By Sheryl Aronson
“There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, ‘Do trousers matter?'”
“The mood will pass, sir.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters
“Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoy’s Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day’s work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city’s reservoir, he turns to the cupboards, only to find the vodka bottle empty.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Best of Wodehouse: An Anthology
British humor. Dry, witty, deadpan hilarious, brilliant! No- holds- barred. On February 22rd, the 10th Annual Toscars presented their cheeky versions of the 2017 Oscar’s nine nominated films. With budgets of two hundred and fifty dollars and three short weeks to produce the entire satirical movie, the nine teams of creative individuals had hit the pavement with their meager chattels. Each crew’s only desire… to create a Toscar Award winning five- minute film. On this auspicious evening, the guests would preview the results.
Founded by British Actor/Comedian Craig Robert Young, the very first Toscars took place in a bar while basketball games blasted on the televisions. They’ve come a long way in ten years. Robert Craig Young commented:
“Some friends and I had watched a movie called Be Kind Rewind with Jack Black years ago and it inspired us to get teams together to create parody movies about the Oscars. Do it as a fundraiser. We did it the first year, really low budget and then the second year we upped our game a bit. It just keeps getting bigger and better…more fun.”
The courtyard of the LGBT Center in Hollywood twinkled with lights, two separate bars sponsored by Deep Eddy Vodka and Hint Bubble (courtesy of Peakeprgroup), served drinks. The red carpet, packed with Media, snapped photos and interviewed the movie makers, the presenters, and special guests for the evening festivities. The Hollywood 360 had to be on the top of their game to spar witticisms with such clever and ribald company.
First up were the insane team of the Toscar nominated film, Wacksaw Fridge. (Hacksaw Ridge)
The Hollywood 360: What are you guys going to do tonight?
The Team of Wacksaw Fridge: We are going to try and keep all our clothes on but we can’t guarantee.
The Hollywood 360: Really? LOL.
Wacksaw Fridge Team: Well maybe. We’ll find out. We were dancers once upon a time. The fact that we’re in the same movie together…we’re very excited.
It’s the Mel Gibson movie (Hacksaw Ridge) and we have our own Smell Gibson.
The Hollywood 360: Do you think Americans have to loosen up a bit in regards to humor? Say Why?
Wacksaw Fridge Team: They’re so old fashioned, conservative.
The Hollywood 360: We’re so Puritanical. (laughing)
Wacksaw Fridge Team: The Brits like to say Willy(penis) and what not. We’re ironic. We’re not really serious. We’re just taking the mickey out of life. (making fun of someone) Life needs humor.
(Reciting in Unison)
You can get delirious
If you take life too serious
The Hollywood 360: Compare the British humor to the American humor.
Wacksaw Fridge Team: The English are very ironic and dry. We’re very sarcastic.
I’m Irish…so we take nothing seriously. (look at that red hair)
We swear by Monty Python, Benny Hill…Margaret Thatcher. (We all laugh)
The Hollywood 360: Anything else you would like to say about the TOSCARS?
Wacksaw Fridge Team: It’s the TOSCARS 10th Anniversary. And next year will be the 11th year. It’s just great fun. We’re given 28 days to make a movie…no budget whatsoever. You get a bunch of friends together…every movie is a parody of the films nominated that year. You don’t know what film you’re going to get, who you’re going to work with… and the budget is…
About 16 million. (NOT) $250.00. We beg, steal, and borrow. A lot of borrowing.
It’s probably the cheekiest awards during the Oscar time.
Lorynn York, Actress from Dear White People and Roommates.com, presenter for the TOSCARS.
The Hollywood 360: What will you be presenting?
Lorynn York: I am presenting Best Scribbler, as in the Writer.
The Hollywood 360: What do you think of the British sense of humor?
Lorynn York; I love it. I just worked with a bunch of them…Brits…on a show that I was just in At Asst, Craig Young was the Director/Creator. He is who brought me on tonight.
The Hollywood 360: Tell us more about your work.
Lorynn York: I have a bunch of movies on the LifeTime Channel right now.
Katharine Kat Kramer, Actress, Comedian, Producer, Activist, Presenter of Best Film
The Hollywood 360: Talk about the British humor.
Katharine Kat Kramer: I love their humor. I feel like I was born to live in England. I know this was in LA but I did my homage to reflect …The Queen of the Toscars, The Queen of England, but also my idol Lilly Tomlin as she wore a tiara when nominated for Nashville.
Terra Jole, Reality Star, Little Women, Dancing with the Stars, Presenter of the Best Cutter Film (Editor)
The Hollywood 360: Tell us what you think about the British humor.
Terra Jole: I adore it. I think they are hilarious.
