Oscar wrapup: the locating of the Snark.

[verbminx]

(sorry to disappoint yr faith in me, but none of the links in this post opens in a new window.)

Wow. Well, first of all, I like to pick on the worst gown of the night. Last year I picked on Gwyneth Paltrow, more for profoundly disappointing me than anything else. This year it seems like everyone must have scrambled to change their dresses around at the last minute so they wouldn't look festive. Hence, I have no worst gown of the night, because ALMOST EVERYONE LOOKED BAD.

I guess I'll pick on Colleen Atwood, who has designed some amazing things (like just about every Tim Burton movie costume since Edward Scissorhands) but looked like she was wearing someone's made-over prom dress from 1988. They should have given the Costume Design award to the delectable Sandy Powell, who looked amazing in her burgundy suit with matching hair when she won a few years ago.

Jennifer Lopez - fire your stylist. Your hairstyle, in particular, was a joke, and you were wearing a dress almost identical to the one my 75-year-old grandma (RIP) wore to my uncle's wedding a few years back. Jennifer Garner, it must just be a bad night for Jennifers. Your dress was pretty, it's true, but it didn't fit you well ("tightly", yes, but not WELL - are you pregnant?), and your hair was awful, and... those earrings! those gigantic hoops! Was it Geena Davis who had those bizarre little ruffles all around her hips? Julia Roberts - you actually looked nice, but please, lose the blondeness, it's unflattering with your coloring. Nicole Kidman - stop fiddling with your shoulder straps, you lovely awkward thing.

As of the very first award I was thrilled - you have no idea how tightly my fingers were crossed for Spirited Away, though I also really enjoyed Ice Age. The latter, though, could not hope to hold a candle to Miyazaki. They should just automatically give him the award every year. Yep.

The Two Towers did not even deserve a nomination for film editing, though it got one. The editing in that film was un-good. It did a spectacular job of destroying any dramatic tension (and I should know, I'm a fucking dork and I've seen it three times). Thankfully it did not win... though it did win other technical awards of which it was more deserving. Now, the theory is that The Academy will shower The Return of the King with major awards that will stand for the whole trilogy. I disagree with this theory. Fellowship of the Ring was a film technically superior to A Beautiful Mind (which might have been the actual Best Picture any other year) in every way, and as it works as a standalone story, it was the best chance for the trilogy to win Best Picture. It didn't win, because why on earth would an award be given for a fantasy movie (genre fantasies do not win) to a guy from the middle of nowhere who used to make goofy zombie movies? Particularly when they have the chance to award one of the most dutiful sons, the rare child star who is successful as an adult and not screwed-up, for making a dutiful movie about an "inspiring" character? This will be the logic next year as well. Hopefully Return of the King will be better than The Two Towers - which had amazing moments, and terrible pacing. Notice that they got Brendan Fraser to introduce the clip - why? Because he is the actor most noted for being able to talk about silly things as if they are equally as serious as the most dramatic script you can imagine. And really, it takes someone like that to rattle off a description about "A Hobbit named Frodo who goes off with his friends to destroy a magic ring!" with a straight face. I couldn't have done it. (any of my love for those stories is infused with a self-conscious irony that there is an element of the ridiculous about them... well, not really about the story itself, but about the broad fandom that has grown up around it.)

Now, about Michael Moore. Look, Michael Moore IS A STAND-UP COMIC. Anyone who thinks he is anything else - and Moore seems to suffer from this fatal illusion rather as much as his fans - should ponder what he actually does.** I enjoy George Carlin about a thousand times more for saying pretty much the same exact things (well, until about 18 months ago - his last HBO special was kind of boring). Somebody had to be Timsan Robrandon tonight, though. Speaking of Susan, her dress was almost nice (but fit her unflatteringly across her torso and gathered up weirdly on the sides), but could you see her jaw twitching with the effort to keep from deviating from the script? Remarkable self-restraint.

Did anyone else want to puncture their own eardrums during the performance of the song from Frida? It's not that either of the performers was bad on their own. It's that they were bad together, and the song was written in a way calculated to maximize irritation. Each vocal line nice enough until the two combined. Ay. Pretty amusing when Eminem - uh, I mean "Marshall" - won in that category.

