Oscars 2009
God I haven't posted on this thing in fucking ages, I've been busy, busy, busy. However, now in an attempt to avoid writing an essay, some thoughts on the Oscars last night.
- They are always so long. Every year I think it'll be a breeze, 3 and a half hours, no problem! Staying up until 5am, sure I'll be able to go into uni in the morning. Yeah, like that happened.
- Hugh Jackman's opening number was the gayest thing that ever Oscared. As such, it was amazing. I especially enjoyed him soulfully singing to Kate Winslet about swimming through excretement, the unabashedly shit Benjamin Button backdrop and Anne Hathaway (playing Richard Nixon, lol) hitting a ridiculously high note then headbanging. Bonus points for touching Mickey Rourke without getting crabs, and telling Meryl Streep she is on steroids without getting the drama queen eyebrow raised in return.
- Oh wait, the absolute BEST thing about the opening song and dance number was the Kraftwerkesque, 'The Reader, I haven't seen The Reader...' (because really who would want to see The Reader?)
- Regardless of Hugh Jackman's talents, I miss Jon Stewart in all his silver haired glory
- I really liked the way they presented the acting categories this year, using 5 previous winners to pay tribute to that night's nominees. Predictably it ended up with at least half the nominees in tears. There were also really entertaining montages of past winners before each acting award (seemingly every Supporting Actress that has ever won started her speech with, 'Oh my God')
- The floating camera constantly panning over the In Memorium segment gave me something akin to sea sickness.
- The set design was a little bit awkward I thought. I like the idea of a semi-circle auditorium, but the stage was so close to the first row of seating that Winslet, Streep, Penn, Jolie and Pitt probably got accidently spat on a few times
- In regards to the presenters: Jennifer Aniston (plus inevitable jump cut to Angelina), Jack Black, Will Smith, Jessica Biel - could have done without. The dude from Twilight is even whiter than I am, but Amanda Seyfried is gorgeous so she balanced him out. All the past winners (bar Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman's strange plastic head) get a big thumbs up. Everytime Christopher Walken speaks I wish he would be my crazy, mildly threatening, uncle. Tina Fey looked amazing in her sparkly concotion, plus she and Steve Martin brought the funny.
- The kissing scenes from Milk were shown several times and nobody in the Bible Belt states burst into flames.
- My favourite montage was the Apatow written skit wherein James Franco and Seth Rogen got stoned and watched various movies. Is this version of Take a Chance On Me (I swear I have some sort of Mamma Mia sickness) not genius?
It stars James Bond
And the chick from Doubt
And that girl fom Mean Girls
And that Irish guy
I think he's in Gangs of New York, I'm not sure
Take a Chance on meee....
...(still singing) Orlando Bloom's Dad in Pirates of the Carribbean!
That's it, Take a chance on meeeee
- Fashion wise no one looked spectacularly awful, which is disappointing because I always love at least one cracked out, 'Bijork wears a swan,' moment, Amy Adams did have a huge bejewelled necklace on that clashed with everything. Oh and Tilda Swinton looked like a Rivita cracker, but that's pretty normal for her. Kate Winslet's dress loked like someone had sown her net curtains into it, but oddly it worked. Meryl Streep managed to flip her fashion coin and land on elegant, rather than kooky 1970s bag lady. Angelina Jolie (in black splt upto her lady parts and beautiful green earrings) and Anne Hathaway (sparkly mermaid) both looked fantastic. My favourite was Marion Cotillard who wore basically a full length black/blue embroidered tulle tutu. It was much nicer than that sounds.
Who cares what the boys wore?
- I loved when the curtains didn't upon at the beginning and you heard one of the tech guys hiss, 'open the curtains Steve!'
- The Winners I can't comment on too throughly as I am the only person left in Britain who hasn't seen Slumdog Millionaire. In regards to what I have seen:
- I am glad Milk won best orginal screenplay, although In Bruges pulling the upset would have been brilliant (I also love that the only clip they could find of In Bruges without any swearing was about 2 seconds long). I am happy Wall E won animated film and amazed that Waltz with Bashir did not win foreign film.
- I have not seen Vicky Christy Barcelona (Woody Allen aversion) but I have heard Penelope Cruz was very good in it and I am as amenable to her winning as anyone else. Of course Heath Legder won, he deserved it but can we now let the whole thing go? Hate Sean Penn, but thought he was excellent in Milk plus he seems to be developing a sense of humour about himself in his middle age.
- The Best Actress cluster fuck - well Kate Winslet won as expected. I love her body of work (and body full stop - inappropriate comment) but I saw The Reader yesterday and I wish feverently that she hadn't won for that. Just an offensive film and a horribly overacted performance. Sure Meryl Streep overacts all over Doubt, but that seemed to work in the more theatrical context of her film. I would have given it to Anne Hathaway, which believe me I never thought I'd say because she always reminded me more of a horse than a human being. I firmly believe they gave that award to Kate because she was way overdue in wins to nominations ratio (0 for 5). Which just creates problems down the line when the inevitable happens in a few years and Winslet puts in an incredible, deserving performance. This will promptly be ignored bcause the voters have realised Streep hasn't won in a zillion years and they need to bestow the Queen of Oscars with something before she dies.
