Grid Effect

I may write a TV blog, but I have always had a vested interest in film. One of the few nights that these two mediums collide is for the Oscar Awards, so I figure I mine as well spend three hours logging the show as I am going to watch it anyways. I tend to think these awards are trivial and innocuous and tend to go to less deserving nominees, but the Oscars are the gold standard, so, what the hell? Just like with the Golden Globes, I apologize for any and all typos.

8:30pm: The broadcast opens with numerous actors, producers, writers directors and the like spouting out superlatives about everything industry related. It pretty much epitomizes why the general public feels a disconnect with hollywood. Nice job, production teams.

8:35: Nothing really interesting is taking place here. But it’s been five minutes and I am supposed to be commenting, so, there it is.

8:37: Ellen Degeneres is hosting, significant drop off from Jon Stewart but I don’t think the crowd there was really into Stewart’s comedy last year, as it required the audience members to laugh at themselves. She takes a few jabs at the oddly high number of British nominees present at the show, goes into a extended bit about how nervous she is. She randomly calls out Abagail Breslin, the girl from Little Miss Sunshine, and while I know she is an actress rather than a pop musician, everytime I see a child celebrity now I see Britney Spears. Yeah, pretty grim.

8:43- She goes into a musical that is meant to celebrate the nominees. Fittingly enough, they all stand up to dance to the song, effectively celebrating themselves.

8:45- Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman present the award for Best Art Direction. A foreign film always walks away with this one so I put my money on Pan’s Labyrinth….1 for 1. See you give them a few technical awards so they can snub them on those that are more notarized. It is a damn good movie and since I have no idea what constitutes sound art direction, I’ll buy it.

8:49- Wow, this has been a really humorless show, and Maggie Glyhennhal is not going to change that. She talks, very, very earnestly about the scientific and technical awards from the night before. It’s nice to see them get some recognition, for a change. Considering that the only box office locks nowadays are Pixar films, this is probably warranted.

8:53- Will Ferrell is singing a ballad about how the Oscars ignore comedic movies, it is kind of absurd that they are that pretentious to pretend like they don’t exist. Comedy is extremely difficult to pull of successfully, just ask Rob Schneider. Jack Black comes out and screams threats with Ferrell to all the actors at the show. John C. Reilly comes out singingly reassures them that they can make the transformation to dramatic film. Its pretty good. Certainly Will Ferrell is trying to, I have no doubt he will go all Jim Carrey on us after seeing Stranger Than Fiction.

8:57- Will Ferrell does this immediate transformation from satirist to presenter when he deadpans, “Here are the nominees for makeup, achievement in makeup.” Obviously they aren’t giving an award to Mel Gibson’s film Apocalypto, and Click is another nominee in this field, not a chance they give an award to an Adam Sandler movie (and a bad one at that), so it is blatantly obvious that they are giving the award yet again to Pan’s Labyrinth… 2 for 2. The producers drive the winners with half broken English off the stage with the wrap it up exit music.

9:00- Abagail Breslin and Will Smiths kid present the nominees for Best Animated Short. These kids are entirely too mature for ten year olds. It’s weird. Breslin fumbles with the lines on the monitor, and Baby Will points it out. The person comes up to accept it, then they have the two ten year olds present yet another award for Best Live Action Short Film. Ari Sandel wins for West Bank Story, apparently its a dramedy about Palestinians and Israelis and takes place between a fallafel stand. He gives a speech about the “little guy” trying to make it in Hollywood. Between the child stars and the guy pleading with Hollywood to give him and everyone else like him a chance, this entire segment felt a little exploitive.

9:04- In the great tradition of presenting the nominees for Best Picture over the course of the broadcast, we are shown a montage of random footage for Letters From Iwo Jima, which I have regrettably never seen, though I wouldn’t have a problem with it taking home the hardware.

9:11- And here comes… the Hollywood Sound Effects Choir? Really? In case you’re wondering that’s exactly what it sounds like: a collection of adults making noises that coordinate with the footage being played behind them with there throats and various appendages. I for one, am just glad that the guy who makes song beats by snapping his fingers can find some work.

9:14- Carrell and Kinnear present the award for Best Sound Editing, they do the “It’s a Lot like sex” metaphor gag (because you can do that with anything, really). I am giving it to Letters From Iwo Jima, mainly because they showed clips of it a few minutes ago. 3 for 3. Apparently one of the winners had a father who survived Iwo Jima. Must have been emotional, he thanks all troops throughout time and singles out his father.

9:17 James McAvoy (the kid from Last King Of Scotland) and Jessica Biel present the award for Achievement in Sound Mixing. I’m calling Flags of Our Fathers takes this one… 3 for 4, goes to Dream Girls. Psshh, whatever. That movie is pretty much a live album, you could play a record and it amounts to the same thing.

