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Monday, February 23, 2015

2015 HICK CHIC OSCAR REPORT! (Because this is what I can contribute to the world…)

Buckle up and get comfy, this will be a long ride.  But it's okay because you didn't have to sit through almost 4 hours of OSCAR OSCAR OSCAR because I DID.  I used my commercial breaks wisely and got my jammies on and my teeth brushed and got to bed… around midnight. Of course, I didn't get off my ass and leave the farm to spend money and time on watching movies.  I meant to.  I just had kind of a tough year.  But I made up for it. LET'S DO THIS.

NEIL PATRICK HARRIS.  As is totally predictable, there's a pile of grumbling about how boring he was as a host, to which I call BS.  Of course he didn't go for nasty acidic jokes.  He's NPH!  That's not his style.  He's a song and dance, smirk and smile, pull a coin out of your ear kind of entertainer.  Geez people, we already did the nasty host routine and everybody bitched about it.  You hire Seth MacFarlane, you get what you hired, so you choose NPH and you get grown-up Doogie Howser!



See?

He is cheesy and charming! He's adorable!

Besides, his first joke was about Hollywood's Whitest  Brightest, which was perfectly justified because geez, you'd think only white people were in movies in 2014.

I thought he was fantastic and I want him to host everything in my life.  Here is a list of events I want Neil to host:

- The Juno Awards.  Whyyyyyy can't NPH be Canadian, whyyyyyy!??

- The New Hamburg Fall Fair

- The Mennonite Relief Sale Pie Auction (c'mon it'd be epic.)

- My next descent down the stairs

- when I get back to work, every riding lesson.

- If I ever get to another horse show, he needs to host that too.  Every time someone goes into the ring.
"She's known as the Hick, he's the most popular horse on Facebook.  Heidi and Phoenix!"  Sure we won't get our trailers out of the show grounds until dusk but it'll be so worth it!

Anyways.  His opening number was all about how much we love Moving Pictures, which I thought was kinda old timey in a sweet way.  It also involved Anna Kendrick, which was okay, and THEN oh my gosh, JACK BLACK interrupted the whole thing with the snarky side of the business: an interlude of cynical backlash about how nobody cares about movies and everybody just watches crap on their gadget-phones.  And it was done in pure Jack Black hyperbole.  But then all is well and we love Moving Pictures after all, and on with the show.

Lupita came out to present the first award.  Can we pause for a moment to sigh contentedly?


She's just so so so lovely.  

Her dress is basically made of pearls, and she is luminous, and I honestly think she comes off as a very positive and decent person.  I want to believe that Lupita is the real deal and sticks around - without showbiz destroying her!!!

JK Simmons won Best Supporting for Whiplash.  Apparently this is a movie about a scary music instructor.  Hmmm.  He seems like a nice fella who plays scary very well.  Here he is with his lovely wife.


His speech was the first of many personal messages, in his case, that if you're lucky enough to have living parents, call them, don't text them or email, talk to them.  (And a couple hours later my mom yelled up the stairs to tell me that my dog asked her to let him out for a wiz.  I did not text her back, I actually answered with my voice.  My dog keeps emailing her, lazy critter.  Haha)

Then Maroon 5 did a song, and it was okay.  I kept thinking that without the tattoos all over his arms, Adam Levine could look like he's in 1915.  Maybe it's the Dapper Dan hairdo.  

J Lo was there.  She presented an award.  Is she getting tired of this yet?  Remember years and years ago when she showed up at the Grammys wearing that green dress-thing with the boobs and the belly button and we were all scandalized?  Now we're like, "Oh hey, Jennifer Lopez brought her boobs.  Cool."


This was appropriately sparkly and mostly nekkid to make her recognizable.  

At this point in the show, The Grand Budapest Hotel started picking up some hardware for costumes and makeup and production design *** by the way, if you want to know exactly who won what, I suggest you go elsewhere because my notes are kinda sketchy, worse than my memory.  Here's a place to get the list if you want.  ***  

I really must see The Grand Budapest Hotel.  Looks fun.  

Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor presented an award, NPH joked that they were so good at acting that they would be playing each other, and he mangled Chiwetel's name.  Well yes, that's a hard name. That's what rehearsal is for, pssst.  At least he didn't call him Adele Dazeem.  

Let's have a look at Nicole.


I mean… it's okaaaay… she could have gone full on gold and it would have been better.

Let's take a minute to talk about Red Carpet Things.

- Keith Urban had to stand off to the side so the cameras could snap Nicole on her own, providing all of us unpaid critics a chance to get a good look at what she's wearing.  