Now, we will ignore the fact that Adrien Brody generally fits my (real-life, not "movie") Boyfriend Blueprint, in terms of body type and sheepish charm, and that I am pondering developing a silly crush on him, one I have been pondering on and off since Summer of Sam came out. (vis a vis, "Who is that cute guy in the ads?") I didn't think he would win, and I wasn't pulling for him.
I would have been heavily disappointed if Nicolas Cage or Jack Nicholson won, since they are best-known for playing themselves. I had no opinion either way on Michael Caine, who at least does not approach every role in nearly the same way.
I was pulling for one of my all-time Movie Boyfriends, Daniel Day-Lewis, because he was so amazing in Gangs of New York.

But if Dan couldn't win, I'm glad Adrien did. Haven't seen the movie, but the clips are pretty convincing (I saw extensive clips this morning on The Harry Awards, the History Channel's movie award show, where The Pianist took the award). Strangely enough, all the other nominees seemed pleased. & his speech was ultra-sweet.

So hopefully Adrien Brody will not go the way of other winners like Hilary Swank and do mediocre swill like The Affair of the Necklace. Oops, too late! (Uh, in-joke for people who actually sat through that.)***

& what can I say about my number one Movie Girlfriend finally getting an award**** she's deserved for years, for so many different roles? Portrait of a Lady? The Others? oh, Nicole Nicole Nicole. STOP FIDDLING WITH YOUR SHOULDER STRAPS.

I am so not-interested in Chicago. It's a noninterest. I'm sure it's good, but... JAZZ HANDS! that Fosse taint! (Seriously, I just don't like any of the music I've heard from it.)

** You have no idea how much shit I'm going to take for saying this. But I pretty much agree with James Lileks and with the lovely proprietress of Nobody's Doll on the topic of Moore. He is entertaining, but he functions primarily as a jester and with some lapses in credibility. This is not to say that the jester cannot have a valuable role. Just to say that a jester ought not to think himself king of the opposition.

*** I should probably stop picking on this movie. I did it before, a few months ago, when I saw it. It's convenient. But Brody did pretty well with middling material to create a rogueishly charming character, & I liked the movie way, way, way more than the insanely overrated Quills. Which I've also picked on sometime in the last few months, but not nearly enough.

**** But really, since when does Virginia Woolf qualify as "plain"? Every picture I've seen had her as reasonably attractive, even pretty, particularly for an Englishwoman of her time. Yeah, she had a big nose - and from what I understand, she was proud of it. I'd agree that Nicole looked very unlike herself with the infamous Virginia Nose, but the logic there is skewed. A pretty woman who wears prosthetics to look unlike herself doesn't necessarily automatically look "plain" (as the Virginia Nose Effect has been widely described). She just looks like a reasonably attractive woman who looks like a cross between Virginia Woolf and Nicole Kidman, rather than like Nicole alone (fortunately for her, since she is Nicole and all).

Comments

[hilarykay.livejournal.com]

adrian brody's nose scares me. its just way too much.

I agree about the nicole thing at the end of your post

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

he looks like a puppy, or a particularly comical bird.

so you think Nicole should stop fiddling with her shoulder straps, too? ;)

Re:

[hilarykay.livejournal.com]

no, the nicole thing about the nose..
I didnt watch the oscars but I saw her briefly on some thing mom was watching. she did fiddle with her straps. hehe.

yeah brody looks like a birdie doesnt he. it is kind of a cute face that he has. i havent seen his movies but i heard he was good.

[fancylad.livejournal.com]

thank you for your nonintrest of "chicago." i think you and i are the only ones.

from someone who had to sit through it, i can honestly say it was total shit. mental masturbation. the perfect movie for soccer moms who used to be in their high school thespian department.

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

i used to be in my... hey!

haha. but that's actually the REPELLING aspect, more than anything. it's like the popular girls getting the good parts, the way it was cast. and seriously, after a couple of years of having to do frequent JAZZ HANDS! i became profoundly allergic to anything connected too closely to bob fosse. and i'm a soprano, with a relatively serious & classical tone, so i generally dislike musicals written primarily for "belters", most of whom can't sing anyway.

