* E! goes on the air at 2PM with their preshow to the preshow, basically. This used to start at noon and I thought it still did, so once 11:49 AM rolled around and I discovered this still wasn't starting for another two hours, I found myself unsure of what to do with myself for awhile. Ultimately, it really shouldn't matter, because 95% of what E! does live from the Red Carpet and their nearby studio is just complete silly filler (which I call "siller", but if I didn't saw "silly filler" first you'd likely have no idea what the frig I was talking about). The highlight/lowlight of this siller was one particular fashion segment where they paraded a few models out wearing designer shoes. With one or two exceptions, these shoes looked like something out of either the 16th century and/or a B-grade horror flick that would be used for dungeon shackles. As I seem to so often say, and I'll say it now in regards to shoes, thank God I have a penis. We have it so easy when it comes to dressing up. Shoes, black or brown? Done.
* The good stuff starts at 6PM with E!'s team headed by Ryan Seacrest on the Red Carpet. Unlike most years, pretty much immediately the stars come pouring in, and one of the early arrivals was Mo'Nique. When asked about the experience, Mo'Nique (as usual) delivered with a great statement. "All of us on this carpet, including you [Ryan], we're kids with grown-up faces." After the interview was completed, Mickey Rooney and Ryan sent us to a commercial.
* Myself and everyone watching all swore we saw the ghost of Bea Arthur go by in the background at one point. Whoever this was, it wasn't Bea, but every time we caught a side view of her, I'll be goddammed if she wasn't a dead ringer. Oops...poor choice of words...
* This year's Swan Dress award goes to Charlize Theron, who for some reason decided her pink dress (that looked fine otherwise) needed to have two large circular designs going from the sides and landing right onto her Cookies.
Yes, as you can see, E! pretty much noticed these boob-eyes as well. I figured maybe they were there to help her get around at night, maybe they'd light up or something. Guess we'll never know.
* Another great line from the fantastic Gabby Sidibe on the Red Carpet, speaking of her awesome dress: "If fashion was porn, this dress is the money shot." She is so full of life and proud of who she is. I love that.
* EAT IT, YOSHI!
* So the E! stuff rounds up and now it's time to turn to ABC at 8PM for...erm...well, more of this. For some reason, ABC continues to feel the need to do their OWN Red Carpet, but only for 30 minutes, and in doing so they cram in everyone they can and pretty much only ask one question apiece. It takes longer to introduce the celebrities than it does to actually get anything out of them. It's made worse by the fact that they usually have some pretty uninteresting and/or robotic people doing the interviews. Kathy Ireland was ridiculous. Sherry Stringfield was OK. I don't know who the guy even was, but at least it wasn't Billy Bush.
* We see an ad for Poise, which are maxipads or something, or panty liners...I don't fucking know, I don't need to buy them so I'm just fine not knowing about them. But this ad had Whoopi Goldberg bouncing around from one cut shot to another, where she was dressed as historical figures in each one, such as Cleopatra and the Statue of Liberty. And during all this, she's talking about once in a while, basically, women piddle. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS DOING ON TELEVISION?!?! It wasn't funny, and even if I had girly parts to piddle with, I damn sure doubt this ad would make me run to CVS and fill a cart with pink boxes of Poise. Gimme a break already.
* Everyone, when mentioning the film "Precious", calls it by its full name, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire". OK, yes, that is the official title, but Jesus Christ, just call the thing "Precious" because you sound like idiots rattling off all that other stuff with it every single time you mention the movie.
* Taylor Lautner really seems jazzed to be here from his Red Carpet interview. He's having fun and he seems to "get it", which is cool.
* 8:30PM. Showtime. Curtain goes up, and here are your hosts...oh, no, wait...no, it's the nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress all up there. OK. They all get introduced. Then from the audience comes...erm...who are those people? Well, whoever they are, they're now escorting all those nominees back to their seats. All right, that seemed rather pointless and showy. So NOW, here are your hosts...ummm...no, time out...it's Neil Patrick Harris. He asks what we all are immediately: "What am I doing here?" Turns out this is the opening number, which was a bit short but happily so, because many of the crass jokes within the song didn't really seem to connect with the audience. The song led into the arrival of the hosts, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, who arrived from above to kick off their monologue.