- I'm sad Jai Ho beat O Saya in original song, but GO TEAM BOLLYWOOD!
- They are always so long. Every year I think it'll be a breeze, 3 and a half hours, no problem! Staying up until 5am, sure I'll be able to go into uni in the morning. Yeah, like that happened.
- Hugh Jackman's opening number was the gayest thing that ever Oscared. As such, it was amazing. I especially enjoyed him soulfully singing to Kate Winslet about swimming through excretement, the unabashedly shit Benjamin Button backdrop and Anne Hathaway (playing Richard Nixon, lol) hitting a ridiculously high note then headbanging. Bonus points for touching Mickey Rourke without getting crabs, and telling Meryl Streep she is on steroids without getting the drama queen eyebrow raised in return.
- Oh wait, the absolute BEST thing about the opening song and dance number was the Kraftwerkesque, 'The Reader, I haven't seen The Reader...' (because really who would want to see The Reader?)
- Regardless of Hugh Jackman's talents, I miss Jon Stewart in all his silver haired glory
- I really liked the way they presented the acting categories this year, using 5 previous winners to pay tribute to that night's nominees. Predictably it ended up with at least half the nominees in tears. There were also really entertaining montages of past winners before each acting award (seemingly every Supporting Actress that has ever won started her speech with, 'Oh my God')
- The floating camera constantly panning over the In Memorium segment gave me something akin to sea sickness.
- The set design was a little bit awkward I thought. I like the idea of a semi-circle auditorium, but the stage was so close to the first row of seating that Winslet, Streep, Penn, Jolie and Pitt probably got accidently spat on a few times
- In regards to the presenters: Jennifer Aniston (plus inevitable jump cut to Angelina), Jack Black, Will Smith, Jessica Biel - could have done without. The dude from Twilight is even whiter than I am, but Amanda Seyfried is gorgeous so she balanced him out. All the past winners (bar Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman's strange plastic head) get a big thumbs up. Everytime Christopher Walken speaks I wish he would be my crazy, mildly threatening, uncle. Tina Fey looked amazing in her sparkly concotion, plus she and Steve Martin brought the funny.
- The kissing scenes from Milk were shown several times and nobody in the Bible Belt states burst into flames.
- My favourite montage was the Apatow written skit wherein James Franco and Seth Rogen got stoned and watched various movies. Is this version of Take a Chance On Me (I swear I have some sort of Mamma Mia sickness) not genius?
It stars James Bond
And the chick from Doubt
And that girl fom Mean Girls
And that Irish guy
I think he's in Gangs of New York, I'm not sure
Take a Chance on meee....
...(still singing) Orlando Bloom's Dad in Pirates of the Carribbean!
That's it, Take a chance on meeeee
- Fashion wise no one looked spectacularly awful, which is disappointing because I always love at least one cracked out, 'Bijork wears a swan,' moment, Amy Adams did have a huge bejewelled necklace on that clashed with everything. Oh and Tilda Swinton looked like a Rivita cracker, but that's pretty normal for her. Kate Winslet's dress loked like someone had sown her net curtains into it, but oddly it worked. Meryl Streep managed to flip her fashion coin and land on elegant, rather than kooky 1970s bag lady. Angelina Jolie (in black splt upto her lady parts and beautiful green earrings) and Anne Hathaway (sparkly mermaid) both looked fantastic. My favourite was Marion Cotillard who wore basically a full length black/blue embroidered tulle tutu. It was much nicer than that sounds.
Who cares what the boys wore?
- I loved when the curtains didn't upon at the beginning and you heard one of the tech guys hiss, 'open the curtains Steve!'
- The Winners I can't comment on too throughly as I am the only person left in Britain who hasn't seen Slumdog Millionaire. In regards to what I have seen:
- I am glad Milk won best orginal screenplay, although In Bruges pulling the upset would have been brilliant (I also love that the only clip they could find of In Bruges without any swearing was about 2 seconds long). I am happy Wall E won animated film and amazed that Waltz with Bashir did not win foreign film.
- I have not seen Vicky Christy Barcelona (Woody Allen aversion) but I have heard Penelope Cruz was very good in it and I am as amenable to her winning as anyone else. Of course Heath Legder won, he deserved it but can we now let the whole thing go? Hate Sean Penn, but thought he was excellent in Milk plus he seems to be developing a sense of humour about himself in his middle age.
- The Best Actress cluster fuck - well Kate Winslet won as expected. I love her body of work (and body full stop - inappropriate comment) but I saw The Reader yesterday and I wish feverently that she hadn't won for that. Just an offensive film and a horribly overacted performance. Sure Meryl Streep overacts all over Doubt, but that seemed to work in the more theatrical context of her film. I would have given it to Anne Hathaway, which believe me I never thought I'd say because she always reminded me more of a horse than a human being. I firmly believe they gave that award to Kate because she was way overdue in wins to nominations ratio (0 for 5). Which just creates problems down the line when the inevitable happens in a few years and Winslet puts in an incredible, deserving performance. This will promptly be ignored bcause the voters have realised Streep hasn't won in a zillion years and they need to bestow the Queen of Oscars with something before she dies.
- I'm sad Jai Ho beat O Saya in original song, but GO TEAM BOLLYWOOD!