Hey, Oscar. These days, your whole campy, top-hat-and-jazz-handsy dance is wildly out of step. You've become your own Botoxed, bloated parody. So what's a stiff old gold guy to do?

"It is not the critic who counts" is the opening line for this new and unexpectedly highfalutin' Cadillac spot, which breaks at the Oscars this Sunday. So I guess as a critic, I'm out.

It was an uncanny week of sudden death and public loss for the media. First, the shocking items about major "news" people that were disclosed minutes apart: beloved fake anchor Jon Stewart was leaving his post at "The Daily Show" after 16 years, and Brian Williams was suspended without pay for six months.

We are a country with big secrets, in desperate search of heroes. And the heroes that the media seeks to embrace are managed and packaged. Real heroes are the ones who do what they do away from the media glare.