From the Ledge

It was such a terrific night last night at the People’s Choice awards - Katherine Heigl, Keri Russell, The Rock, Hannah Montana, Jonah Hill- all looked dapper or gorgeous or both and seemed to be utterly enjoying themselves…what a great night…wait, it wasn’t the People’s Choice awards on Channel 7, but the Oscars?…the Oscars with those people?  Was this some surreal Stanley Kubrick-like nightmare?  Had I been punk’d like many film buffs and avid Oscar watchers?  Where were Streep, de Niro, Jodie Foster, Pacino?  Hell, where was Julia “I LOVE my life” Roberts?  Where were the real movie stars and Academy award winners???    Although I was aghast at the presenters at last night’s fete, I was breathlessly ecstatic at the winners of the acting awards, which reflected the true global nature of film and the universality of great talent.  For the first time since 1965, all four Oscar winners in the acting categories were from outside of the US.  Ok, so maybe not all of them were my personal favorites to win (except maybe for Marion Cotillard), but they are all supremely talented, performed in movies and roles that were substantial and for the most part memorable, and have given fresh, marvelous performances through the years, so who am I to quibble?   On to my Oscar recap for this year, which may pale in comparison to the dazzling LA weekend that the divine Ms. Jennifer M. recounts in her blog post below (Jen, was that you in the oversized sweatshirt and elastic headband trying to elbow out Sarah, the Oscars’ oldest bleacher fan, while she was being interviewed by Regis Philbin during the pre-show?  Damn, you and Sarah looked good!)

Oscar Red Carpet

• Fabulous Fashionistas - I loved Anne Hathaway’s red, flowing goddess gown with the intricate rose detail.  It was a stunning rebuke to everyone who bit her head off last year when she wore that hideous black bow on the front of her dress which made her look like a bachelor party stripper. Helen Mirren in another stunner of a red dress showed everyone how to dress like an Oscar winner.  Cate Blanchett, despite being eight months pregnant, again proved she’s not only Elizabeth, the Queen, but also Cate, the red carpet queen, wearing a lavender Dries van Noten dress with a detailed metallic neckline, a fashion risk she beautifully carried off.  Speaking of fashion risks, Oscar winner and acting goddess’ Marion Cotillard’s mermaid gown from Jean Paul Gaultier had I think the most jaw-dropping impact, but I was a little scared that Wolfgang Puck might mistake her for big-eye tuna at the Governors’ Ball and run after her with a sushi knife!
• Nina Garcia will send you home, beatch! - There weren’t a lot of fashion faux pas this year.  But I was really baffled by some of the fashion choices.  I liked Nicole Kidman’s simple, yet impeccably put together black dress, but- super loud gay gasp reserved only for fashion icons gone bad- what was she thinking with that big-ass necklace?  I am sure she had the choice of bling, so why did she feel like she had to take some of those chandelier crystals from the “So Close” production number set and wear them?  OK, I love Tilda Swinton as an actress, and successfully predicted her win last night, but why was she wearing what looked like an unfinished dress?  Did she come straight from a fitting and forget the other sleeve at the designer’s salon?  Did she just tear the gown off from the dress mannequin, and said “I’m off to the Oscars”?  I half expected her to be trodding down the red carpet with the mannequin attached to her hemline!  My dear Penelope Cruz looked gorgeous as usual, until you saw the hairy centipede attached to her chest!  Obviously, this was a follow-up to her bird dress from last year.  Chica, how many times do we have to say to you, these are the Oscars and not a Discover Channel Our Amazing Planet special????  And Rebecca Miller, you may be the daughter of one of the greatest American playwrights ever and the wife of a two-time Academy Award winner who is one of the greatest living actors, but I don’t really think you get a hallway pass for wearing hubcaps from your Prius in front of your gown!
• The Boy’s Club - Of course what is a Francis Oscar recap note without a lecherous ogle, I mean a sartorial critique, of the men?  Classic is good (thank goodness, Samuel L. Jackson stayed home this year) as George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem, and Patrick Dempsey proved.  I wasn’t really crazy about Daniel Day-Lewis’s semi-lilac tux, but with two Oscars and beautifully poetic sensibility in giving awards night speeches obviously inherited from his poet laureate father, he can wear pajamas under a tux for all I care (oh wait, Julian Schnabel already has the patent on that!).  And although I must commend Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for coming to the Oscars looking like a glamorous old-Hollywood actor, was I the only one who got the creepy-tingly-swoony shivers when he promised Ryan Seacrest on E! that they would work out together and work on Ryan’s glutes????  Hmmmm….

