So I made a last-minute decision to catch an early matinee showing of Cursed on Sunday (had to see it early so I could be home in time for the red carpet pre-show at the Oscars), but it was such an unimpressive, mediocre, middle-of-the-road sort of movie that I'm not even going to bother doing a write-up on it. Instead, I'm going to focus on the real event of the weekend -- The Oscars!!
I seem to get worse and worse every year as I get more and more into movies and Hollywood. I used to not really pay any attention to the Oscars. Two years ago I actually watched the whole thing. Then last year I also watched the red carpet pre-show, flipping back and forth between shows on different channels (have to maximize the viewing of the hotties in their sexy dresses). This year I did all of that, AND watched the after-awards show, recorded the late-night post-Oscar shows (which went into the wee hours, but I had to get to bed so I could get up and go to work in the morning), AND recorded Good Morning America this morning to catch their Oscar interviews!! It's becoming a scary, obsessive/compulsive sort of thing, I tell you. But what can I say, movies are my life! :)
So on to the event. I have to say, there were so many lovelies this year it's hard to know where to begin. Hilary Swank looked very fine in that backless gown of hers, Drew Barrymore was looking lovely as ever, Halle Berry was a treat for the eyes, Salma Hayek was all kinds of fine. I think my favorites for the evening, though, would have to be Natalie Portman, Zhang Ziyi (whose see-through top offered the evening's requisite nipple shot), and Catalina Sandino Moreno, who was just all-the-way-around beautiful. There were a lot of strapless gowns this year, which is something you'll certainly never hear me complain about.
So despite the fact that the critics had nothing but bad things to say about him, I think Chris Rock did a great job as host this year. And considering that almost 3/4 of the viewers polled by ABC gave him an A or B rating, and only 10% gave him a D or F, I don't think I'm in the minority in that view. As one of the commentators after the show noted, he didn't really crack on any of the people in the audience, but instead focused on people who weren't attending this year, but if you think about it, there's a good reason for that. Unlike past hosts like Billy Crystal or Steve Martin who've been in the business long enough to be friends and co-workers with many of the attendees, Chris Rock is a relative newcomer, and still more stand-up comic than movie actor. Which means it's a lot harder for him to make jabs at the people in the audience and get away with it, since he doesn't know them nearly as well as Steve Martin does. But the jabs he did make were pretty funny, and he was good enough to make jabs at himself along with everyone else, which I think says a lot.
Was his intro as good as Billy Crystal's movie montage intro last year? No, probably not, but he still did a pretty good job, IMHO. His comparison's between G. W. Bush and working at the Gap were great (when he started talking about invading Banana Republic I was laughing my ass off). But he was equal-opportunity in his political bashing, teasing Tim Robbins about "boring us with his politics". And I couldn't help but smile when he introduced Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz as "four" presenters (and they were four very nice presenters at that, especially the two that Salma was showing off so nicely in that dress of hers).
Of course, Robin Williams did his best to outshine the host when he introduced the Best Animated Feature award (I can see why they won't let him host the show, considering how much trouble he can get himself into in just a 5-minute award intro). His comments about gay cartoon characters was a riot. The funniest part of the show by far, though, was when Pierce Brosnan was joined by the animated Edna Mode from The Incredibles to announce the award for Best Costume Design. She was funny as hell!! I love the fact that they're recognizing the popularity of animated features, and taking advantage of the constantly evolving computer animation technology to start bringing animated characters into the awards presentation. This is a trend I hope to see continue in the future.
Nothing really exciting this year as far as acceptance speeches go, and nothing at all really surprising as far as the winners. Of course, there weren't exactly any big, exciting films to root for this year, either. As was to be expected, The Aviator nabbed pretty much all the technical awards it was nominated for, then it basically crashed and burned when it came to the big awards, most all of which went to Million Dollar Baby. Let's face it, for whatever reason, the Academy just doesn't really like Martin Scorsese. That poor guy's going to get a Lifetime Achievement award one of this years just because he's never won an actual directing award. The most important moment of the night, though, had to be Jamie Foxx taking the Best Actor Oscar over the much-overrated (in my opinion) Leonardo DiCaprio (if for no other reason than I had twenty bucks riding on whether or not Jamie Foxx won an Oscar -- thanks for the beer money, Cliff!).
Although I had serious reservations about the format change this year (having all of the nominees onstage for some awards, presenting some awards in the audience), I have to admit they actually did a pretty good job of it. It had sounded like people getting more minor awards were going to be glossed over because they weren't going to be going to the stage to accept their award, but in the end I think it just saved them the long walk down to the stage. When it was all said and done, I think they did a good job with the new format. It will be interesting to see what next year holds for us.
And I think that's about it. I'm sure there are plenty of moments I'm forgetting about now that are worth commenting on, and plenty more discussion I could go into about the event, but I think I've said plenty for one day, so we'll call this one good.
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