No real surprises, as per usual this Oscar Night, except perhaps Alan Arkin over Eddie Murphy. Jennifer Hudson and Forest Whitaker (although floored by their wins) were almost as certain of theirs as Helen Mirren, who offered a tribute to and raised the statutette in honour of Her Majesty. Good on yer, girl!And if Scorcese didn't win this year I was certain there would be a riot, so fortunately he did. I mean, he could have won by directing an episode of "Two and a Half Men" after the upsets of the last few years, most especially losing to Roman Polanski in 2002. It'll be interesting to see if his career takes off after this.
As for the host, what little stage time she did have was further eaten away when she decided to walk around in the audience, although the exchange between Clint and Spielberg and Ellen was priceless. "An Inconvenient Truth" did well, winning Best Documentary as expected. They had one of the evening's few surprises as well when Melissa Etheridge won for Best Song.
Meryl Streep looked like a high school art teacher chaperoning the prom, which was still less disconcerting than the resemblance between Etheridge and Senator Clinton. Nicole Kidman looking dangerously thin in vivid red, Gwyneth Paltrow proving she's a bitch by pulling off a colour as complex as coral, Cameron Diaz and Maggie Gyllenhaal both minus their necks, Penelope Cruz more than compensating.
Jodie Foster looked stunning in a blue/teal (probably Armani) and nice to see her too, as she's been keeping a low profile since the girls started coming out and doing so well. Diane Keaton also looked pretty smokin'. Add a Catherine Deneuve sighting and it all adds up to a pretty good Oscars, all told.
Although... I never would have thought the day would come when Clive Owen was the hottest man of the night. Don't get me wrong, he's pretty hot, but he was the hottest man there period tonight. Clooney and Daniel Crag, er, Craig looked pretty good, even Tobey Macguire did that hot mumbling thing he does. But Clive Owen was it.
And as usual the evening has come to a close with me looking like a hot mess, on account of I've been crying like a bitch since the red carpet.
[UPDATE: How could I forget Sacha Baron Cohen? Jewish and British, and rocking that tux like a gigolo. I guess because he wasn't a presenter his role in the telecast consisted almost exclusively of being that totally hot guy in the background that they should have been focussing on instead of constantly cutting to Jack Nicholson.]
After Brokeback Mountain got so severly stiffed, I just can't get it up for the Oscars anymore. Hollywood proved how soulless and cowardly it really is that night. I hope that Hollywood North and Bollywood and all the other film centers that I don't know about wipe that fleck of glitter off the map forever.
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm bitter
Of course you're bitter, because you don't know how Hollywood works. Who won this or that trophy matters very little. It's all in the nominations, and in the issues raised by them.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that this little movie dealing with such incendiary issues was embraced by the Academy at all was ground-breaking, as even a decade before it wouldn't have gotten made, let alone have been so heavily honoured.
The Academy Awards reflect the collective will of its members over what sort of guilt they're feeling in any given year. Sometimes it's racism, often it's sexism, this one year it so happened they felt like dealing with homophobia for only the second or third time ever in nearly eighty years.
You'll see. In the next five years a movie dealing with similar issues directed by an American, using established stars, will do better than Brokeback did.