J-Lo shows off this year?
— For being one of the very few to predict his win, I’ll get to lord it over the other columnists. Take that, Ebert!
But mainly because as soon as he walks towards the stage my wife will go into all sorts of Depp-induced frenzies and I’ll be there when it happens. It worked during “Benny & Joon,” it worked during “From Hell,” it worked big-time during “Chocolat,” and my Captain Jack Sparrow costume is almost worn out. Johnny Depp has been very good for my marriage, and this could top them all. C’mon man, we’re rooting for you!
Johnny Depp is a great actor, he can make you feel laugh, excite, worried and most he can make you feel in love. Captain Jack Sparrow’