As I posted on my Twitter account, I'd say that the Oscars are my SuperBowl... except for the fact that I'm an avid football fan, so I already have the real thing.
My apologies if I got this out too late and everyone has gotten their Oscar discussions from other sources... it was a long day and I'm only just getting to my PC now.
I'd only been watching it for the past couple years... at least fully armed with the who's who and what's up for what awards... it took me a while to kinda figure out that all the Oscar-nominees are generally released in theaters later on in the year... a lot of people got lucky because "Argo" came out, I believe, sometime in the fall, so there was a lot more time to see that...
I might have gotten a little complacent, having picked the best picture of the last two years. 2011 was pretty insane because the day of the Oscars, I decided that I'd like to see "The King's Speech"... and that night, it raked in a lot of the awards it was up for, including best director Tom Hooper, best actor Colin Firth (whom we got to see in action merely hours before), and of course, seeing it crowned as Best Picture.
Last year, I picked out "The Artist" simply because it was something new and different and I'd only just gotten acquainted with the silent film era via Charlie Chaplin... not enough exposure to be an expert on that period, but you get what I'm saying... all around, it was a great nod to old Hollywood and afterwards, I could see silent films coming back every now and then because it was a success... both in the box office and come awards season.
...of course I'll probably never stop kicking myself for skipping out on "Argo." There were a few times where I could have gone to see it, but I chickened out. A) because I had nobody to go with and B) it's not the type of movie I go to the movies to see...
same reason why I decided against "Hansel & Gretel" despite how much I'd been liking Jeremy Renner as of late... looked, possibly, like there was a little too much gore going on.
The best thing about the Oscars... glitz and glam aside... when you're not hell-bent on your favorite actors to win, seeing certain people and things win awards, especially the ones that you don't expect. At the end of the day, everyone worked hard on what they do, so no matter who it is, you can't help but be happy for them.
Sooo much got rectified by "Argo" winning, namely Ben Affleck walking away with a statue despite getting the best director snub.
And it was just a couple years ago where I was hacking about him not being as good looking as people think he is or, going with the Family Guy joke, sniggering that he really didn't contribute to "Good Will Hunting." Maybe it's the beard, but I have a whole new respect for the guy I didn't have before... from the trailers alone, I could tell that "Argo" looked great...
It's just not wanting to spend the money or get out of the house to see it... now I'll likely wait until it comes out on HBO.
I'm sure a lot of girls imagine being on the red carpet someday... you really know you're going up in the world when designers are approaching you with ideas and people are asking you "who are you wearing?" I've found that fascinating since getting full-on into this.
My best dressed picks were Amanda Seyfried, Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain.
As far as hosts go, I have vague recollections of seeing Chris Rock (he was great) and the duo of Steve Martin & Alec Baldwin (...can't remember really anything so I'm guessing not so much). James Franco sucked and Anne Hathaway rocked it in 2010.
Billy Crystal did real well, but at the same time, some of it felt like he was trying to play up to the audience in the "I'm still trying to be relevent"... almost like it was forced.
Seth McFarlane... I'm not sure if he'll be able to top himself if they ask him to do it again... while I believe that "Family Guy" has more than had its run (I mostly watch repeats from the first couple seasons anyway) and see no merit in the spin-off... a few jokes here and there fell flat and the audience wasn't shy about letting him know...
all that aside, I liked him a lot. It was like having fresh blood being pumped into this old tradition, so the props were given where they needed to be, but I liked how it felt relevant and how the show can continue keeping with the times in the future.
Of course nobody's gonna forget the opening monologue with the Shatner cameo as Captain Kirk. He comes from the future, telling him to scrap some parts of his routine to avoid being the worst Oscar host ever. One of these sketches was retelling flight with sock puppets... freaking hilarious, especially when they're seen hanging upside down in the crashing plane and spinning around in the dryer.
To fix the future, a few musical numbers are done and you see people like Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Joseph-Gordon Levitt and Charlize Theoren showing off their talents that... we didn't know they had. Channing could dance pretty well in the old-time style with Charlize and the two guys lit up the stage.
For the first time, I went in with somewhat of a rap sheet... I entered the Kelly & Michael pick-the-winners contest and picked the 24 winners...