Adam Fergus, Irish Born Actor
The Hollywood 360: From Ireland I presume…
Adam Fergus: Yes. Of course.
The Hollywood 360: Are you in a movie tonight?
Adam Fergus: I’ve been in several movies…but not one that will be awarded tonight. I’m here for the free booze…and chatting with beautiful woman like yourself. (We both laugh.)
The Hollywood 360: Tell us what you are doing as an actor.
Adam Fergus: I just got back from Vancouver where I just got finished shooting a show for the CW called Supernatural. I have two movies coming out this year, one is called, The First, which is a film about Mary Pickford. I play her first husband, Owen Moore, who wasn’t a very nice guy at the end. They did a fantastic job with the script, directing it. Then I had a movie that was shot in Ireland which is with Sean Penn and Mel Gibson called The Professor and The Mad Man. It’s about the two men who created the Oxford Dictionary. These are the fascinating characters who were integral to the creation of Dictionary by the way.
The Hollywood 360: Tell us what you think the differences are between the British style of humor and the American.
Adam Fergus: You take The Office… My kind of humor…what I really like…that real kind of uncomfortable, you can’t even watch one episode…because it’s so uncomfortable but funny. That was what I was brought up on.
Ron Jeremy, porn star & filmmaker & Sandro Monetti, Director/Writer Manchester By The Canal (Manchester By the Sea)
The Hollywood 360: What are you gentlemen doing here tonight?
Sandro Monetti: I got to direct Ron Jeremy in Manchester By the Canal. I barely recovered from the experience.
The Hollywood 360: And what canals did you use to shoot your movie?
Sandro Monetti: We shot it at a pedal boat lake actually in the Valley.
Ron Jeremy: The canals in Venice Beach were too dirty.
The Hollywood 360: Talk about the difference between the American humor and the British humor.
Sandro Monetti: British humor is basically…if you can dress up as a woman, if you fall on your face, or say something hilarious about the Queen, that’s pretty much the hat trick of British humor.
Ron Jeremy: Or the sides off to the camera…like Benny Hill’s funny faces.
The Hollywood 360: (Quipping) You don’t think it came from Shakespeare?
Sandro Monetti: I thought Shakespeare’s comedies were terrible. I take it upon myself to be the Shakespeare of parody. Talk about tragedies (turning a bit serious now). Manchester By the Sea was tragic in so many ways and that’s two hours I will never get back.
Ron Jeremy: If Shakespeare were alive today, he probably would do adult movies.
The Hollywood 360: (Addressing Ron Jeremy) What was your character doing on the canal? Was he seducing people?
Ron Jeremy: He tried. When I tried to get to second base, Mr. Monetti would yell, “Run! Run!” The Director has to be a kill joy.
The Hollywood 360: Is Manchester By the Canal a PG movie?
Sandro Monetti: I wouldn’t go that far.
Ron Jeremy: It’s very risqué humor but it could be PG.
The Hollywood 360: Well British humor is very risqué.
Ron Jeremy: British humor is also very self-deprecating.
Sandro Monetti: Ron loves the Brits, the Brits love Ron. And we all love a laugh and this gentleman has a great sense of humor.
Ron Jeremy: We’re all holding hands and singing, “We Are the World.”
Bai Ling, Actress Presenting Best Actor
The Hollywood 360: What is your role tonight at the Toscars.
Bai Ling: I am presenting the award for Best Actor. I am looking forward because I love handsome actors. I have no clue who they are, but hopefully I will like them.
And I will be the funniest presenter. Even though you might think I’m not funny…I am funny.
The Hollywood 360: We believe you. Tell us what else you are doing?
I give out fat free, sugar free cookies every day. I have a huge movie coming out right now that is opening in China. It’s called The Lord of Shanghai. I play somebody from 26 years old to 80 years old.
Craig Robert Young, The founder of the Toscars, Host for the Toscars, Film & Television Actor
The Hollywood 360: How did you get the job for hosting tonight?
Craig Robert Young: Actually I looked in the mirror and said, ‘Craig…do you want to host the Toscars this year?’ The mirror looked back and asked, ‘Well, have you asked every other z-list celebs out there?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, they all said, No. So you’re going to do that.’ Since I created the Toscars, I could ask myself this question. LOL.
The Hollywood 360: Why did you create the Toscars?
Craig Robert Young: Some friends and I watched a movie called Be Kind Rewind with Jack Black a few years ago and it inspired us to get teams together to create parody movies about the Oscars. Do it as a fundraiser. We did it the first year, really low budget and then the second year we upped our game a bit. It just keeps getting bigger and better…more fun.
The Hollywood 360: What do you think is the difference between British humor and American humor?
