We found the ultimate Hollywood insider.  And on Oscar night, he’ll be live blogging on wowOwow

Hello, ladies.  I am Mr. Wow.  I will be your wowOwow Oscar guide on the evening of February 22.  I will be live blogging the festivities along with the readers of wowOwow on our Oscar Night Reader Forum.  Please don’t be alarmed by my moniker. I might not be a “Mr.” at all. These are transgendered times, after all. 

Mr. Wow loves the Oscars. They are sooooo wonderfully terrible. And they always were. Oh, sure, they had “real stars” in the old days, like Liz Taylor dragging out her enormous bazooms in Edith Head, Halston or Valentino. Or Mae West and Rock Hudson performing “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” on a chaise lounge. Or Marlon Brando sending that sweet Indian girl up to the podium to decline his ill-deserved Oscar. (Mr. Wow can stuff cotton in his cheeks too.)  

It is harder to glean good old-fashioned fun from Oscar with the current crop of pallid personalities. (Which is what they were saying back in the day: “Well, Debbie Reynolds is very cute, but she’s no Janet Gaynor!”) We can hold fast the hope somebody is smart enough to get Christian Bale up there to curse out the entire industry — picture this: applause from the audience as Bale appears onstage destroys his concentration. He can’t get to that emotional place to say: “The winner is.”  He will threaten to fire everybody in the Kodak Theater.

But the show itself was always a big snore, with bits of outrageousness to liven it up. (Remember Connie Stevens singing the theme from “Shaft”?) Always too long, never clever enough, and inexplicably attempting elegance every couple of years. As if any of us watch the Oscars for examples of show biz elegance! We want to see Adrien Brody narrowly missing castration. What — you think Halle Berry enjoyed that kiss? We want to see Jack Nicholson, always in the front row, whether he is nominated or not, looking like the final brush strokes on the Portrait of Dorian Gray.

Unlike some Oscar over-haulers, Mr. Wow wants more insane production numbers. Too much is never enough, and nothing succeeds like excess. Bring back the spirit of Rob Lowe and Snow White!  Re-do it with reprobate Charlie Sheen and wannabe delinquent Miley Cyrus. This night of nights is a three (or four) hour orgy of self-congratulation.

Oh, oh…wait. I love Helen Mirren.  Divine woman. Can’t stop watching “The Queen.” Find something new with each viewing. And Meryl — enough already with the nominations, but still class. Nice, too. Don’t make me say it — George Clooney.  George, George, George.  Not since Cary and Gary and Errol has a man looked more at home in a tux. There are others, sure … Matt Damon, Renee Zellweger.  Lots of others.  But for the purposes of this snarky moment, Mr. Wow is compelled to paint them all with a broad, unfair, brush.

We tune in, with our martinis in hand, hoping to see a strap slip, or a drunk slip, or somebody not make a gracious losing face — Remember Diane Ladd reacting to Cher’s “Moonstruck” win. (Well, everybody in Hollywood woke up the next day and said, “What?! We gave the Oscar to Cher?!”)  We thrilled to Madonna’s palpable, nervous, shaking hands back in 1990, before she launched into “Sooner of Later” from “Dick Tracy.”  Who knew the woman had a nerve in her? Other than, you know, plenty of nerve! Mr. Wow admits, after Mistress Ciccone recovered herself, she gave her best live performance — ever. (And she still had the body of a woman then.)

We don’t even need to be coy on this one: we’re all on the Surgery Watch.  More truth. The first woman (or man) who appears onstage looking normal and untouched by the knife or the needle, gets this: “OH, and she/he used to be so beautiful/handsome!” We just think we want movie stars to age gracefully.

Oscar night comes but once a year. And like Christmas, it’s a big load of publicity, product placement and hypocrisy.

And no matter how bad (good-bad or really, truly bad) the show is, remember — drinking helps. Even alone. Although this is not a habit Mr. Wow encourages. Anymore. (He woke up in Nutley, N.J. one morning after a solitary Oscar telecast. No awards for that performance. Watch with friends. Like with me and your wow friends here.  Really.