Blogging the Academy Awards…….
I’m so psyched that The Rock is hosting. I’m hoping he’ll come out and be silent for about 30 seconds and just look around, left to right, up and down. The crowd would be going nuts and then he’d raise his eyebrow and be all like “finally……….The Rock will announce the jabroni who’s gonna win supporting actor.” Oh wait – it’s the other Rock. His monologue – does it seem loud? I swear when I turned on the television the volume was low, but as soon as Rock came out, it seems way louder. All in all, a fairly tame way to start. I love the reference to Pootie Tang, though. I believe, sadly, that with the very mention of the words “Pootie” and “Tang” at the Oscars, we might have already hit the peak of the show.
Oh, but wait! The first award is for Best Art Direction and check it out! They have all the nominees right there on stage behind Halle Berry. Oh boy, I sure hope beyond hope that they do this for all the awards! Can you imagine? That could get really nasty, but it would be awesome to see Annette Benning sneak up on Hilary Swank and hit her with a chair or something.
Morgan Freeman won! I feel like this award is not just for Million Dollar Baby, but for all the great movies this guy has been a part of. This award was long overdue and the ovation he got seemed so incredibly genuine. I bet he’s a great dude. It would have been really funny, though, if, when they announced he won, he didn’t show up on stage and they just focused the camera on the microphone and the his acceptance speech was just him narrating. The microphone would be there, but nobody would be on camera and you’d just hear his voice, accepting the award. “It was a gorgeous Hollywood night and inside the Kodak Theatre, a group of my counterparts were gathered…….”
Oh, they didn’t line all the nominees up on stage. Damn.
Drew Barrymore looks a lot like Madonna in the “Papa Don’t Preach” video from like 1986. I bet you anything all those teen boys who are lined up behind Beyonce and like “whoa, look at that ass.”
Robin Williams is kind of like the Patriots. You kind of forget about him on the big stage, but when it’s time to perform, he delivers the goods. All….the…..time. It’s a good thing they didn’t let him to too long, though. Remember that HBO special when he ended up sweating off about 42 pounds and drank like seven cases of Poland Spring water? Geezus.
Do you think Scarlet Johansen was really honored and privledged to host the Scientific & Technical portion of the awards? As a sidenote, this portion of the awards were held last Tuesday morning at approximately 3am. If she really felt that way, that’s totally righteous. But I doubt it. She’s actually a reader of this blog, so I hope she chirps in with her answer. I am also the Easter Bunny.
The Aviator has already won a few awards. I get the feeling that this movie is going to end up as one of those “won-a-bunch-of-technical-awards-but-that’s-all.”
Chris Rock brilliantly introduced Tim Robbins by claiming “he’s always boring us with his politics.” I love it! Robbins presented the award for Best Supporting Actress and hot damn! Cate Blanchett won for “The Aviator.” I revise my prediction: The Aviator will be one of those movies that wins every award except Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.
So it’s only 9:22 and I already don’t care about the rest of the awards until the big three, which will come tonight around 4:12am. Now what do I do?
OK, It’s 9:28 and I’ve already been proven wrong – the Johnny Carson tribute was excellent! Some of the highlights from his days hosting the awards were fabulous, especially his lines like “I see a lot of new faces out there, especially the new faces on a lot of the old faces” and “in case you were wondering, this is day 164 of the Oscar telecast, Jimmy Carter has been alterted and is working on your unconditional release.” I need to get that Carson DVD. I bet it’s awesome! Carson was the Michael Jordan of one-liners.
It looks like they only bring all the nominees on the stage when it’s an award nobody cares about. Damn.
A film about Tupac is nominated for Best Documentary, although it didn’t win. Tupac is very quickly becoming the Jimi Hendrix of the new century – he’s now in that rareified air of having approximately 97.4% of his work released after his death. I think, collectively, Hendrix and Tupac only released 6 albums or somethings, yet, wait – let me check Amazon – yep, there are 7,323 different albums for purchase today.
Another one for The Aviator.
Counting Crows on the Oscars! I haven’t seen these guys on TV since I was in college (1992?). Terrible song, too. What the hell is that on Adam Duritz’s head? Wait – I have just received confirmation that he does actually have a gigantic tarantula on his head! He kinda looks like that dude from Kid’N’Play.
With that bald cranium of his, Jake Gyllenhall suddenly looks a lot like Freddie Prinze, Jr. You think Gyllenhall’s agent is freaking out about that? Hmmmm…..he announced some award that Spiderman II took home the statue for. zzzzzzzzzzz. One notable: parts of Spiderman II were actually shot on the roof of our office in New York City. Neato.
Okay, go pee. Open the fridge and stare in there for roughly three minutes, check your oil or download some music: that old dude from the Academy is about to start in now about how they take bribes, er, I mean how they judge and decide the awards.
Al Pacino looks drunk again. He said “mezzur” instead of “measure” and it looks like they had a bed set up for him backstage and he was napping when they nudged him and said “get out there, jackass, you’re on!” I’m expecting him to just stop at some point and say something that makes absolutely no sense, like “I like to eat band-aids because they’re beige,” and then just fall over.
It’s 10:03 and I’m sprawled out on the bed now. The last 30 minutes have been bad. Like Mike-Tyson-morals-bad.