* First award presented, and unlike last year, they don't have 5 past winners of the category to present it. Best Supporting Actor, to no one's surprise, goes to Christoph Waltz. Nice win, nice speech.
* As they go to commercial, we see Demi Moore. My lady asks me, "Why is Demi there without Ashton?", to which I reply, "I dunno...probably past his bedtime."
* In rapid succession, they're giving out more awards. "Up" wins Best Animated Feature and the tune from "Crazy Heart" wins for Best Original Song. The latter category I barely even care to acknowledge anymore, but thus far we've got 3 wins and 3 easy picks. Best Original Screenplay to Mark Boal for "The Hurt Locker".
* At this point comes possibly my favorite moment of the night. Every year there's a memorial tribute to those who've passed in the prior year, and this year that came later, but one person was singled out for a special segment. John Hughes, who directed so many films that my generation literally grew up with. Matthew Broderick and Molly Ringwald came out first and spoke. (I'd seen Molly on the Red Carpet and both didn't recognize her, but later when seeing who it was wondered why she was there. Now I know.) They showed a montage of clips and then out came, as Roger Ebert called it, "John's children". Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Jon Cryer and Macauley Culkin, who all spoke in tribute. Then it ended with recognition to John's real family, who were seated near the front and given a very nice ovation. Really good stuff.
* Best Animated Short Film goes to "Logorama", absolutely the animated film with the most profanity in history to win an Oscar. Good speech by the director, however.
* Best Documentary Short goes to "Music By Prudence". Up comes someone who begins speaking, but suddenly in runs some crazy woman who overtakes the speech until they're cut off. The story now is out there that she was on the film as well at first but left over creative differences, but evidently she still felt she had a right to be there. Whatever the case, I'd have loved for security to have hauled her dumb ass outta there.
* Best Live-Action Short winner "The New Tenants". At this point I've realized that they are REALLY rushing these speeches to get finished as quick as possible, rushed though to the point of obnoxiousness. Why fucking bother letting them come up at all? Anytime there are 2 or 3 people, 1 speaks briefly and then once they finish, BAM! Music plays and we cut to a wide shot. Just obnoxious.
* Best Makeup is next. Out comes Ben Stiller. Only it's not quite Ben, it's Ben in full and complete Avatar regalia, right down to the little tail of sexual implications.
Ben worked over the crowd and James Cameron and finally got him to crack up as he delivered alternating lines in English and the Avatarian Na'vi language, with lots of tongue-clicking and nonsensical noises. It was funny stuff, and if anyone was gonna do this, it'd be him. He wasn't supposed to be alone, however. I'll have more on that later. Oh, and "Star Trek" was the winner here. That win was the first Oscar in the history of the Star Trek franchise, ever.
* Best Adapted Screenplay. I'd made an error in my predictions blog and said that it appeared possible that both "Up in the Air" and "Precious" would go home empty-handed on this night. Obviously, I'd completely forgotten about Mo'Nique when I wrote that. But I had picked "...Air" here so that meant both of those films WOULD take something home, and as it turned out, "...Air" was the odds-on favorite here and was expected to win. In what would be the night's only upset (and even calling it an upset is overstating it a little bit), the win went to Geoffrey Fletcher's screenplay for "Precious".
He clearly was shocked and gave a great speech all the while alternating between controlling his emotions and gasping in disbelief and pride. Fletcher became the first African-American to win a Screenplay Oscar, which is just mind-boggling to me that it didn't happen until now.
* Steve Martin followed that with "I wrote that speech for him." Can we have Steve do this every year?
* Highlights of the Governor's Award Gala from back in NOVEMBER, which is way too long ago to have this damn thing since they won't show these during the Oscar telecast anymore because it "takes too long". Whatever. They showed clips of the winners and their speeches. Director Roger Corman, Cinematographer Gordon Willis, actress Lauren Bacall, and getting the Thalberg Award was Producer and Executive James Calley. Corman and Bacall were present at the ceremony, introduced, given a(n eventual) standing ovation, and that was that. Jesus Christ, was that ridiculous. Lauren Bacall deserved so, so, so much better than this.
