EllenDegeneres Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In the animal kingdom, is it better to be a fish or a dog? Ellen DeGeneres played the irritably memorably cheerful, memory-deficient Dory in Pixar's Finding Nemo -- "When life gets you down do you wanna know what you've gotta do? ... Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim."

For her first feature film since Nemo, Ellen will be playing a dog (?!). She will take center stage as the lead voice in Dog Show, an animation pitch that has been picked up by Warner Brothers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Details are scarce. THR says "the story centers on a stray dog and her misfit friends who shake up the famed and pure-bred world of a Westminster-like dog show." Hmm, kinda like an animated version of Christopher Guest's Best in Show, but from the point of view of the dogs?

DeGeneres' talk show is, evidently, still a potent force in the daytime TV arena, and I imagine she could use it to plug Dog Show like there's no tomorrow, though who knows when the movie will eventually come out. First time around, her character in Finding Nemo got on my nerves, but eventually my view of her character was softened to the point where I (almost) found Dory endearing.

Ellen certainly has a distinctive voice, and I could totally see her playing a stray dog who gets into mischief. Would you pay to see her in an animated Dog Show?

Once you realize that Academy Awards and quality correlate only sporadically, the only reason to watch is the hope of seeing something surprising or controversial. People slagged last year's weird Pilobolus shadow-puppet interludes, but what the hell: at least it was something I hadn't seen before. Seeing as how a lot of the substantive results seem like even more of a foregone conclusion than usual this year, there's even less motivation to watch. So here are seven pleasant surprises I'll watch for on Sunday in the hopes of keeping entertained.

1. The ceremony comes in at three hours or less. It hasn't happened in the modern era; the shortest ceremony since 1996 happened in 2005 -- the year of Million Dollar Baby -- and it ran three hours and fourteen minutes. Last year's festivities took 3:21. Look, I'm generally skeptical of accusations that the Oscars are "self-indulgent": it's an awards show put on by the industry for the industry. Of course they're self-indulgent. They're also boring, which seems to me the more relevant accusation. Ratings have been steadily declining, with last year an all time low. Shorter and snappier please. That they've offended Peter Gabriel by asking him to trim his nominated song performance to 65 seconds for the show seems, I hate to say it, like a step in the right direction.

If you listen to ABC, Ellen DeGeneres was a fantastic host. She played by the rules, didn't go out of her way to insult anyone, delivered safe, non-controversial jokes and held her own on Hollywood's biggest stage. But did she do a good enough job to be asked back? I'm not going to rag on Ellen because I don't think she bombed, but it's easy for me to say there was definitely something missing; a spark, perhaps? She's not the type for big, musical numbers -- hence the bit with Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly. Now, that was funny. That was entertaining. That was what we needed more of last night.

Which leads me to my next question: Would the Oscars benefit from multiple hosts? It would certainly mix things up a bit; two people working off one another (and the audience) could open up a whole new world of content. For now, however, let's work under the assumption that the Academy will continue to choose one person each year to host the Oscars. Who should they be throwing up there, and what should that person have in their repertoire? Was it the lack of Ellen's singing and dancing that bored you? Was it the jokes? And if it was the jokes, what elements would you have added to make them funnier? If you want my opinion, next year they have to put Jerry Seinfeld up there. His short bit was one of the best of the night; he took cheap shots at the movie theaters, but they were funny, relevant and you couldn't help but laugh. He's the everyman comedian; maybe that's what the Oscars need. So how did Ellen do? Rate her from 1 to 10.

Ellen DeGeneres takes the stage on February 25 as host of the 79th Academy Awards ceremony -- and if she thinks hosting the Oscars is as easy as showing up and tossing off a few one-liners, she's got another think coming. Luckily, she can learn tons from those who came before her, from revered hosts like Johnny Carson and Billy Crystal to unfortunately maligned hosts like David Letterman and Chris Rock.

Take a look at our advice to Ellen, based on the best and worst moments in Oscar host history, and then help her out with your own pearls of wisdom.