9:20- Rachel Wiesz presents the award for Best Supporting Actor. Eddie Murphy is a stone cold lock (as are all the other major acting awards tonight). I would love to see Jackie Earl Haley get it for his role as a pedophile in Little Children or Djimon Hounsou get it for Blood Diamond, or… lets just say of the five nominees Eddie Murphy is the last person I would give it to…. wait, hold on a second, Alan Arkin gets it for Little Miss Sunshine. What the hell? He gets choked up in his acceptance speech while thanking his family. 3 for 5.

9:24- Degeneres pretends like she is attempting to force a movie script on Martin Scorsese. They show some cryptic stage set that has something to do with the movie Happy Feet, I kind of missed it because I am typing at a feverish pace.

9:29- Footage of The Departed, our second nominee for Best Picture! Was a helluva morality film. Again, wouldn’t mind if it won, though I think Alan Arkin pulling the surprise upset for Best Supporting Actor is a premonition for the rest of the evening. Randy Newman and James Taylor perform “Our Town”, nominated for Best Song from Cars. It’s pretty bleak for a children’s film. They go straight from that to Melissa Etheridge performing “I Need To Wake Up” from An Inconvenient Truth while environmental facts scroll through on the backdrop. Everyone in the audience looks really pleased with themselves.

9:35- Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio come onto the stage and Leo immediately asks him if he has anything he would like too announce. This is an original venue if he were to declare his bid for the presidency, not sure it is a helpful one, however. They throw us a few suggestions to help the cause of Global Warming, DiCaprio asks him again if he has anything he would like too announce, he builds up as if he were going to and the exit music overrides him.

9:42- After the last spectacle from Gore and his lap dog, Degeneres says, “Since the show is green, my producers have asked me to recycle some jokes from earlier in my career.” Does some jokes about Gilligan’s Island to illustrate how comedy is constantly evolving.

9:43- Cameron Diaz presents the award to the obvious Happy Feet for Best Animated Film. He is, intentionally, dressed like a penguin. 4 for 6.

9:45- Ben Affleck (He still is welcomed around this crowd) presents a montage of different films that featured characters who played writers, just to show you how self indulgent Hollywood is. It’s long…

9:50- Helen Mirren and Tom Hanks present the award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The Departed seems like the safe bet here, Borat is nominated, but it’s not necessarily a great screenplay. All of these nominees are really good, and in some cases great films (though I have never seen Notes On A Scandal). Oh well, At least they are acknowledging a comedy… 5 for 7. William Monohan adapted the screenplay, gets up on stage and says, “Valium does work”. The writers are always the most clever of award show recipients.

9:58- Halfway point, Ellen Degeneres walks out in a harness with a Oscar in it. Nice touch.

10:00- Emily Blunt and Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wears Prada present the award for Best Costume Design, I have the same movie winning the award because its set in the clothing industry. Emily Blunt, like I reiterated several times in my Golden Globes log, is utterly gorgeous. She does not disappoint here and her appearance is appreciated…. 5 for 8. Goes to Marie Antoinette, that awful Sofia Coppola follow up to Lost In Translation. The women who wins also did the design for Barry Lyndon, the old Stanley Kubrick film. Which, isn’t it the same design? She refers to Kubrick as her “Master”, little intense.

10:05- Tom Cruise presents the humanitarian award to Sherry Lansing, who was apparently the first women to head a major studio. Apparently she raises money for cancer, stem cell research, and education. She has since left show business and to focus all the money and power she yields on her nonprofit organization.

10:10- Degeneres has Spielberg take a picture of her with Clint Eastwood for MySpace. She is doing a solid job tonight.

10:12- Gwenyth Paltrow presents the award for Best Cinematography, Children of Men is the pick here and that film has to walk away with something, it’s too poignant to not get anything. So yes, this is a biased pick. But yes, it’s still deserving… Damn, Pan’s Labyrinth takes home its third award. I am not sure if it’s because they’re Spanish, but everyone involved in this movie sounds like they are in a cult, and the director of the film is their leader. 5 for 9.

10:16- Shadow interpretation of Little Miss Sunshine, I am guessing that’s what the Happy Feet business was earlier in the broadcast.

10:19-Naomi Watts and Robert Downey Jr. (Still using the Jr., huh Rob?) The latter pokes fun at his own drug abuse in the 90’s. They present the award for Best Visual Effects. I have Superman Returns in this one, just because between the three its the most overall award worthy movie… goes to the guys from Pirates of The Caribbean 2, 5-10. Damn, I am batting .500 right now. The head honcho of the four winners thanks Jerry Bruckheimer, that has to be a first at The Oscars.

10:23- Catherine Dinhou (sp?) and Ken Watanabe claim they are there to celebrate the history of Foreign influence in the film industry and they do so with yet another not so tightly kept montage. We have had like twenty minutes of montages now, and while I enjoy them as well as foreign films, I am in the process of developing carpel-tunnel.