I think I was lucky if I got 10. I started good and it just went downhill with all the technical awards.
On the plus side, I picked all of the actors...
tee-hee, I can officially back this up now... I picked Daniel-Day Lewis to win the Oscar the moment I saw the first trailer for "Lincoln"... right there. I doubt I'll be able to do that again :-P
Christoph Waltz proved that he and Tarantino were a winning combination twice... I LOVED him in "Inglorious Basterds" and seeing him in any of the trailers for "Django" has me excited to see more of him. It's so funny when this guy, so confident on screen, gets up and he almost sees like he's fighting off the waterworks. Who would have thought, right?
The best win of the night... well, actually, it became a tie for me...
the girls winning the actress statues. I was worried going into awards season that Sally Field might win cuz, c'mon, you can't compete with Mary Todd Lincoln, can you?
but she swept every award there was for "Les Mis" and I couldn't be happier for Anne Hathaway. I'm guessing that all the people in the Academy broke down in tears when they saw her performance so it was no contest. So great to see one of my favorite actresses become part of this elite group.
Jennifer Lawrence winning was great as well... I'd read "Silver Linings Playbook" and when it gets on DVD, I'll watch the movie... like a lot of other people, seeing her as Katniss in "The Hunger Games" was like a beacon shining on a brand new star.
Although she was nominated for "Winter's Bone" a couple years ago.
I will not comment on her tripping on her long gown on the way up the stairs because everyone else will... but Ben Affleck and Hugh Jackman were such gentleman for helping her up. or was it Bradley Cooper and Hugh Jackman? I couldn't really see from that angle...
anyway, moving on...
This year it was about celebrating music in movies. So we saw Adele sing "Skyfall" (which she took the statue for as well... booyah!! another trophy to go along with her Grammys), the singer of "Goldfinger" (The Bond tribute had me feeling embarassed that I'm very behind in Bond films, only seen maybe 3 so far), Norah Jones doing the song from "Ted"... plus Catherine Zeta-Jones for "All that Jazz" (was it really 10 years ago?), Jennifer Hudson for "Dream Girls"... and probably the biggest moment of the night aside from the winners...
the cast of "Les Mis" performing... by the end of it, there wasn't a dry eye in the house... except for my dad of course, looking around at all us girls balling... just WOW... gave me chills.
let's see, aside from the actors and "Skyfall" for song, I picked:
"Brave" for best animated film (saw it and loved it)
"Life of Pi" for at least one of the technical awards, I forgot which one I put down
"Argo" for sound editing (it tied with "Skyfall," which was pretty amazing, I hadn't heard of a tie outside of best actresses that one time)
"Amour" for best foreign film (cuz it was everywhere on the nominations, so why not?)
"Searching for Sugarman" for best documentary
so I picked at least 10 awards correctly
I got to thinking that after seeing 5 of "The Avengers" cast together presenting that this will be the last time that they have that many people on stage at once...
first it was like Robert Downey Jr. was reading all of the teleprompter on his own with everyone else trying to get their say. Then when Jeremy Renner took over, talking about how visual effects help make people look old or young depending on their role, drawing some side-glances from Samuel L. Jackson who finally asked if he was talking about him... something to that effect
then for the second award, he and Robert got into it. He started hogging the teleprompter again until Samuel L. Jackson said that they should get around to giving out the damn award already...
ah, Tony Stark and Nick Fury butting heads off-screen too, how sweet
Probably one of the biggest surprises of the night was Ang Lee winning Best Director for "Life of Pi" because we were all picking Spielberg for "Lincoln" (of its 12 nominations, I think it only walked away with one or two).
It's always great seeing people who that you don't quite expect to win.
That's another book I gotta read... not just because of the movie, but also because of a friend of mine recommended it.
"Argo" also won best adapted screenplay, which I was gonna give to "Silver Linings Playbook" because, like I said, I read and loved the book.
And even cooler, Tarantino won for best original screenplay. His last win was with "Pulp Fiction," which didn't surprise me in the slighest.
Yep, for Hollywood, it was overall and really cool night.
It's gonna be tough to bet come next year.
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