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Yeah, this isn’t going to make me watch the show anymore than I already do (proud to say I’ve never seen a single episode and holding out for dear life), but Ellen generally makes everything she’s involved with better and more joyous. 

The news that she’s become the fourth American Idol judge comes as a surprise, but if she can fit it in with her other job as daytime talkshow host, then kudos to her.

I would watch just to see her effect on the scurrilous Simon Cowell.

This will go down as one of history’s greatest commencement speeches and reaffirms why Ellen DeGeneres is so awesome. At Tulane University over the weekend, DeGeneres talks about her girlfriend who was killed in a car accident when she was 19, her stand-up comedy path, coming out as a lesbian, the fleeting notion of success and living one’s life with integrity.

Also?  It’s a reminder just how gifted she was as a stand-up comic.

Well, the speech is great and there’s dancing at the end.  There’s no dancing on the video above, but if you check this one, and get to the end, you’ll see the dancing.

Nine-year-old Yuto Miyazawa tears up the Ellen DeGeneres show with his rendition of Ozzy’s “Crazy Train.”  Again, this little dude is nine and he absolutely nails the guitar part here.  The singing, not so much.  But who cares?  Listen to that sick guitar.

I won’t ruin the ending because it’s as touching as the ending to Steel Magnolias or My Girl or Braveheart. I want to make another joke, but that would sorta ruin the ending.  Maybe in the comments.

[via Boing Boing]

The Doggfather popped by funny gal Ellen back on December 4 to chat about his upcoming reality show and get funky with the audience of single ladies.  To be honest, “Sensual Seduction” grows on me everytime I hear it.  The song may not reach the g-funk heights of his early work, but the track makes me wanna wrap myself in purple velvet and break out my pimp cane in a way that few songs can.

Also, I love that this is Snoop’s idea of maturing.  Most musicians contemplate their own mortality or what it means to be a parent, etc., but Snoop?  Naw, his idea of being adult is making sure he takes the time for his lady to get hers before he gets his before rolling over to have a smoke.  That’s a complete 180 from his thoughts on the subject back in the halcyon days of Doggstyle.

We debated over what to call this post. Alas, “Oscar Roundup,” won over “Oscar Meyers Hot Dogs” and “The Oscars: Does Anyone Really Care Anymore” or even “Oscars! Now We Can Get On With the Movies We Really Care About.”

None of them had that distinct snap that Oscar Roundup had. For those scoring at home it was another four-hour-plus marathon session niftily handled by Ellen DeGeneres’ off-beat humor (see: vacuuming the carpet, talking with Clint Eastwood, and her opening monologue), Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly, those cool shadowy interpretive dancers from the Honda ads, that were slightly awesomer than Billy Crystal’s yearly homage to the movies, no major surprises (except how in the hell did Pan’s Labyrinth not win Best Foreign Language Film?), yet another Gwyneth Paltrow fashion tragedy, and the look on Rinko Kikuchi’s face when Jennifer Hudson won for “Best Supporting Actress” was priceless. All in all it was a great night for the movies.

Big ups for Marty Scorcese and the slightly surprising win for best picture with “The Departed.” Not sure if the Academy will ever give it to such a cool movie ever again.

Two things should be noted: Around 11 p.m. when the Oscars were still handing out awards to categories for editing and whatnot I secretly switched over to “Battlestar Galactica” on my Tivo. Now this is important for several reasons since the Oscars were dull enough to want to switch over to something else, but not only that but by drawing the awards show out longer than it had to be the Academy essentially forced my hand into watching the much more riveting “Battlestar.” And it was one of the most satisfying “Battlestar” episodes in a long while.

The first point also underscores the second point which is the Oscars are really nothing more than a marking point when people can finally get excited about the movies again. We can all stop pretending to be members of the intelligensia, stop feigning like we have any interest in movies where Ryan Gosling stars as a crack-addled middle school teacher, or Forest Whitaker stars as the villainous Idi Amin, or Michael Clarke Duncan stars as gay NBA star John Amaechi, or whatever. Take your pick for which movie did I have to pretend to care about or think was actually riveting cinema. So now we can look forward to the “300″ on March 9, “Grindhouse” in April and then all the deliciously guilty-pleasures in the summer.

List of the winners and a suggestion on how to make people care about the Oscar telecast after the jump.

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