[fancylad.livejournal.com]

but you're not a soccer mom - a deadly combination.

but i agree with you on your "belting" theory. that's what these girls did all throughout the movie - everything was BRASSY and LOUD with no subtly whatsoever. i saw the stage version a couple years ago and yes, the belting worked in that medium. but this is film - there so much more you can do with that and it wasn't taken advantage of.

by the way, you probably already know this being the media-savvy chick that you are, but why do you thing queen latifah sang with cathering zeta-jones and not zellweiger (yep, i mangled those names). because the academy award people would not allow zellweiger lip synch. knowing her voice sounds like a fog horn, she refused to sing.

[miabella.livejournal.com]

i LOVE this post! thank you for a big belly laugh! : )

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

thanks! i do try. Was it "Timsan Robrandon" that got you, or the bit about puncturing my own eardrums? Or could it have been... JAZZ HANDS?
(my god, how show choir did traumatize me.)

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[miabella.livejournal.com]

oh no... it was the whole damn thing. too funny and too right! the style stuff was really good, and totally agreed... j lo looked like she was wearing a sack, and that other one was a total 80s bad-fitting prom-dress knock-off. yuck! embarassing that she was winning for costume design! agreed that j garner's dress was too tight across the boobie, and all the rest. heheheh.

really loved the kiss that adrien planted on halle. i wish she would've taken it gracefully instead of acting shocked and annoyed and miming wiping off her lips .

Re:

[miabella.livejournal.com]

i agree on the biracial thing. i am guessing that her "blackness" seems to overshadow her "whiteness" only because it is what people tend to see when they look at her.

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

you got my comment about halle, which i deleted because i'm much too tired to make it make sense. i mean that there is something creepy/fake/crazy about her media persona, and that she is not the person who should be using their race for publicity - and if she is, then she should get it right. It's disheartening that the "first black woman to win a Best Actress Oscar" isn't actually black. It's disheartening that a girl who looks a great deal like my (Anglo-Irish-Italian) aunt is favored above actresses with as much talent who are actually black and, therefore, may not have the european-type features that help make Halle more acceptable & less threatening to a white audience. It's disheartening that in a time when there are so few serious roles for black women, particularly outside of films aimed at a predominantly black audience, this particular actress and her type are always going to be at the top of the list. blahbittyblahblah. it's not my job to say who does and does not look "african" enough - that would be wrong as well - but i think it's pretty fair to say that a girl who is just as white as she is black is not the best place to start.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Add me to the list of folks who have zero interest in Chicago. I often feel this way about Oscar winners. I had no interest in A Beautiful Mind. I had no interest in Braveheart. Overhyped movies tend to be filled with a lot of fooferaw and that comes out in the reviews.

Just saw Halle in Monsters Ball and thought she did a pretty reasonable job there. She also did strike me as black. I don't think she won the award for being light-skinned -- that might help her in the product-endorsements and glossy-magazine-covers department. I understand your point, but I don't see it as a reason to resent her or anything... someone's got to break the path, as it were.

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[miabella.livejournal.com]

yeah.... it's all quite interesting.

[miabella.livejournal.com]

...and yes, i do have a crush on adrien brody. ; )

[verbminx.livejournal.com]

along with HALF THE WOMEN IN THE WORLD, now... ;)

he's just cute as a button!

[amanda-mary.livejournal.com]

I, too, have had a bashful little crush on Mr. Brody since Summer of Sam, valiantly standing by him through his own, erm, "missteps" (if you think Affair of the Necklace was unwatchable, take a gander at Ten Benny (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0114008) ... words fail me in my attempts to quantify its awfulness). I hope he seizes this opportunity to really rectify his falterings. But, hey, I suppose the man had to eat ( although not much, by the looks of it!).

[paperthinwalls.livejournal.com]

ah, but he was in 'the last time i committed suicide,' too. nice. :)

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[miabella.livejournal.com]

i know it... i would rather he were kept a secret so i could crush on him without half the women in the world joining in! ; )

[mery-bast.livejournal.com]

I agree with this entire post! Amen!

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

I'm SO GLAD to find other people who don't think Michael Moore is the end-all-be-all of leftist commentary. I can't stand the guy. I have this Plan wherein I will write a post of my very own and explain why. Ever since Roger & Me came out, I've been pretty anti-Moore, but people figure that because I'm from Flint (which is not something I particularly like to own up to), he must be my hero. Everyone looks at me funny when someone says "Michael Moore" and I say, "I hate that guy!" They say, "But you're a Democrat! From Flint!" Yeah, and he's an exploitave, hypocritical asshole. Grrrr.