* Best Supporting Actress to Mo'Nique. People were standing and applauding before her name even finished coming out the mouth of the presenter. Clearly, a sure thing win here, and deservingly so.
* Best Art/Set Direction to "Avatar". Best Costume Design to "The Young Victoria". Sandy Powell begins her speech with "Well, I already have two of these..."
* Out come "Twilight" stars Taylor Lautner and Kristin Stewart. They introduce a tribute to horror movies. Well, Taylor does, anyway. Kristin just monotonously drones what's on the teleprompter. She could NOT look ANY MORE disinterested. And the thing is, this is how she ALWAYS is. Is it REALLY that hard being in show business, sweetheart? Wake the fuck up, crack a fucking smile, and at least PRETEND you give a shit. Otherwise, get the FUCK out of California. Sheesh.
* Both of the sound awards go to "The Hurt Locker". Momentum seems to be swinging that film's way.
* Oh, but wait...now Best Cinematography goes to "Avatar", a bit of a surprise because there was a lot of CGI to that cinematography. That's an interesting win...and momentum looks to be right back on an even playing field.
* The show continues to zip along, this just seems like a show on Fast Forward at this point. Every speech is rushed and the hosts seem to be barely even be showing up anymore.
* Memorial reel while James Taylor sings on-stage. Sorry, JT just never works for me. Film plays, applause varies, end of segment, fade to black, commercial. People up in arms that Farrah Fawcett wasn't part of the memorial reel.
* Dance troupe performs to the nominees for Best Original Score. Cool stuff, but odd seeing slow tunes get "danced" to, especially when the "dancing" consists of random running, jumping and flipping. "Up" wins the Oscar.
* Best Visual Effects to "Avatar", the one that seemed a sure thing for this film.
* Ad plays for ABC show "Modern Family" and it's the funniest commercial of the night by far.
* Best Documentary Feature to "The Cove". Speech is cut off as is the "Text Dolphin to 44144" sign that one of the guys holds up. That's as political as the night gets, as it turns out.
* Best Editing to "The Hurt Locker".
* Best Foreign Language Film to "El Secreto de Sus Ojos" from Argentina. Certainly looked more interesting from the clips than frontrunner "The White Ribbon" did. Director Juan Jose Campanella thanks the Academy for not considering Na'vi a foreign language.
* Promo as they go to break. "Which film will win Best Picture? Avatar? The Blind Side? The Hurt Locker? Or will there be a surprise?" Jesus, are you serious with that promo? First off, "The Blind Side" isn't winning, and you left out 7 others, so that pretty much tells us it's a two-horse race. We kinda knew it already, but COME ON, PEOPLE!!! Does anyone think before they write this shit anymore?!?!
* Best Actor time, and NOW we get the 5 people coming on stage to introduce the nominees. This time, though, it's not past winners, and in fact the genders are mixed. Each person tells a story about one of the nominees, for instance Tim Robbins telling of how Morgan Freeman called him "Ted" on the set of "The Shawshank Redemption". Even better, Colin Farrell talking of how he and Jeremy Renner while shooting "S.W.A.T." found themselves sharing a bed and spooning one night. These were fun, but why have them all there to do this when it turns out none of them are actually presenting the award? Kate Winslet comes out and presents it, and to no one's surprise, it goes to Jeff Bridges.
* It's now 11:35PM and there are 3 awards still to go. Even with all this cramming and rushing, they still are way over time. Screw the advertisers, just start the damn thing at 7PM. We don't need the ABC Z-Team of Red Carpet reporters doing what E! already did for 6 hours, and better. And stop budgeting 3 hours of TV time. Make it 4. You can't do this in 3 hours. Period.
* Best Actress, more people to tell stories, then the actual presenter, and the one potential acting upset of the night...doesn't happen. Sandra Bullock wins and lays out one hell of a speech, as expected. You can't help but like her, and that's why everyone does.
