and then Jack said, "Wow!"

[jlh]

mistful caught up with us Yanks and fell for Jon Stewart tonight and well she should, I say. He hosted a very good show.

I didn't watch any red carpet. I dunno, I'm like so over it. Oversaturated I reckon.

• Opening. Everything about the opening of this show was excellent, from the montage of characters to the alternate hosts (Billy and Chris Rock in a tent!) to Jon doing a happy dance after waking up in bed with Clooney. [I love the Clooney-Stewart thing; you can tell every time Clooney comes on TDS that somewhere deep in his soul he sort of wants to be Stewart, a fact Stewart is clearly baffled by.] Jew trilogy! Cowboy movie montage—especially the Charlton Heston/Gregory Peck!
  
• Supporting Actor. Nicole looks amazing as usual. I love that she and Keith Urban are together; it pleases me in some way I can't fully understand. I'm so pleased for George; he was amazing in Syriana and he really is Classy with an actual capital C.
  
• Visual Effects. Nice though silly routine from Ben Stiller; even better reaction of being underwhelmed by Spielberg. I hope King Kong sweeps all this sort of shit.
  
• Animated Feature. Bow ties on men are often nice. Bow ties on Oscars are awesome. Also, Reese looks lovely.
  
• Interesting that the films aren't being "presented" but are just in a bumper as we go out to commercial. Another way to make the Oscar train run on time I suppose, and give us more room for TDS pretaped silliness like all those fake ads narrated by Stephen Colbert.
  
• "Travellin' Through". Dolly was fantastic. She always looks so great and sounds so great. Given what went on later I feel she just said to the producers, "Y'all, I'm just gonna get up and sing and I'll be wearing white. That's it!" Really, that is enough when you're talking about a talent like Dolly's. (By the way, who introduced her?)
  
• Live action short film. I cannot believe that Jon went there with that Scientology joke, or that Baldwin brother joke but go him. Maya and I discussed splitting the Wilson brothers between us (Owen for her, Luke for me) but Emily said she likes the look of herself in a Wilson brothers sandwich and really, that's the way to go. Then some Irish fellow won and we all cheered with Maya.
  
• Animated short film. I'm really over the whole animated characters "presenting" awards. Alison didn't vote for her own teacher and was punished for this by the Oscar gods.
  
• Costumes. Jennifer Anniston looks ravishing. I loved the winner's nod to her Japanese costumes in her own gown; her daughter's gown was also lovely. I think someone decided that Memoirs of a Geisha was just really pretty.
  
• Biopic montage. Russell actually looks pretty good but whatever with that montage, particularly the tacked-on Gandhi after the Lou Gehrig speech. Um, no.
  
• Makeup. Will and Steve, together again! I heart them so much, particularly Steve's false eyelashes. Yay for Tumnus symbolically winning!
  
• Scientific and Technical Awards. Yes, we were a room full of girls who like geeky men and we got all squeeful over this bit. Bad, bad dress on Rachel McAdams.
  
• Supporting Actress. I don't trust anyone who doesn't love Morgan Freeman. Rachel Weisz in another lovely maternity gown; go her!
  
• TelePrompTer, stop fucking with Lauren Bacall! However, the noir package was really lovely even if, confusingly, they played Ms Bacall onto the stage with the theme from Laura, which she was not in.
  
• Documentary Short. We loved the dress of the winner. We did not love the dress of Charlize Theron; Chris is on record as pro-breast, anti-bow.
  
• Documentary Feature. I love how the French turn accepting an award into a moment of Dadaist theater, with props!
  
• "In the Deep". First, J Lo had a lovely dress but really needs to learn moderation with the fake tan. Right. So don't get me wrong; I love me an interpretive dance. However, it really took away from the song as NO ONE was listening; rather, we were wondering what the hell was going on with that burning car.
  
• Art Direction. Was this where Jennifer Garner had her completely darling almost-fall-recovery? Great dress, great look for the new mom. Again with "Geishas are pretty!" Yawn.
  
• Score. I love how Salma Hayek kept saying "weeeeners" as if she was talking about Oscar Mayer. I didn't love the orchestration of the Brokeback Mountain score which was clunky and overdone. I was so pleased that BBM actually one that I don't really know what to do with myself.
  
• Sound Mixing. Jessica Alba and Eric Bana follow up a great intro from Stewart with some seriously lame banter and King Kong wins again. Whatever.
  
• "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp." Ludacris all cleaned up and shit! I cannot believe they managed to put an interpretive dance to a rap song but it was totally awesome. Emily wondered if the strobe gave anyone a stroke out in the audience.
  
• Original Song. So you know how the act that just performed so often wins the Grammy? Apparently the Oscars have the same rule, at least this year. Queen Latifah, looking amazing as always, had a lovely reaction to the entire proceeding.
  
• Honorary Award. Meryl and Lily do a lovely job talking about Altman in the Altman style and deserved their hug after. Altman deserves all things.
  
• Sound Editing. Was this where Keanu and Sandra were reunited? I stopped taking good notes around now. Anyway, another effect, another award for King Kong.
  
• Foreign Language Film. Um, what the hell was Will Smith doing? I'm very pleased Tsotsi won and plan on seeing it soon; the preview Ali and I saw before The Squid and the Whale looked promising.
  
