7:02pm CST:
- I'm not sure how much "acting" Natalie Portman does as she constantly looks like she's about to burst into tears anyway.
- The James Franco/Anne Hathaway hosting combo is a curious choice. Franco is talented and can be very funny, I'm not really worried about him. Anna Hathaway is also talented and has a sweet sack of boobies on her, but I wonder about her comedic chops, guess we'll find out. Of course, anything is better than having to watch Wolverine prance around on stage all night randomly bursting into song or having Whoopi Goldberg host (no commentary needed on that). Then again, I'd be content having Steve Martin, Billy Crystal, or Jon Stewart host every year, how old white man of me.
- By the way, per my Oscar tradition, the Louis Gossett, Jr. watch is officially under way. I need my Gossett fix, do not let me down Oscar!
- As the countdown continues, I gotta say I'm genuinely worried about my Best Supporting Actor pick. I still think it's gonna be Bale, but I have this weird feeling that Rush is gonna sneak in and steal it. I'd be more worried if Rush had never won before, but he already nabbed Best Actor in '96, so he's not some old guy sentimental favorite that the Academy feels must pay him their due. He's a very good actor, but Bale deserves it here. Hell, he deserved it in 2001 for American Psycho, but wasn't even nominated. Yeah, fuck you Academy.
- Hey there's Halle Berry. She's pretty hot when she's not sobbing like a brat and having a seizure onstage for winning an award she didn't deserve. Not that I'm bitter or anything.
- I'm a sucker for movie clip montages, I ain't gonna lie. By the way, just so everyone can stop all the arguing and fussing and fighting, The Social Network is the best film of the year. There, it's settled.
- That opening skit was weak. They did include a Back to the Future nod though and I'm not adverse to that. I'm not made of steel ya know.
- No way James Franco is not stoned as fuck right now.
- Holy lord, Jennifer Lawrence is hot when she's not hanging out in backwoods Arkansas fighting meth dealers and cutting hands off of dead corpses found in lakes.
- It's pretty sad that I can guess a movie based on the year alone. When they said "a classic from 1939", I immediately knew it was Gone with the Wind. Wait, that's not sad, that's just proof that I'm a movie machine.
- Haha, Tom Hanks just called Titanic a "best picture classic". Good one, Tom.
- Art Direction, nailed it. I'm 1 for 1 so far. Alice in Wonderland is a pile of dog poop, but it's hard to argue with its technical merits. That's about all Tim Burton is good for anyway.
- Ok now Cinematography. Damn, Roger Deakins gets screwed again. 1 for 2 now.
- Somehow, some way, the Oscars seem even MORE epically self-important tonight. It's like their work facilitated the end of apartheid. I love movies too, but geez.
- At the rate Kirk Douglas is speaking, we'll be done sometime tomorrow afternoon. He's also speaking like the midget from Twin Peaks in Special Agent Cooper's dream. Twin Peaks reference tonight, check that right the fuck off the list!
- Hey, Best Supporting Actress is back to being one of the first awards handed out. Woohoo, know your place, ladies. I actually like all of these nominees, but Jacki Weaver is spellbinding. If you haven't seen Animal Kingdom (and you probably haven't), check it out for her performance if nothing else. Melissa Leo is frighteningly disgusting in The Fighter, good job. Oh shutup old man, get on with the award! Ok this is pretty funny, I'm not gonna lie. You won me over, Kirk, you still got it Spartacus. Alright back on track, 2 for 3 now as Leo takes it. I think Kirk Douglas just wants to hang out onstage all night.
- Actually, now that I think about it, it might be good for me in the long run that Inception won for cinematography because I'm banking on it taking a slew of tech awards and that could be a good indication of things to come.
- I don't find Justin Timberlake as irritating as I used to, but people who claim he's oh so hilarious are fucking retarded. Not funny at all.
- Ugh, time for the shorts. What to do with all this free time I now have?
- Toy Story 3 winning Animated Feature was a lock, now 3 for 4. Well deserved, but I loved how the recipient thanked everyone for coming out to "support a movie with talking toys". Uhh...yeah, thanks for all the grass roots support for our little billion dollar cash printing machine known as the Toy Story franchise. Couldn't have done it without you!
- Ok raise your hand if every time you see a black and white photo of some 1920s Hollywood tuxedo ballroom party, you think of The Shining? Yeah, me too.
- Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem chose those tuxes because the ones from Dumb and Dumber were already out on loan.
- Aaron Sorkin takes it down for The Social Network, now 4 for 5. Obviously, well deserved, great script, great movie. Listen to that music swell and Sorkin doesn't back down, that's a fuckin man for ya.