Craig Robert Young: Fundamentally, we’re all the same. Brits are a little bit more glib, dirty, double entendre and puns. With our accents as well, sometimes you guys don’t know if we are being serious or whether we are joking. Most of the time we are joking.
The Hollywood 360: Who is one of your favorite comedians/actors of all time?
Craig Robert Young: Eddie Murphy is one of my favorites. I love Eddie. He’s raw, alive, natural. I love Gene Wilder. He was a big inspiration of mine.
The Hollywood 360: Are we going to hear a funny monologue from you?
Craig Robert Young: I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.
Britt Ekland, Actress (Bond Girl) & Slim Jim Phantom, Stray Cats Drummer , Presenters for Best Song
The Hollywood 360: What do you think about the differences between American humor and British humor?
Britt Ekland: Big difference. British humor is very much one liners and very witty.
Slim Jim Phantom: In comedy, Englishmen wear dresses a lot.
Britt Ekland: Always dresses. They love wearing dresses and makeup. American humor is very formulated. I’m a very instinctive person, so I prefer English humor.
Slim Jim Phantom: I prefer the Three Stooges.
The Hollywood 360: Could you please talk about your career as a musician playing with Brian Setzer and The Stray Cats.
Slim Jim Phantom: We were American music that was embraced in England. We were all very American guys from NY and went to England where we got a record contract. That’s where we started. We got in with all these English fans which was great. So sometimes you have to go to England to make it cool.
The Hollywood 360: The music is amazing. It’s a combination of the blues, jazz, rockabilly.
Britt Ekland: He has also written a book.
The Hollywood 360: What’s it called?
Slim Jim Phantom: Stray Cat Struts.
The team for the movie Moolight. (Moonlight)
The Hollywood 360: So what is your movie about?
Moolight cast: Instead of a gay, black boy growing up in the ghetto, she’s white, she’s rich, and she’s a cow. In the movie Moonlight, there are three separate characters playing the character, so in our movie, we have three separate characters playing the cow.
The Hollywood 360: What do you think is the difference between British humor and American humor? And since you are American, let’s hear what you have to say.
Amy Chaffe: American humor has more to do with pace and rhythm and British humor has more to do with melody and punctuation.
The Hollywood 360: Will we be mooing in the audience?
Moolight Cast: I think so.
The Hollywood 360: Can we have some moos from all of you?
A cacophony of moos then discharged from the cast members of Moolight.
Wouldn’t you know, it was time to go inside and view the nine nominated films. Here were the Toscar nominated movies:
- A Right Fool (Arrival)
- The Pences (Fences)
- Wacksaw Fridge (Hacksaw Ridge)
- Hell or Hot Sauce (Hell or High Water)
- Hidden Spaces (Hidden Figures)
- Mi Mi Land (La La Land)
- Lionel (Lion)
- Manchester by the Canal (Manchester by the Sea)
- Moolight (Moonlight)
My favorites were Wacksaw Fridge and Hidden Spaces. First of all, Smell Gibson kept holding a bouquet of flowers up to his nose while convincing his investor why he should put his money into the movie, Wacksaw Fridge. The film cut back and forth between Smell telling the story-line, and the actual warring armies throwing puns across enemy lines because they weren’t allowed to say them. A big, ugly yellow refrigerator sat in the middle of the war grounds. There were many Monty Python-like losing of limbs, and gross usages of blood. Hidden Spaces rode our sense of excitement as we watched the team of three intelligent, multi-tasking, masterful, women take charge of finding their client (an actor who was going to a very important meeting in LA and couldn’t be late) nab a parking space in the nick of time! They outsmarted the men and saved the day! Way to go ladies.
Here were the big winners of the Toscars… Shall we say that no one was tweeting when the best film, and the correct film, Mi Mi Land (sorry Moolight.) was the big winner of the night.
Cheerio… see everyone at the 11th Annual Toscars.
And the winners were:
Best Supporting Whactress
Juliet Lemar for #moolight
Best cutter (editing) Tie between
Adam Wood for #MiMiLand and Jimmy Page for #Lionel
Best Tunes
Timo Chen for
Mi Mi Land
Best Bank For Buck (Production Value)
Reid Russell for
Mi Mi Land
Best Supporting Whactor
John Mawson
Mi Mi Land
Best Scribbler (writing)
Jeffrey Nichols
Hidden Spaces
Best Whactor
Julian Grant
Whacksaw Fridge
Best Director
Victoria Hoffman
Hidden Spaces
Best Whactress
Nadia Witt
Hidden Spaces
Best Film
Mi Mi Land
To find out more about the Toscars, go to: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=toscars
