Random Thoughts on Oscars 2011

This is not my fashion commentary.  This is what would have been a live blog, except that it's already the next morning.  So sue me--I was enjoying watching it.

Anne Hathaway walked the red carpet in a Serious Red Dress.  Awww--she looks happy, relaxed, and ready for anything.  Isn't it amazing that she's an American actress?  She's beautiful in such a "you have a funny looking face" kind of way that American movies so rarely allow on-screen.

James Franco, however, has totally failed a softball interview in the "green room," which looks like a bar to me.  This may ultimately be the explanation for why he spent the majority of the telecast holding his head verrrrrry still.  Oh yeah, I just implied that Franco was drunk and/or hungover.  It was like he was emitting anti-charisma particles most of the night.

Kirk Douglas!  OMG--I was sure he was dead!  Interesting fact from PulledItOutOfMyAss.com--earlobes continue growing even after the rest of the body stops.  But isn't he being charming?  He's milking this appearance like the biggest ham ever, and I start to worry that the orchestra is going to be ordered to drive him off-stage with the Official Oscar "Your Time Is Up" music before he even gets the envelope open.  But no, it's good.  I love the rapport he sets up with Hathaway and how she responds.  And then the good looking Cane Caddy!  Is he KD's personal assistant, or was he provided by the show?  Either way, the hand over hand battle was well done.  Oh, and then Melissa Leo and KD--give these two kids a show!

Then the ceremonial appearance of the Lifetime Achievement award winners--kind of sucky, Oscar telecast, to be sooo committed to sucking up to the "Younger Demographic" that the people you feel are sufficiently talented to deserve awards for a lifetime of acting directing and producing don't even get a second at the mic.  But then I am unable to guess who is older--Kirk Douglas or Eli Wallach?  IMDB to the rescue--it's Wallach, by almost exactly 1 year.

Lots of costume changes for Anne Hathaway--love the beaded number, and then she twists in it!  She is now officially my favorite Oscar(TM) host ever.

In contrast, a surprising number of presenters are wearing the same thing they wore to walk the red carpet.  I have come to expect multiple costume changes from everybody.  Okay, Dion and Paltrow and Welch all changed, so the dressing rooms have been reserved for performers perhaps?  Or maybe Anne "A Different Look For Every Category" Hathaway has used up all the closet space.


Cate Blanchett: her generation's Helen Mirren?  Discuss.

Why is Russell Brand?  My brain has such a hard time with him, because one part is screaming "LOOK AWAY FROM THE SKEEVE!" while a different part is saying "he's funny!  He makes me laugh!"  Tonight a new part of the brain weighs in with "Oh honey, no--clean-shaven is not the right look for you."  And then I have to think about something else, lest the three-way brain battle causes my head to explode.  Oh look!  Helen Mirren speaks French and I can understand it!  She's so cool.

ABC is proud to host the OscarsTM until 2020.  You say that, ABC Lady, but somebody literally just screwed up your telecast.  Local maybe?  I got part of the OscarTM buffer--camera pans across statuettes with the envelopes leaning against them, then I got 2.5 seconds of what looks like young couple buying their first home ad, then a couple more seconds of OscarTM panning buffer, then the last half of the young couple ad--which turns out to be an ad for cat food, but cute as it involves young man giving young woman a kitten which is wearing a tag that says "will you marry us"--and THEN I got the first half of the cat food/new home buying ad, which ran up to the part where the second half had already aired, and then suddenly we were in the middle of one of your sentences where you were bragging about what a great job ABC does with the telecast.  I call "Shenanigans!"

Obama has a favorite OscarTM song and it isn't "It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp?"  Color me disappointed.

Kevin Spacey has a nice voice.  Does he still make movies anymore?  He's also kind of creepy looking in a way inconsistent with movie musicals.

My kids are already scouring the interwebs for "Autotune the Oscars" in order to download "Tiny Ball of Light."  I kind of love "He Doesn't Own A Shirt" myself, mostly for the blatant pandering of it.  Here you go kids!