CHECK IT OUT: Do's and Don'ts for Ellen DeGeneres

POST: What advice would you give Ellen?

POST: What are the best and worst moments in Oscar host history?

This will be the year that Oscar limps into the digital age, with a giant package of Internet-only features, including interviews with all 177 nominees, a blog kept by Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres and a much-dreaded 'Thank You Cam," that will allow the winners to flood your hard drive with all the names of the people they want to thank, probably all the way down to their lawyers and personal assistants. In last Tuesday's L.A. Times article on the move, mega-producer Laura Ziskin, who is handling this year's ceremony, claimed that she wants to "transmit as much content as possible" and will be focusing on delivering loads of information on each individual nominee. "We sent everyone a questionnaire, asking about their background, how they got their jobs, what was the most challenging thing on this film, you know, to get their stories."

Ziskin also admits that the purpose of the 'Thank You Cam' is to more or less shuffle the 'thank you' portion of the speech -- when the winner reads out a number of names that no one has ever heard of -- out of the main spotlight. "I told them at the nominees lunch that if you need a list, you aren't thanking the right people," Ziskin is quoted as saying. "These are people at the pinnacle of their talents. They know how to make a great show, an entertaining show. And I told them if they don't, the Oscars will just go away." She pulls it back a little after that, saying "OK, maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic."

Here's a thought -- how about having Tobey Maguire come out in his Spiderman costume to give the Best Picture award? Or better yet, how about having the audience just call in during the ceremony and judge the winner? It's not like the Oscars have any credibility anymore, anyway.

Last September, when Ellen DeGeneres was first announced as this year's Oscars host, I gave my opinion that she was all wrong for the job, that she isn't funny or hip enough for the young audience that ABC is hoping for. More than twenty comments were posted by readers that stated the opposite. I have begun to realize I could be wrong, although I'm getting very tired of that commercial featuring her and a bunch of animals. I admit that my judgment of DeGeneres is based primarily on my annoyance with her voice work on Finding Nemo. Otherwise I have been known to chuckle at her jokes from time to time.

This week DeGeneres spoke about her preparations for the February 25 telecast. She said that her concentration thus far has been on making sure there aren't too many industry-specific jokes because a lot of the audience hasn't seen the nominated films. She knows she won't please everybody, and she stated that she plans on just being herself and doing what she finds to be funny. Those who enjoyed her previous experience as host of the Emmys and the Grammys can probably expect to enjoy this, I figure.

DeGeneres will not be copying Billy Crystal with a musical number, though she is hopeful for something as spontaneous and surprising as the Jack Palance one-armed push-up incident, which allowed for a lot of fun improvisation from Crystal in 1992. That reminds me: considering Palance died this past November, it would be a good idea if all the winners this year pay him tribute by doing at least one push-up on stage. I bet Helen Mirren can even do the one-armed variety.

It seems the Academy has given up on wooing a young audience for its Oscars telecast. After somewhat striking out (in other people's opinions) with hip hosts Chris Rock and Jon Stewart, the high council of self-congratulation has picked Ellen DeGeneres as the emcee for the 79th annual Academy Awards, which will take place on February 25, 2007. Like many other people under the age of 30 (this will be the last year I can say this), I don't find Ellen to be very entertaining or, more importantly, very funny. If it weren't for my love of the movies, I'd be completely ignoring the next Oscars.

From the look of the films coming out in the next few months (i.e. the ones that will likely be nominated for Oscars), I don't expect Ellen to be the worst or most boring thing about the Oscar ceremony, so perhaps she will stand out in some way. Actually, I think the Academy should already be putting favor towards the older contenders like Clint Eastwood, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, etc. Obviously the audience for the broadcast is going to be older now, thanks to the choice of host, so why confuse them with people like Derek Luke, Leonardo DiCaprio or Matt Damon.

Oh, and only some of the older people will be watching. The conservative elders will be boycotting Ellen for being gay (actually, I wonder if this choice is all an apology for Brokeback Mountain losing Best Picture last year).