- People have to be trained how to stand and pose.  I haven't.  I don't have a stylist either.  My dog has terrible ideas on formal wear.  

- Somebody is going to hate everything.

- this year, most women wore really bland stuff.  It was a very beige red carpet.  

However.  Here we must digress and see Lady Gaga.  If you squint hard it's almost the same as Nicole's!


Ohhhh Stefanie.  I have completely changed my mind about you.  I used to think you were annoying but ever since the green armpit hair stunt, I am delighted by your weirdness.  Thank you for matching your lips and hair scrunchie to your wacky gloves, and for reminding me of my favourite character on Futurama.


My notes are a little vague here, but I think what happened was this: A Polish film, "Ida" won Best Foreign Language film. (People in Poland must be like, "That ain't foreign, whaaa???") The man who accepted the award remarked on how a movie about silence and contemplation ended up here in the epicentre of Hollyweird.  It was a great speech, and he kept going through the Wrap It Up music and went on to mention his dearly departed wife and parents and yeah, orchestra, let the man thank his loved ones who are no longer with us, good call!

Also there was a bit with NPH talking to the audience.  The first two were seat fillers.  One was wearing a red dress and had my name.  And she was blonde, because I must be the only non-blonde Heidi in the world!

The fun part happened when Tegan & Sara with Lonely Island performed Everything is Awesome, and  bright yellow Lego Oscars were handed out.


Later on, Emma Stone was still cuddling hers.  

Here's Emma.


There's been some pissin &  moanin today about this chartreuse green.  Y'know, I'm giving it to her.  Yeah it's an obscure colour but it's an actual colour as opposed to variations of beige.  (Lupita is the exception because … just gorgeous.)  Emma's dress is covered in Oscar-appropriate sequins, it has long sleeves which is different, and it just works on her.  

Next up, Tim McGraw sang a song by Glen Campbell about being robbed by Alzheimer's of his memories and all that makes him who he is, and damn.  

So that was sad.

Then Neil apparently lost his clothes.

Having not seen Birdman, I didn't get the reference.  I just thought it was a joke about your worst nightmares in Grade 4 about showing up to school with no clothes on.  


"ACTING IS A NOBLE PROFESSION."

Can we agree on how cool it is that Sound Mixing and Editing get televised?  YES.  That's what I love about the Oscars.  People complain about being bored, but dude, these people are just as important to the movie as the actors.  They deserve this chance to publicly thank people who matter, or even thank their dog, Larry.  (That was cute.)

So American Sniper was nominated for approximately one whole truck load of awards, and I'm pretty sure it only won Editing.  This is interesting because it has been a huge financial success.  According to NPH, out of the 600 million taken in by the Best Picture nominees, 300 of that was from American Sniper.  As he illustrated, that's like everybody in the building is all the other movies, and American Sniper is Oprah.

 Oprah's like, "Whaaaaa?"

And Neil whispers, "Because you're rich."

She didn't seem to think it was funny.  Oprah doesn't have to find anything funny.  Because she's Oprah.



And you are not.

The next presenter of an award was… JESUS LETO!  He has not broken our hearts and ditched his Euro-Jesus look.  In fact, he was wearing shoes so white they could only have been made my angels, and his silvery blue tux, probably made of a fabric spun by unicorn hair, matched his pretty eyes. 




Did I mention it was raining in LA?  I take a ridiculous amount of delight from this.  The SHOW MUST GO ON, PEOPLE.  WHERE ARE THE UMBRELLA WRANGLERS?  I'm from a country where we hold a big awards show in spring, which in most places here is still winter, and yes I have seen a few red carpets sprinkled with snow.  If they're smart, they cover that thing with a big ol tent.  Umbrellas have no power in Canadian winter.  



But our umbrellas are missing out on Jesus Leto.  Maybe that's the problem.

So Patricia Aquette won Best Supporting, and the best thing happened.  Jared Leto handed her the little gold guy, and in her flustered moment she whispered… Jesus.

 Of course she did.  



I actually don't like the name used as a swear.  But I couldn't help but giggle.  

Boyhood is another movie that I need to see.  Patricia Arquette was fantastic in that clip.  I tend to find her to be kind of mumbly and monotone.  Wasn't she on a TV show called Mumblium?  No, Medium.  Anyways.  She wasn't like that in the clip.  She was a woman at the end of her rope and not sure how to keep hanging on.  She was great! 



 In her speech, she talked about wage equity for women, to which I say, much like Meryl, YES…


(wait, J Lo gets to sit beside Meryl!!??!!)