Oscar Show

• The Second Coming.  Jon Stewart was back and completely redeemed himself from the un-funny, cold, and distancing hosting job two years ago.  It seemed like he was more relaxed this year which allowed him to hit home runs with terrific lines such as the Gaydolf Tittler one (and at least he didn’t need to resort to cheap tricks like vacuuming the Kodak as Ellen deGeneres did last year).  Also, the classiest moment in many an Oscar telecast (and I have been watching for a loooong time) was when he brought back Best Song winner Marketa Irglova from the movie Once, to give her thank you speech after being cut off by the orchestra.  That was one beautiful, grateful, inspiring speech that he made possible for us viewers to hear.
• Speaking of Speeches…  It was a night of memorable speeches, from Tilda Swinton, who made flummoxed looked totally endearing, to Javier Bardem’s tribute to his mother and his family of actors, delivered in Spanish, which probably caused many a hot flash in women and gay men watching the show, to Daniel Day-Lewis’ eloquent one about fathers and sons, to the heartfelt one delivered by the producers of the documentary short film winner Freeheld, about the struggle for same sex rights (and no Debra, I was genuinely touched by the speech, not because it was a gay movie!).  I thought it was ironic though that the writers were the ones who gave the most uneloquent, most “Awards-nighty” speeches.  Ethan Coen’s inability to mumble out words with more syllables than Thank You made me almost think that he could have been the prototype for Bardem’s Anton Chiguhr.  Diablo Cody, who used to live in my Lincoln Square neighborhood in Chicago, sounded so conventional (and for a woman wearing a leopard-print caftan straight out of Richard Simmon’s closet and who wrote one of the quirkiest and most quotable screenplays ever, that’s quite a disappointment).
• Where was the stage cleaning budget?  What was the deal with that slippery floor?  We saw Miley Cyrus, John Travolta, and Colin Farrell, nearly slip and break their collarbones before presenting their segments.  Did Gil Cates blow all of his budget on the sets for the mediocre, totally uninspired production numbers for the nominated songs from Enchanted, “So Close” and “That’s How You’ll Know”?  Uhmmm….on second thought, could that oil slick onstage have been caused by all that grease dripping from Colin Farrell’s hair?  Paul Thomas Anderson probably saw that hair and wondered to himself why he didn’t cast Colin in There Will Be Blood- he could have shaved off a ton from the make-up budget! 
• Best and Worst Presenters.  Ok, although this is so outside my usual high-falutin’ taste, but I totally enjoyed the Jonah Black and Seth Rogen segment which poked fun at Halle Berry and Judi Dench.  And that Seth Rogen…yumm, quite the cute cub (and I’m not talking about the baseball team!), although maybe the people who shaved Marion Cotillard’s eyebrows off for La Vie en Rose should take their razors to this boy’s facial hair!  Helen Mirren, of course, gave her Best Actor presentation her usual panache and drama.  Very surprisingly, one of the women whose name cannot be mentioned, two time (yecch..blechh..ugghh) Academy Award winner….H…S…ok, Hilary Swank came off very poised, dignified, and confident.  Worst presenter ever?  A tie between Cameron Diaz who seemed to need a speaking coach more than an acting coach (and boy, does she need a ton of those), flubbing the word Cinematography…geez (!), and the other Academy Award winner (ugghh…eekkkk…grrrr….) whose name cannot be mentioned, RZ, who every year seems to be morphing more and more into…an Asian transvestite!  The squinty eyes, pouty look, and over-exaggerated catwalk modeling screams…”ladyboy” all over!

See you next year!

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