- Both screenplay awards this early? Interesting. Aside from the Leo-Douglas fiasco, the awards do seem to be coming out relatively quickly, for the Academy anyway.
- The King's Speech takes Original Screenplay, now 5 for 6. As if we didn't know it already, but it's now confirmed, this show is all about The Social Network vs. The King's Speech. This dude and Kirk Douglas should have an old-off.
- Does anyone else think Anne Hathaway needs to calm down? She needs to hit up Franco for that bud he surely has in his back pocket.
- I like Russell Brand and Helen Mirren is still the hottest 137 year old this planet has ever seen. Ok, Foreign Language film is always tough to call because it's a unique category in that anyone who votes must have seen all five nominees, plus most of the voters are older so they generally go with safer, feel good movies. And hey, look at that, I win again. Now, 6 for 7.
- Now for Best Supporting Actor. I was worried at the outset about this category, so let's do this like a band-aid and get it out of the way. By the way, I'm glad the Academy is back to showing actual clips of performances for the nominees instead of that one rogue year where instead of clips, they just had past winners verbally sucking off each nominee. Part of the fun of watching award contenders is trying to guess what their "Oscar clip" will be. Woohoo, my fears have been allayed as Bale most deservingly takes it. 7 for 8, now. Bale is the frontrunner for best speech so far.
- There can't possibly be a single person on this planet who cares about this Academy-ABC relationship bullshit, there's just no way.
- Trent Reznor takes Best Original Score, now 8 for 9. Well deserved, his score help set the tone and mood for The Social Network perfectly. I also enjoyed Hans Zimmer's bombastic, epic score for Inception. If you're keeping score at home Trent Reznor and Three Six Mafia now have Academy Awards and Alfred Hitchcock never won one.
- And the techie award love for Inception rolls on. It's the least they could do for not nominating Nolan for director. 9 for 10 now.
- I think they should make a rule where you're not allowed to thank anyone during acceptance speeches. You can thank them in person, no one else cares. But then I wonder what they'd talk about. Inevitably, you'd get someone up there who was just blindsided and had nothing profound to say, he'd just be like "So, how about them Lakers?".
- I like when films like Unstoppable or The Wolfman are nominated for some singularly random weird tech category b/c then they can claim their film was "Oscar-nominated". And hey, look at that, Inception again, this time for Sound Editing, 10 for 11 now. Who wants to pick up my bar tab when I go out tonight?
- Of course, it's Rick Baker, he's the Michael Jordan of Best Makeup. 11 for 12 now.
- Alright and as I noted in last night's blog entry, the Costume Design category is very interesting this year. Let's see how I did: hell yeah, I'm on fire tonight. Colleen Atwood takes it for Alice in Wonderland, 12 for 13 now. The thing with Costume Design is that it rarely coincides with whoever is the frontrunner(s). The general rule of thumb I've found in recent years is that if it's an elaborate period piece, bet on that. Even if you've never heard of the film, always go with the one that's set in 18th century, preferably in some sort of royalty setting. Now, one might argue that The King's Speech fit this bill for this year, but TKS was much more subdued and didn't have the flashy, overblown costumes usually associated with films of its ilk. Then you look at what Alice in Wonderland brought to the table and that's why I went with it. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how winning is done.
- Aw shit, I thought we were gonna escape individual song performances this year. Oscar, you've done it again!
- Is it just me or does James Franco seem like he'd rather be cutting his arm off with a box cutter than hosting the Oscars? Also, Jake Gyllenhaal always looks so sad, it's gonna be ok, Jake. By the way, Natalie Portman wants to meet up with you afterward so you can listen to Snow Patrol albums together and have a sad-off.
- Checking out all the twitter posts, people are bored by the Oscars due in part to categories they don't care about and/or know nothing about. Uh, have you ever watched the Oscars?
- Alright Luke Matheny, now get back to band practice, At the Drive In is waiting on you.
- I wonder if the Auto-Tune The News Guys get any royalties from the Academy "borrowing" their idea. Antoine Dodson still owns you all.
- Great shot of the Coen brothers, they hate all of this and I love them for it. Best Documentary, this is a tough call. I picked Exit Through the Gift Shop, but have a feeling Inside Job is going to take it. Damn it all. It was a coin flip and I picked the wrong one. 12 for 14 now. I really should have picked Inside Job as a very relevant topic and the Academy likes to show nothing if they're not important and matter in a real world way.
- And there's my man, Billy Crystal, love that guy. I wonder who has more makeup, him or Anne Hathaway?
- Ok that callback to the first Academy Award telecast was pointless and unentertaining.
- And Inception takes Visual Effects, back on track now, 13 for 15. That'd be weird/funny/sad/odd/whatever if Inception ends up winning the most awards for the evening despite getting no love in most major categories. Oh, sweet irony, Academy!