…but also, seriously, WTH, it's 2015  for crying out loud, why are we even having to talk about this?  Women should be making the same pay as men!  Duh!  We shouldn't have to talk about it because it shouldn't be a problem anymore!  But it is, so Patricia put it out there.  

There was a lot of putting it out there.  We'll get to it.  We're not even halfway through.  Feel free to go take a wiz break and brush your teeth and put your jammies on.  

Anyways, speaking of taking a break, in the very next commercial break there was an ad for a new TV Show, called CSI CYBER or something similar that made Bucky the Nerd guffaw, starring ACADEMY AWARD WINNER PATRICIA ARQUETTE!  Just ready to go.  Boom.  

The next musical number was sung by Rita Ora.  I'm only aware of this person because I read Go Fug Yourself.  


She's pretty and she sang well.

Chloe Grace Moretz presented an award and I wanted so much to take her hands out of her pockets.




Bucky saw more movies than I did this year.  He was 3 out of the 5 Visual Effects nominees.  I gotta leave the farm more often.  Bucky really liked how the Big Hero 6 crew were all way back at the far end of the theatre, hooting and cheering for their friends on the stage.  I couldn't believe Bucky was still there at this point.  (He was busy teaching himself how to type properly.  He wasn't really watching this.)

Did you know that the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a black woman?  Cheryl Boon Isaacs.  Now you know.  

The Cinematography award went to the same fella from last year, and I really need to see Birdman.  

Meryl came up to introduce the In Memoriam.  She looked like she was going to a very classy Christmas party for work.  She must look through he closet every January and think, geez, what the heck am I gonna wear to the Oscars THIS year.


Meryl Streep never looks ridiculous.

The Memoriams were nicely done.  But I didn't even think of it until later that some were left out.  I don't understand how that happens - don't they keep track of these things?  

J Hud sang a song, and she was, of course, lovely.  She sang like she was at the freakin' Oscars. 


Her red carpet dress was nicer than her performance dress.

I have a note here that the movie Selma looks amazing.   I mean, other than I'm sure it's a well done movie with a hell of a message.  It looks vintage.  It looks faded, and like it was shot in a very bright hot place.  Put that on the list of must-see.

Jennifer Aniston and David Oyelowo presented together.  Was that arranged because both of them did not get the nominations that so many people thought they deserved?  Well I must say, they both looked great.  


He's wearing red!  Two different reds!  

And Jennifer wore…

are you ready for this…

seriously sit down….

BEIGE.


sigh.

Specifically, beige sparkly strapless.  zzzzzzz.

She looks beautiful, of course, because she just always does.  But this isn't even as great a dress as she often chooses.  I guess she goes with what she knows is good.  But.  Oh well.  

The next song performance was Glory by John Legend and Common.  Y'know, I just saw this a couple weeks ago at the Grammys and it seemed even more powerful this time around.  If I wasn't on medication I'd have been crying.  


Is Common always this awesome?  

The funny thing is, Glory won for the best song, and I didn't get it at first why there were two guys names listed as writers and the two performers got up and talked about how they wrote the song… duh.  Those are their real names.  I was getting very tired at this point.  

This was one of the most heartfelt speeches, including the statistic that there are more black men in jail than there were enslaved in 1850.  I'm sure the bigger population has to do with that, but still, proportionally, that is tragic.  

NPH then started off a bit about the guy with the best name in showbiz, Benedict Cumberbatch.  That's the sound of John Travolta trying to say Ben Affleck.  Bwahahaha!  

But before I follow through on that…


Here is Benedatch Cumberditch with his new wife, Sophie Hunter, or as they are titled in this photo, "cumberbs."  Oh how I wish I'd made that up.

If they hyphenated their names, they'd be the HunterCumberBatches.  Or the Cumberbatch-Hunters, which sounds like either an illegal poaching expedition or the name of an insufferable bearded indie band.  

AAAAnyways.  The John Travolta reference was followed by, ladies and gentlemen, Idina Menzel!  Who then introduced her co-presenter, Gorn Grazolla, or something.

My reaction: whooo! Being a good sport about an embarrassing incident!


(Her: Not that it'll follow me the rest of my life…  Him: Tell me about it…)


Buuuut then things got weird, but not happy-fun-weird, sad-weird...



…as he stroked her face and called her his brilliant wonderful Idina Menzel.  My reaction: keep grinning and get outta there as soon as you can.  


