Coupeville Sports

They killed the Oscars last night.

It wasn’t the endless songs (Shirley Bassey brought the house down at 76 wailing “Goldfinger”), it wasn’t the wasted James Bond tribute (no Sean Connery on stage? GTFO!), the missing names in the parade of the dead section (no Andy Griffith?!?!), the lethargic pacing (a tribute to “Dreamgirls?,” which is 7 freakin’ years old — and no one liked it the first time), or even Seth McFarlane flop-sweating all over the stage — which is probably why Jennifer Lawrence slipped.

No, it was the moment at the end.

Not when “Argo” won.

The moment before.

The moment they brought out the greatest living movie star we have, a legend back on the stage after a five-year absence, and made him a prop.

Jack Nicholson is no one’s prop.

I don’t care if it’s Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, Ann Romney, or the ghosts of Reagan and Lincoln doing a buddy comedy routine.

Bringing out the greatest living movie star, a man who needs no introduction, the man with the sunglasses and the leer always playing at 11, and then having him hand-off the reveal of the Best Picture winner to ANY politician is a slap in the face of what the Oscars are.

The Oscars are Jack. Jack is the Oscars.

This has nothing to do with Democrats or Republicans. This is bigger.

This is the Oscars. The holy grail of the movies, the night we come together to throw things at our TV screen when “Titanic” beats “L.A. Confidential.”

The night when John Wayne, stricken with cancer, ambles across the stage one final time and we still cry 34 years later.

The night when a dying William Holden surprises Barbara Stanwyck in the middle of their presentation and tells her what her support meant to him when he was a young actor a day away from being fired from his first major acting job.

The night when we see a streaker, when Marlon Brando flips the middle finger at the Academy, when Stanley Donen breaks in mid-speech and does a little soft shoe, when Vanessa Redgrave tells the world to go to hell, when Louise Fletcher signs her acceptance speech so her deaf parents will know how much she loves them, when Ali and Stallone go toe-to-toe.

It is a night about the movies, and through it all, there is Jack, front row center, always wearing the sunglasses, always punctuating Billy Crystal or Johnny Carson’s lines with a chuckle and a raised eyebrow.

We don’t have Bogart or Gable or Newman or Grant or Monroe or Davis or either Hepburn anymore.

We do have Jack, the greatest living movie star.

And when he takes that stage, he is the show. The whole show.

He is NOT a damn prop.