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..Gary Dretzka
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March 23, 2003

You know what's really great about watching television on this sparkling Sunday night in southern California? Being able to use the picture-in-picture function of my Mitsubishi set to keep track of both the Academy Awards and war in Iraq, simultaneously, as well as recording Six Feet Under on my TiVo.

Is this a cool country, or what?

How amazing is it to be able to witness Jennifer Connelly stroll onto the stage in basic black, while listening to Wolf Blitzer report that Republican Guard units are moving women into children into positions where they can be employed as human shields. It seems, his source for this shocking announcement was an unnamed soldier who claims to have actually witnessed the atrocity in the making, and passed it along to someone, who passed it along to someone else, who passed it along to the Wolfman.

Please, feel free to share the evening with me.

Back to the Oscars, where a very pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones was blasting out a song from Chicago. Anything to induce labor, I guess.

Meanwhile, over on MSNBC, the anchorman who used to be on ABC was interviewing former Desert Storm P.O.W. Daniel Stamaris about how it felt to be captured by sadistic Iraqi soldiers, and what the newly captured Joseph Hudson, whose face was just on the screen, might going through on Oscar night half a world away. In the PIP screen, Mickey Mouse and Jennifer Garner - whose hair looks like it was done at JiffyLube - were giving an award to the director of something called, "Chum Chum."

Shock and awe, Hollywood style. I dig it.

As yet another bloviating retired colonel competes for screen time with Nia Vardalos, my big fat half-Greek butt is crying out for relief. Another three hours of this and I'll call in a decapitating air strike on the Kodak Theater. Despite all the wonderful talent assembled at the intersection of Hollywood & Highland, the Oscars is one show that didn't have to go on.

War? What war? Cue the American Express commercial.

The footage I'm watching between awards - now, Larry King is interviewing former P.O.W.s -- reminds me just how beyond-surreal things have become in the co-mingled worlds of entertainment, technology and war.

Jerry Bruckheimer is no stranger to the world of CGI and other digital tomfoolery. In the lead-up to the war in Iraq, the producer of Pearl Harbor, Armageddon and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation developed a show for TV in which he used the latest in electronic recording equipment to tell the stories of members of our armed forces stationed in Afghanistan. Compelling stuff.

As someone who writes about advances in digital technology on a weekly basis, I'm terrified by the very real possibility of someday watching one of those cool dispatches from the front, and seeing a sniper's bullet take out one of our brave soldiers, in so-called real time … perhaps, even, one of the men or women who were interviewed by Bruckheimer's crews, so ABC had something to put up against Friends.

Sure, those images are being filtered and censored and delayed by one or two seconds. Even so, earlier Sunday, American viewers were horrified to wake up and see pictures of dead G.I.s laid out on a floor in Iraq, and live P.O.W.s being harassed by their captors.

Those images were removed - some would suggest, censored -- soon thereafter. The damage already was done, however.

Wait … this just in from oscarpress@hotmail.com … the acceptance speeches of the winners for Supporting Actor and Visual Effects. Sorry, folks, I heard them live 20 minutes ago, in my PIP, while watching tanks ramble through the desert on the big screen with the sound off.

Where was I?

I was about to mention that images from the war, as delivered by videophones and digi-cameras, will almost certainly be repurposed for use in entertainment vehicles, as soon as it's ethically feasible. It took more than 10 years for our last war in the Mideast to be translated into the best-selling video-game title, "Conflict: Desert Storm."

At the recent D.I.C.E. convention, in Las Vegas, a marketing executive of a major video-game concern assured me that it won't take nearly that long to develop and release a title based on Operation Whatever This Is. And, it will look very much like the images I'm watching in my PIP on CNN and MSNBC (I can't bring myself to watch Fox news).

That's because the eyes of game developers are glued every bit as closely to the war coverage, as are those of the families of our combatants, and of all of those generals who are getting their rocks off doing the play-by-play on death.

What's this? Michael Moore and every damn documentary maker in the Kodak Theater are on stage, and he's getting booed and cheered in equal measure? Wonderful. Someone in formal wear actually acknowledging the war.

OK, it was the same speech he gave at the Spirits, but I didn't miss a thing. Thank God for TiVo.

(For those of you who didn't hear the words drowned out by the orchestra, he said: "Any president who has both the Pope and Dixie Chicks against him isn't long for his office.")

By the way, did you happen to catch the commercial for Panasonic's new DVD recorder? You don't have to be Jack Valenti to see the irony in having the Academy Awards sponsored by a consumer-electronics company that makes appliances that often are used to record, archive, steal, duplicate and download some of the same copyrighted works created by the folks gathered in the Kodak Theater.

I didn't hear anyone booing the commercial. That's because everyone, including Jack, is hoping to find one in his or her goodie bag.

What the hell is Geena Davis doing, still handing out Oscars? Wasn't Gretchen Moll available?

Oh, well, back to the war.

No, wait. Bob Dylan's doing a commercial for Victoria's Secret! Can't see that in Iraq … until we make it safe for MTV and Red Shoes Diary, anyway.

That should happen by Opening Day.

Susan Saradon and Barbra Streisand: what a letdown.

Thank goodness for Adrien Brody.

Gotta go, now. Good thing my super-dooper TiVo/DirecTV combo unit lets me record two things at once. That way, while I'm running out to Von's to pick up some microwave popcorn, I won't miss a single moment of the Oscars or the war.

I repeat: Is this a great country, or what?

Did I remember to thank my agent?

 

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