John Travolta is making me sad.  I don't like this.  Remember when he was Vinnie Barbarino and he was both cute and charmingly dense?  He was funny.  He was handsome.  Now he's just really fake looking.  Even the grey streaks in his fake hair are fake.  He's wearing so much make up and I suspect his face is all stiff and rubbery and it makes me actually quite angry.  There are pics of him with his naturally receding hairline, and he looks way better!  There are so many men younger than him who are letting their hair go grey, and are aging like god intended them to.  

An example for you.


Ethan Hawke.  "Yeah, I'm in my 40s now.  yep, these are facial wrinkles.  You like?"




Yeah, I like!  

What made me feel better after that, believe it or not, was an appearance by Lady Gaga.  Or as we like to call her, Sssssstefanie!  I don't know why, but I always imagine saying that through clenched teeth while shaking a fist.  I don't even hate her!  

After this, I love her.



She sang in honour of the 50th anniversary of The Sound Of Music.  Have I ever told you how much I love that movie?  I love it all.  The songs, the epic helicopter shots of the alps, the apron dresses, the curtain clothes, the baroness, the captain, the incorrigible kid, all of it.  I love the way the creeping edge of darkness infiltrates the movie and then is thwarted.  I love the nuns who know how to rip out a distributor cap and disable the bad guy's car.  

So why bring out Gaga to do this gig?  Well, Julie Andrews, tragically, cannot.  And Sssstefanie can sing.  She is proving that she can do anything.  She didn't do this like Gaga.  She took it pretty seriously.  I'd have wept, except I have pills now that stop that.  Maybe I wept internally.  



As she advised us to climb every mountain until we find our dreams, she grabbed that shiny skirt and flapped it emphatically.  

And then Julie Andrews herself joined her, and I can't believe how well these drugs work because normally I'd be cryyyyying.  





I love Julie Andrews.  What a beautiful classy woman.  

ahhhhh…

Oprah then told us that writers are important.  If Oprah says it, it is truth.  

The winner of Best Adapted Screenplay, Graham Moore, continued with the honest and meaningful speeches.  


He confessed that at age 16, he wanted to kill himself.  He always felt like he didn't belong.  Oh my gosh.  Look at this sweet little fella.  He sent it out to all the misfits out there - stay weird.  Stay different.  When you're up here, then you can pass this message along.  These drugs really work, because by now I would have dehydrated myself with the crying. This hit me hard.  I feel so grateful for this guy and I've never even met him.  

Are you tired?  Hang on.  Almost there.



Alejandro Innaritu won Best Director for Birdman, which had Michael Keaton sitting there grinning and chomping away at his gum.  At one point he appeared to stick another chunk of gum in there.  If this show went on any longer he wouldn't be able to get his jaws around it anymore.  




Now I sort of thought Keaton would win.  Maybe I'm just blinded by his badassery.  (I think he's gotten better with age!) However, I figured Eddie Redmayne would get it, mostly because Oscar seems to love it when an actor portrays either someone with a disability or a living person, and he's got both.  And from what I've seen, his portrayal of Stephen Hawking is endearing.  (Yep The Theory Of Everything is on the list.)  

So Eddie won, and he was giddy about it.



I say, bonkers chuffed. 

Do you think if you look up "English" you get a picture of him?


He mentioned the struggle of those who have ALS.  I am sure this is the most caring Oscars ever.  

Furthered by Julianne Moore, who won hers for Still Alice, about a woman with early onset Alzheimer's.



Oh my gosh, so many suffering people in this world, and most were represented on this night.  In a way I feel like it's kind of sad that we need this to bring out attention where it's needed, but in another way, I'm glad we have this.  Besides, you might think all these speeches about the plights of other people would be a total drag but it wasn't.  It was positive.  It was caring.  I guess if I had a truly evil heart I might have been bored.  (And now I pre-emptively apologize to those who thought this show was boring yet do not have a truly evil heart.)

As for how she looks?  Well, she's gorgeous, so whatever.  I don't hate this dress but I don't love it either.  I think I'm spoiled because she wore two others that I thought were way better.  One was silver, one was emerald green.  I hoped so much she'd wear green.  But hey, she'll be sparkly in all her pix of "This is me with my Oscar" so that's okay.



Still with me?

Best Picture.  

I'm not sure why Sean Penn was presenting this, but all I could think was, "Man, Spicoli is lookin' really rough these days."



