JIM HENDRICKS: Oscars barb loses its sting

Asked Sunday evening who I thought would win the Oscars, I said I had no idea.

I had no idea for two reasons.

First, I’ve never been much for entertainment industry award shows, particularly one in which each individual seems to beat you over the head with why his or her particular craft is so crucial to the overall well-being and advancement of America and the world.

I’ve had a problem with the Academy Awards for quite some time, since 1982, in fact. That’s when “Raiders of the Lost Ark” got beat out for Best Picture, which it clearly was, by “Chariots of Fire,” which was a good movie but didn’t have any actual flaming chariots, while “Raiders” had both plenty of raiders and a Lost Ark. Plus a big rock ball that chased Harrison Ford out of a cave. And Karen Allen.

I’m not sure how long you can hold a grudge, but this one’s been locked in place for a good 35 years now, so I’d say at least that long. On the other hand, it’s the only real grudge I have, so I don’t have a particularly good comparison.

Second, I haven’t seen any of the movies that were nominated for Best Picture, or anything of the others I saw on the list for that matter. My biggest fear is that one day I’ll make the cut for “Jeopardy!” and Alex Trebek will announce the categories “Oscar Winners Since 1983”; “Emmy Winners”; “Grammy Winners”; “All About Movies With the Words ‘Chariots’ and ‘Fire’ in the Title,” and then, to cap it off, “Operas.”

I’d just go ahead and stipulate a score of negative $25,000 and try to sneak into a taping of “Wheel of Fortune” on the way out of town.

Still, I kind of wish I’d caught the end of the show Sunday night because, for the first time in recent years, it sounds like it was entertaining. Warren Beatty, who won Best Director in 1982 when Steven Spielberg should’ve gotten it for “Raiders,” and Faye Dunaway announced “La La Land” as the Best Picture because they were given a duplicate Best Actress envelope by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which led to some red faces when the Oscar had to be turned over to the real winner, “Moonlight.”

There was no confirmation that a Russian-speaking man in a tux was seen speeding away from the building in laughter moments before the monumental mistake was made before, as the Oscar folks like to point out, “a billion people,” though its ratings were the lowest since 2008 and less than 33 million U.S. viewers watched it.

When I saw what had happened, I figured the happiest man in America must be Steve Harvey, who previously had the all-time biggest televised award faux pas with his wrong Miss Universe announcement.

Since then, however, I think the happiest guy might be Best Actor winner Casey Affleck. At first, many overlooked the cold shoulder from last year’s Best Actress, Brie Larson, when she had to hand him the trophy, apparently because of the sexual harassment suits against Affleck from 2010 that were settled out of court.

Of course, Hollywood, which has taken deadly aim at such behavior, couldn’t let something like that pass by without some appropriate biting comment during the Academy Awards program. If nowhere else, surely a proper skewering of Affleck would come up in the Oscar edition of host Jimmy Kimmel’s notorious “Mean Tweets” segment.

The “mean” tweet, in all its glorious viciousness, read: “Casey Affleck is the real-life version of Billy Bob Thornton’s character in Sling Blade.”

Ouch?

Maybe I would do better in the sixth “Jeopardy!” category I didn’t mention earlier. I’ll take “Double Standards and Free Passes for Hollywood Insiders” for $2,000, Alex.

Email Jim Hendricks at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_JHendricks on Twitter.