To paraphrase host Seth Rogen, there was this show on Saturday that you didn't watch and barely knew even existed, taking place in a tent for some fucking reason. It was the Spirit Awards, aka the Independent Spirit Awards as they used to call it (we posted the winners on Saturday), and if you want to watch the antithesis of Billy Crystal's pretty tame, often anemic, and self-congratulatory Oscar monologue and jokes, this is surely it (and it's NSFW, btw).
Rogen, in his trademark cheeky "I don't really give a fuck" style swung for the fences, took no prisoners, and was the definition of irreverent (and funny to boot). His targets? The Spirits themselves ("completely inconsequential, nothing will come from this literally, nothing," he quipped), Brett Ratner and the slurs that got him fired from his Oscar gig ("without awards season we wouldn't know what a horrible bigot Brett Ratner was"), the audience ("I was committed to watching all your movies and I made it through the first five minutes of every one…some of them start pretty fucking slow") and Chris Brown and the Grammys ("you could literally beat the shit out of a nominee and they'll ask you perform twice at the Grammys"). Oh, let's not forget the pointed digs at at disgraced actor when discussing the antagonist Jews (Ron Perlman and Albert Brooks) in Nicolas Winding Refn's neo-noir drama "Drive" ("Seriously, that movie made Jews look so scary I thought Mel Gibson directed it," he said).
Overall, this is kind of the irreverence and danger that awards shows need and yet there's something about his flippant nature that didn't make any of it come across too mean-spirited (god forbid a celebrity get truly offended). A host bordering so closely to outrageous you're actually paying attention to what he might say because you might be one of his targets; gee, sounds like a damn good idea, Academy. With Ricky Gervais safely in his penalty box this year, we tip our cap to Seth Rogen for keeping celebrities on their toes, and more importantly, making us laugh. Watch below. And Seth? If Only "50/50" woulda been this funny. 😉 [via Movieline]