It was a little worrying when he ripped open the envelope and muttered, "who gave this son of a bitch his green card," then called out Birdman… which was directed by Alejandro Inarritu, who is Mexican. Geez.  Well, they greeted each other with big grins and bear hugs, so clearly it was one of those buddy-insults, but still.  Coming from a guy with a reputation for being nasty at times?  I'll give him this though - his hair isn't dyed fake black.  Look how I'm always searching for that sliver of hope in everybody.  

Alejandro spoke about Mexicans and how America is a great nation of immigrants.  I really would love for everybody to get some respect.  

Okay, so.  We've covered parents, veterans, suicide prevention, pay equity for women, rights for black people, Mexican immigrants, people with ALS, people with Alzheimer's.  Wow.  I stand by my previous statement that a lot of crappy things happened in 2014, because just look at this.  I feel okay that these discussions are being sparked, but wouldn't it be wonderful if we didn't have to talk about these things, because they'd been solved?  Well, I live in a strange little world where I hope things like that are possible.  

And really, what does this have to do with people dressing up and giving each other awards?

Movies reflect us.  

And this is how those who work in this industry keep each other excited about the project.  It generates work.  

I'm tired.  I've been working on this all day.  

But wait, there's more!

 I stole too many pictures.  Here you go…


Anna Kendrick.  Cute dress.  




Cate Blanchett.  Pawed through her closet that morning, decided, oh hell I'm not nominated this year, slapped a huge necklace on it and owned the place.



Chiwetel Ejiofor.  If I Travoltized it, Chilltowel Edgefortoo.  I am so lazy I haven't looked up how to spell his name, and by now all this word typing I could have looked it up, but instead I'm just going to say You Know Who I Mean Right?  That British Fella. The one who isn't Idris Elba or David Oyelowo.  Now scratch your head and think, really, really Hollywood makes movies about white people all the time?  Really????  Also he looks nice in his classic tux.


Speakin' of nice.


Chris Evans, everybody's favourite imaginary boyfriend. 


  

Felicity Jones, wearing something that is either silver or lavender, and might be either very pretty or chokingly uncomfortable.  I feel very unsure of this.  




Jeff Goldblum and Adrien Brody.  They are both very tall and wearing black and white.  Who decided on black and white this year?


Marion Cotillard's dress had two black sashes across the back, which I won't show you because it's saggy and dumb and I want you to just remember this, even if it's a couple circles away from blending in with all the other white and neutral dresses. 


David Burtka and NPH.  Such a nice couple.  It's okay that they're not dressed all flashy.  Neil would show up later in his undies, so right now he's just happy to have clothes.  



Naomi Watts, NOT wearing beige.  



Anna Faris wearing something that might be beige or silver, but doesn't anger me because she's endearing and her husband is super adorable and they look happy together.  




Reese Witherspoon in… black and white.  It looks fantastic on her.


Can we get something different?



Rosamund Pike didn't win an Oscar, but she knocked it out in the looks department.  This is the best she's looked all awards season.  





Dakota Johnson.  Wearing red.  Please don't say anything about grey, please don't say grey, please don't say grey…


And Scarlett Johansson, in something gorgeously green with a giant sparkly collar.  A lot of complaints about the huge necklace, but it is actually part of the dress.  It would still be good without the neckpiece, and although it looks like it might be thinking about squeezing her, I think it's a knockout.  


She doesn't look thrilled, but I found out that John Tervolter came up and planted an unasked-for starched kiss on her cheek, and I won't show you pix because I'd rather not feel angry.  

Instead, let's revisit Ssssstefanie singing about her favourite things while some guys pretend to play violin.


Wow, I just realized that out of all the movies featured, the one I'm most familiar with won all the stuff FIFTY YEARS AGO.  


And then I turned off the idiot box and went to bed.  







3 comments:

Auntie said...

Thanks, Heidi. I had it on as background noise while I was doing other things. You have added the bits that I missed and explained the stuff that I didn't get. You should definitely see Boyhood which is about the only movie that I saw that was nominated ... oh, yes, I did see Gone Girl. I need to see Selma and Still Alice too. Now we await the Juno Awards and we are all hoping that a certain recording engineer wins his second Juno!!

Paul Tee said...

We looked in on the Oscar but was confronted with Neil Patrick trying to rescue a joke (was he really?) and we fled. For my fallback option, I was confident that you would shake it out and make sense of the whole thing. Which you did with your usual flair and style, and you suffered through the event for the rest of us, who have lower pain thresholds.

Anyway the Emmies and the Oscars are good practice for the Junos. That I will eyeball myself. I got my fingers crossed for Jethro...

shadowlake2005 said...

Thank Dog you're here to give us the run down! Now I don't feel so bad except about missing The Sound of Music.