No……more………Beyonce. Falling…………asleep. Blood…..rushing…to my head. SOS. SOS. Mayday. Mayday. Beyonce has more makeup on than Tammy Faye Baker and Grace Jones (circa 1981) combined. For the record, I just did an image search on Google for “Grace Jones makeup” and I got one result – a picture of Mia Hamm. No lie. Just to be fair, I asked Jeeves, too, but got no results at all. Yahoo had a single result that I don’t want to discuss. Suffice it to say, I believe the Ask.com result is the better of the three.
Chris Rock introduced Jeremy Irons as a “comedy superstar.” I love it. Irons actually had the best improvised line of the night so far when, after a loud noise in the hall, he said “I hope they missed.” But the most amazing part is that they’re announcing a set of nominees for Live Action Short Film and one of the dudes who was nominated had actually fallen asleep! His date had to elbow him in the ribs to wake his ass up – classic! He didn’t win, but the person who did actaully said “this is the dog’s bollucks.” Huh?
I think we’re entering another dimension. They just introduced the leader of the Academy Awards Orchestra and I could swear, seriously, that he gave the “fuck off” sign by placing his left hand on his bicep and raising his right arm. I swear it.
I think it would be totally awesome if they gave out an award for Worst Film. I’d kinda be honored if my movie won Worst Film.
Rock says “You won’t be able to take your eyes off these four presenters, Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek.” Nyuk nyuk nyuk. I’m glad he’s sneaking in a little sophomoric humor here. That line just lowered the falling asleep meter from 98% to 82%. For the record, I like Penelope better. Whoever did Hayek’s makeup and hair for this should get the award for “Best Work in Making An Actress Look Like A Coke Whore.”
10:26: meter back up to 98%. Painful.
OK, Antonio Banderas is singing in Spanish. I’m now offically on suicide watch.
Mark it down – I just cycled through the stations for the first time tonight at 10:35 and found out we’re due for nearly a foot of snow.
99.4%
It’s time for the roll call of the dead. This usually means the big awards are coming right up. As The Rock might say………”finally.”
Oh, for god’s sakes, a song performance from “The Bi-Polar Express,” and can you freaking believe this? They’re letting Beyonce perform again! I’m watching and hearing Josh Groban for the first time in my life right now (he’s actually singing with the monopolistic Beyonce) and I’m nauseous. Groban has Rick Astley disease – looks like a meek, white high school sophomore, but sounds like a mature African-American man. What the hell? This is utter dreck. 11:00 on the nose right now and the sleep meter actually went down to 90% because I’m so offended.
Prince is presenting, only it sounds like they’re playing “Carry On Wayward Son” as his entrance music. Am I right? He’s presenting the Best Song From A Film. Normally, there’s a good song or two in here (recalling Elliot Smith’s sore-thumb appearance a couple of years ago), but this year they’re all horrific. It would be great if Prince just announced his furstration with the crappy nominees for this and just proclaimed himself the winner in this category for 1984’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Now the guy who won is singing his acceptance speech in Spanish. I have nothing to say about this.
I think they’re announcing Best Actress, because Sean Penn has just come out. I think Penn is dissing Chris Rock about his Jude Law comment from earlier when Rock said Law was in every single movie. It’s true. Anyway, Hilary Swank won it, which isn’t a big surprise. Good for her, she was quite incredible in that movie, even if she looks like a dude in real life. They started playing the music on her when she was talking! I’m bored.
Chris Rock puts a smile on my face when he introduces Gwenyth Paltrow as the only woman in history who has breast fed an apple. Genius. I think Rock might be the best host in the last couple of years. Paltrow presents best Foreign Film in the best way she can and using her most skilled attribute – her snottiness. Her claim that she wasn’t allowed to introduce the nominees in each of their native tongue due to time stinks of prep-school-rich-girl whining.
Oh, Charlize, please please please change the hair color back to blonde. Here we go with Best Actor. I’m kinding pushing for Ben Cheadle, only because he seems like the more genuinely nice dude out there. He was on The Daily Show a couple of weeks ago and Jon Stewart asked him, “so, how did this role come about,” and Cheadle said “I don’t know. They told me the role was mine unless Will Smith wanted it.” I’m already finding myself getting tired of Jamie Foxx. He looks really nervous. They just announced that he won and he hasn’t started speaking yet, but I guarantee he’s gonna sing a part of a Ray Charles song and then cry when he talks about his grandmother. Let’s see…..yep! There’s the singing! I’m a genius (not really)! Now….where’s the crying? Come on, now……come on…….here it comes……the grandmother talk…..and the tears have arrived! Nonetheless, a good acceptance speech. I also find it satisfying that black men have taken both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor tonight. Somewhere out there, Dooley Wilson is smiling.
I predict it will take about 14 minutes for people to start comparing Martin Scorsese to Susan Lucci.
Well, they’ve just announced that Million Dollar Baby has won Best Picture and yet again, I feel like this is three-and-a-half hours I’ll never get back. It’s a lot like watching football, actually – you watch it all day and then realize you’ve truly wasted an entire day on absolutely nothing. Although I’m happy to say I did finally get one right when I predicted it. I almost never do.
I promise no more postings will be as long as this one.