* No more commercials, we go right into Best Director. Barbra Streisand is presenting. Hmmmm...interesting choice. The nominations are read, and she opens the envelope and sighs. After a pause, "Well, the time has come." Winner is Kathryn Bigelow. She is the first woman to win Best Director. James Cameron immediately was on his feet cheering and applauding his ex-wife for the win on the film that he told her she'd be crazy not to direct.
As you see there, fello nominee Jason Reitman plus apparently every single person backstage in the press room was elated she won this. I think it's just great that we finally broke this barrier, and I think everyone else felt the same way. The thing is, the barrier didn't get broken "just to break it". This film rocked and so did her directing of it. She earned this.
I mean, do you see this? This isn't just another congratulatory standing ovation here. These are beaming smiles from Kathryn and everyone around her, and the cheers may have been the loudest of the whole night. This IS a big deal.
She generally kept herself together with her speech and headed backstage. Still no commercial, out comes Tom Hanks. Tom says that the last time we had 10 films nominated was 1943, and the film that won was "Casablanca". "Let's see which film joins that elite company." I look down expecting to hear the list of nomination read, but no...I hear this. "The winner is 'The Hurt Locker'."
Jesus, Tom Hanks gets about 14 seconds on stage? Good Lord. Anyway, Kathryn runs from the back after barely getting TO the back, up comes the main actors, producers and writers. James Cameron graciously congratulates and embraces the producers as well. They all speak for and about the film, and the speech is NOT cut off. And the show pretty much then ends.
* From my predictions, I got 11 right out of 24. Not a great showing, but I'm happy when I at least hit double-digits.
* T-Bone Burnett was feeling under the weather so after being on stage for his Oscar win (and deliberately not speaking), he went right back to his seat.
* Mo'Nique explained that she name-dropped Hattie McDaniel for a reason. Hattie was the first African-American Oscar winner, for "Gone With the Wind". Even then, though, she faced discrimination. Mo'Nique told us that she wore a blue dress tonight because Hattie did on that night, and she wore the flower in her hair as she did because Hattie did on that night.
* Mark Boal was asked backstage about the guy suing him for his "Hurt Locker" script, saying it was based on him. Boal calmly answered, "Jeff is a brave soldier. The screeplay is a work of fiction. It's not based on any one person's story."
* Sandra Bullock stated she would keep the Golden Globe, the Oscar AND the Razzie all together on the same mantle, but later relented that she might bump the Razzie into a little lower position.
* Alec and Steve, despite being mostly invisible after the first hour, I really liked. They were the first co-hosts of the show since 1987 when Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Paul Hogan hosted. To which I can only say, "Thank GOD it's not 1988."
* Christopher Plummer, nominated for Best Supporting Actor, was there with his first ever nomination at the age of 80.
* Ben Stiller was supposed to present the Makeup award alongside Sacha Baron Cohen, but for reasons I haven't been able to find out, Cohen dropped out. Apparently this was a late decision because the E! network was saying he would be presenting just hours before the ceremony was to begin. It may or may not be related to this fact, but the original host for this year's show was NOT planned to be Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. It was planned to be Cohen. The producers had it all lined up, but the Academy--in what even I have to admit was a good call of sticking to some old guns--vetoed that idea.
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And so...another year of Oscardom has come and gone. "Hurt Locker" wins 6, "Avatar" wins 3, no other film gets more than 2. A nice variety this year, and even with most of the show seemingly being predictable (my final tally notwithstanding), things feel to me the morning after like they went the way they should have.
I saw "The Hurt Locker" after I posted the predictions, and I really liked it. I still was picking "Avatar" to win Best Picture for the reasons I explained there, but as the last week has gone by with me remembering "...Locker", I've come to the conclusion that the right film won. Things feel right.
Thankx for reading, hope you'll comment and spread the word about this blog to everyone you know!!
I've decided - I'm much more of a what the hell is she wearing (SJP!!!!!) kind of gal than who won that, but it is certainly fun watching with you! lol
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