Gabe Jilts Jam in Ocscars Tiff

Forgive my shrinking grasp of how to speak Daily Variety. Like any foreign language, the less you use it, the rustier you get. This Oscar(TM) debacle has taken another sorry turn, as Peter Gabriel has dropped out of the broadcast.

The Telegraph has the full story. To sum up, Gabriel was asked to cut "Down to Earth" to 65 seconds(!) so that it would fit into a medley of Best Song nominees. In a four-hour broadcast, they couldn't find time for 15 minutes of live music? The broadcast prodcuers said they were concerned with the length of the show. Apparently those extra 15 minutes will be needed for more insider fawning over Jack Nicholson, rather than something that would actually entertain us poor viewers at home.

Personally, I think the producers realized what a pair of turkeys the A.R. Rahman songs from Slumdog Millionaire are, and facing the nightmare vision of viewers changing the channel en masse once they began, cobbled together this non-solution to minimize the pain.

Peter Gabriel should be applauded for his choice. This is the sort of protest that's righteous and necessary. Let's hope that this new approach to Best Song dies with this broadcast and gets a heavy beating from the press. Without those Best Song performances, what's left is a dull night of overlong speeches interesting only to those in the business, snarky in-jokes from Bruce Vilanch, and montages of the dead.

Any of this sound like entertainment to you?