- And now The Social Network takes Editing, 14 for 16 now. While I didn't expect The King's Speech to win anything it hasn't already (as evidenced by my predictions), it's still a little curious that it's not exhibiting ANY of the momentum it was thought to have coming in. Now, that doesn't mean shit really, but usually when you have a favorite, you'll have some indications of coattailing, so maybe this means TKS isn't as beloved as originally thought or there were several films the Academy loved so the wealth is being spread (probably the more likely reason). If someone were to look at the tallies alone so far, you'd think The Social Network and Inception were the two films of the year. Which makes sense because they are.
- I was a tad worried that A.R. Rahman would go Jai-Ho on everyone for not winning Best Original Song, but he kept it together. Old man Newman takes it and I'm 15 for 17 now. And now we have the big four left to go, no doubt delayed by a bunch of needless bullshit until then, mind you.
- Sally Menke died? That sucks. Patricia Neal was strangely hot in Hud. Arthur Penn, solid director. Dennis Hopper, may you find all the insane psychedelics your heart desires in the afterlife. Gotta love the "In Memoriam" segments.
- And like I said, a pretty much worthless segment with no awards handed out. I guess they realized they could stretch this out for another hour and a half. That being said, for all the unnecessary bullshit they like to trot out, I'm not opposed to montages, I dig those in a sick, sick way. So I'll set the over-under on awards handed out in this next segments at 1.5. What you got? I'll say under.
- Ok I'm nervous about Best Director. I picked Fincher and he fucking deserves it of course (hell he's deserved it a couple of times in the past for films he wasn't even nominated for). I might do a back flip if Fincher wins. Motherfucking fuck fuck fuckkkkkkkk. This is such garbage and virtually locks up The King's Speech as the Best Picture winner, if it wasn't assured before. What a crock of horseshit. This isn't even Tom Hooper's best film. His last film, The Damned United, was far superior to TKS. Fuck this. 15 for 18.
- At least I was write about something, only one award handed out that segment, yay.
- One good thing about tonight is that we get Jeff Bridges presenting. I'm pretty sure I could watch that guy play chess and be entertained, fucking fantastic actor. Looking at the nominees for Best Actress, Annette Bening was very good and she usually is, but I think Julianne Moore gave the better performance in The Kids Are All Right. I haven't seen Rabbit Hole so I haven't seen Nicole Kidman's performance, but I do plan on having a doubleheader of misery between that and Blue Valentine sometime soon. Jennifer Lawrence is great in The Winter's Bone, which is a film I'm glad is getting the recognition it has from the Academy, even if it doesn't win anything. And of course, Natalie Portman was great and deserves the Oscar she's about to get. 16 for 19. I wonder if Portman will look 12 forever?
- Look, I get that an Oscar signifies the ultimate reward for the "work" you do, but why do people cry? Accept it with grace and poise. Of course, the biggest disgrace was Halle Berry when she won for Monster's Ball, you would have thought she just cured cancer and resurrected all of her loved ones who have passed away, fucking get a grip, you're an adult.
- Now for Best Actor. Love me some Javier Bardem, haven't seen Biutiful yet, but it's by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu so you know it'll be a nice big pile of misery that makes you want to shoot yourself in the face when it's over. Jeff Bridges was fucking hilarious in True Grit and is on a roll for the ages lately. He won't win, but the recognition he's finally getting is truly awesome. Now, Jesse Eisenberg, he deserves this award, but he won't get it and I'm angry, no more about that. Colin Firth, I hate talking bad about him because in this case, he's simply guilty by association. It is worth noting that he was mesmerizing in last year's A Single Man so if this award were being handed out in a vacuum and it wasn't associated with TKS, I wouldn't mind. Oh and James Franco was great in the very good, underrated 127 Hours. I love that he was nominated because he carried that film. And so as the sun sets in the west, Colin Firth wins. 17 for 20.
- British people winning awards suck because they stay away from charisma as if it were AIDS.
- And the big "duh" moment of the evening has happened. Final tally of 18 for 21, yet it feels so empty *sob*
- To quote a very spot on "tweet" from one of my favorite TV writers, Alan Sepinwall: "Nice job, Spielberg, pointing out how often we remember the runners-up better than the winner. As we will this year." Amen, Alan.
Very "meh" telecast. Nothing exciting or unexpected for the most part, the hosts were boring and unfunny and nary a montage to be found! I guess on the plus side, this may be the shortest Oscar telecast in recent memory "only" running just over 3 hours whereas they generally average something like 3 and a half hours at least. I also finished 18 for 21, which may be a personal best, but I'd have to double check, I wanna say it ties a personal best, but I'm not sure. To the archives!