Oprah, wearing a dress from the Dollly Parton Couture Collection.  Honestly--do boobs like being pushed around like that?  I'm thinking she's going to have some strange marks about her chestal area by the end of the night.

Billy Crystal is kind of unrecognizable in a weird way.  Like a "lots of bad plastic surgery unless it's steroid therapy for lupus" kind of way.  He's still funny, but it's like his expressions don't recognize his face--there's a weird disconnect when he mugs, where I have to mentally assemble what the different parts of his face are doing to get the emotion he's conveying.  I hope things are ok in Chrystal World.

RDJ and Jude "I Used To Be Sooo Handsome" Law are bantering.  The banter is awkward because it seems like RDJ is talking about  tech issues from his Other Franchise, Not The One Jude Law Is In.  RDJ is my third favorite Sherlock Holmes, behind Benedict Cumberbatch and Jeremy Brett.  Which I guess means that the RDJ Sherlock Franchise is no longer necessary.  Jude Law is not on my list of favorite Watsons at all--or if he has to be on a Watson list, he's down below the Jeopardy-playing computer and my aunt's Maltese.

 Bob Hope Hologram--boy, do I see where Johnny Carson got his delivery.   How many more awards seasons until the Bob Hope Clone is perfected to take over hosting duties?

Something about Celine Dion's face is so annoying that I close my eyes so I don't have to see her, and miss the first however many seconds of the I See Dead People Montage.  Some of those faces just jump off the screen, don't they?  Jill Clayburgh, Tony Curtis, Leslie Nielsen.

Halle Berry is having such a sad life right now--I wonder if the fact that she is gorgeous is any consolation to her. 

Tom Hooper and James Cameron: Separated at Birth?  I know I couldn't figure out why James "Smurfs in Fern Gully" Cameron would be at the OscarsTM this year.  Let's go to the replay:

James Cameron

Tom Hooper

Nope--the age difference is too great for Separated at Birth.  I'm going with "unacknowledged love child."

Portman wins Best Actress.  After watching the clips, I was kind of hoping for an upset.  God knows I'm more interested in seeing "Blue Valentine" and "Winter's Bone" than "Black Swan."  The sad thing--Portman's life has nowhere to go but downhill from this moment.  Trust me--pregnant is much more fun than newly post-partum, even without diaper changing and sleep deprivation.  Pregnant, cute, dolled-up and Oscar-winning--nothing in the real world will live up to this moment.  Ever again.

Sandra Bullock ragging Jeff Bridges--"ya think ya might wanna stagger these out a bit?"  Give that woman a reality show or something.  I don't want to watch her act, I want to watch her be Sandy.  She too has had a terrible year.  Does being gorgeous, funny, and universally beloved offer her some consolation?

Colin Firth wins!  Of course he's charming--I think they must have charming lessons in school in England.  Except Christian Bale skipped out of his.  Maybe they're elective.

I like the speech somebody wrote for Steven Spielberg--the winner of the Best Picture will join such movies as [undeniably great films here].  The other nine (losing) nominees will join [undeniably great and unjustifiably OscarTM-less movies here].  That's a great way to say what everybody says--the honor is being nominated.  The winning kind of misses the point sometimes (often).  (But I still love "Shakespeare in Love" and you cannot take that away from me!)

And The King's Speech wins, everybody comes up to celebrate, and the orchestra plays over the third guy's chance at the mic, but He! Will! Not! Be! Denied!  So he cleverly thanks the Academy and they let him talk.  Ya know, HBC was so dang charming in that movie, that I might just have to go see it again.

What's the deal with this P.S.22 school choir?  Damn!  There's some cultural allusion I've completely missed--because you KNOW the OscarsTM wouldn't just pick some kids' choir--however good they are--and put them on the telecast unless they had already been a YouTube sensation of some sort.

And the show is over in less than 3.5 hours.  Franco can go back to school--he did himself no favors tonight.  But Anne Hathaway can come back next year.  Please?