• Film Editing. Is this where Naomi Watts showed up in that unfortunate one armed dress with her hair swept to the side? The hair was a bad call because she was either going to look hugely lopsided or like she had a big diagonal stripe across her neck. As for the award, it's weird enough when the director and picture get separated, but even weirder when editing and director do. The beginning of the whole Crash thing.
  
• I think around now Clooney presented my favorite part of the Oscars every year: the montage o'dead people. I don't know why I love it but I do. Also someplace Terence Howard (and OMG the bling on that man) presented a weird montage about heroes or something that made no sense but provided a good set up for Jon's "and no one ever worried about those problems again" joke.
  
• Actor. Hilary, I'm so whatever about you. I am so pleased PSH won even if his acceptance speech was a long free association about his mother. He was just so good. Also he looked great with that silver tie.
  
• Cinematography. Wherein we wrap up the "Geishas are pretty" awards. Travolta looks like ass in his gold tie.
  
• Actress. Jaime Foxx, however, always looks magnificent and tonight was no exception. Go ahead there Reese! I really was undecided between she and Felicity but they were both recognized in different places so go both of them!
  
• Adapted Screenplay. I still have crazy Dustin love. Much as I have had a deep love for Dan Futterman for many a long year now, I think I would have kicked something if BBM hadn't won here. Thankfully I didn't have to.
  
• Original Screenplay. Uma knows how to walk out in a gorgeous dress and she can kick your ass. And another award for Crash, though this is the one I always thought they would get.
  
• Direction. Okay, sometime since the little taped thing Hanks got a hair cut which is a very, very good thing; nice last-minute fill-in for Clint here. Ang Lee is the cutest thing ever in the history of the universe. Period.
  
• Picture. And Jack says, "wow!" as does everyone at the party.
  
  You know, I've been watching the Oscars for a long damn time, and I really only have one thing to say: Winning, awesome. But being nominated really IS a prize in and of itself, because during the period of time when everyone is thinking and talking about it, your film is one of the things they're thinking and talking about. After, it's just a sticker on a box, or as Clooney said, something they say in front of your name. Validation it's not. Look at Brokeback Mountain. I mean, what more can that film realistically accomplish? It made a lot of money, opened minds and hearts, and starts a lot of conversations. Plus, we got "real life gay cowboys" in People Magazine. So I'm not really about running around talking about who got robbed and whatnot. I'm really satisfied.
  
  What did you think?

Comments

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Wordy McWord on all of it. I could have done without Ben Stiller's shtick, and yeah, I'll take Luke Wilson, thankyouverymuch. Though first I want a shot at Clooney...;) Aka George Swooney. No one who isn't female should be THAT pretty.

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I really love Jon and George and their whole thing. I love how George wishes he could be Jon Stewart but he knows that he can't be so he makes movies like Good Night and Good Luck and comes on TDS and Jon knows that George wants to be him and he has no idea why that is so and then says something about how people who think he is sexy should look at their TV screen and see what handsome actually looks like. The thing is, Jon and George are both smart and interesting and able to take what they want to say and put it in a package so that people will listen to them, and they're both passionate enough that they occasionally overstep those bounds but only for a second before regaining their sense of humor about themselves. But being smart and interesting isn't actually enough, so they work what they've got which for George is his looks and for Jon is being funny, both of which are pretty high maintenance things that you pull out of your bag of tricks when you want people to pay attention to you but that you know are ultimately relatively superficial. So they get all high school on each other where George is basically, "People would take me more seriously if I weren't a pretty boy" and Jon is basically, "I would have a movie career if I were more handsome" and the whole thing is so mutual admiration society especially because it isn't competitive in any way and very specifically can't be, which is why both of them allowing for the slashy subtext in their dynamic is so awesome.

There was a shot of Sarsgaard in the audience—I think he was just there with Maggie who was really there with her brother—and I screamed and everyone at the party was like, okay, Clio, you need to calm down. Hence, icon.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

SAAAAARRRRSSSGAAAAAARD!!!

He was there with Maggie Gyllenhaal?!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they've been dating for a couple of years now.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Lucky Maggie :)

[locumtenens.livejournal.com]

Good wrap up; I think you touched on all the 'WTF' moments out there.

And, in regards to Crash winning, it's like I said to Kristen: Usually by halfway through there's a dark horse pulling ahead and you can pretty much tell which movie is going to win. This year? Not so much. Really, all of the awards were pretty evenly dispersed between the front-runners.

Also, I'm very happy for all of the guys who worked on King Kong. ♥

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It was like the awards were in five groups:
1: The special-category movies—doc feature, doc short, live short, animated short, animated feature, foreign language.
2: Memoirs of a Geisha was really pretty—Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes
3: King Kong had great effects—Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Sound Editing
4: People did great work in movies we won't give anything else to—All 4 acting awards, plus "we really liked that rap song" and "Mr Tumnus looked cool".
5: We really liked Crash and Brokeback, so we'll split the awards that big best pictures sweep between the two of them—Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Screenplay, Editing, Score

I really liked that no movie got more than three statues after so many years of huge sweeps.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

That's what I call a One-Minute Recap :D

[weatherby.livejournal.com]

Omg, Ang Lee, so adorable. I have a platonic sort of crush on him. "Not just for the gay mens, and the women..." Love!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

I really love him. I love how his wife is a biologist and was the breadwinner while he was trying to get his career started. They're both completely adorable.