10:29- Clive Owen and Cate Blanchett present the award for Best Foreign Lnguage film, Pan’s Labyrinth should be a lock with the way things have gone tonight… wow. 5 for 11. It goes to The Lives Of Others, heard of it, never seen it. Maybe this will inspire me to do so. Probably not.

10:32- Ellen Degeneres has some fun with the thing they are doing the shadow interpretations with, the acrobat team they have doing these shows sidles her and they form the Snakes On A Plane logo. She comes back out and says, “There naked”. Reminds me of this bar at Caesars Palace in Vegas called, “Shadow Bar”, where there are naked women dancing behind the same projector they are using at The Oscars, only I thought it was a video being put out as opposed to an actual women dancing behind the screen, I unknowingly struck up a conversation with a women at the same bar, she began to complain about her job, and I simultaneously signaled to the the screen with the shadow, and said, “At least you don’t do that for a living.” Turns out she did… needless to say the conversation ended shortly thereafter.

10:33- George Clooney comes out and presents the award for Best Supporting Actress, now Jennifer Hudson is definitely, unquestionably and unmistakably a lock for this one. 6 for 12, back to even par.

10:38- I like how an award show celebrating artistic achievement, cannot escape being interrupted by ABC promos for Dancing With The Stars.

10:40- Babel is nominated for Best Picture.

10:42- Eva Green and someone Spanish guy are presenting the award for Best Documentary Short Subject. These are all too obscure to pick a winner for. In case you’re interested it goes to The Blood of Yungzhou District. Nothing else to really add to that.

10:44- Jerry Seinfeld presents the award for Outstanding Documentary Feature, An Inconvenient Truth is yet another unquestionable winner. Seinfeld does a really tired stand up routine that is, dare I say, too Seinfeldian. Despite Gore’s film being a lock, there are some decent nominees with Jesus Camp, Deliver Us From Evil and Iraq In Fragments. Seinfeld does appropriately say they are all incredibly depressing nominees. “Truth” takes it, the guy who I am assuming was the director is deathly serious about his cause. 7 for 13.

10:49- Clint Eastwood presents an award for lifetime achievement to Ennio Morricone. He is stumbling with his delivery, and as the camera fades out from his presentation to yet another montage, Clint, not realizing his mike is still on, mutters to a producer, “I should have worn my glasses”. Celine Dion serenades to a really disinterested Morricone and his entourage who are sitting in the balcony box seats pushed off to the side.

10:58- A stunningly confused Eastwood still has to present the award. He accepts the award in Italian, which is new. Eastwood is claiming to know Italian and interprets what he is saying. One would figure thirty-five years of scoring American films that Morricone would have gone out of his way too pick up a little English. Anyways, it’s weird because everyone keeps applauding for him before Eastwood translates. He could be saying the holocaust wasn’t real or something and they would have no idea. I’m not buying Eastwood is translating this properly. Either way, it is what it is.

11:06- Speaking of broken English, Penelope Cruz and Hugh Jackman present the award for Best Original Score, though I haven’t seen the movie, I like the music they play in the trailer for Babel, so we’ll make that the pick…. 8 for 14. I’ve got a three game winning streak going right now.

11:09- Degeneres pokes fun at Jack Nicholson, something no one has had the balls to do. But amazingly he takes it well and no repercussions are suffered. She introduces some small video segment about The Academy of Motion Picture of Sciences. The video is sped up for yet another joke about people being time consuming at award shows.

11:11- Poker Superstar wannabe Tobey Maguire and Kristin Dunst present the award for Best Original Screenplay. I’ve got Little Miss Sunshine in this category, for just the subtle originality and humor of it… 9 for 15. The writer for it Michael Arndt, had to quit his job as an assistant for Mathew Broderick to write the film. So naturally I was expecting him to be a young guy, turns out he was in his late thirties (presumably). Good move, dude. You went from picking up cappucinos for the star of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to winning Oscars.

11:18- Jennifer Lopez comes onto stage, whom the voice over guy peculiarly introduces as “an excellent reason for Hi-Def television” (had to be improvisation on his part). Lopez (who, again, I am surprised is still getting invites to shit like this) introduces the cast of Dream Girls, who are singing a song from the soundtrack…

11:25- … Or at least that’s what I thought, as they have been performing for six minutes now and are now starting there third song. So when I said “A song”, I actually meant, “the entire fucking soundtrack”. Beyonce and the third woman that isn’t Jennifer Hudson are stunning.

11:28- Queen Latifah and John Travolta (Scientologists are out in full force tonight) present the award for Best Original Song. DreamGirls is winning this one, they are nominated three times and they are five nominees so it’s not really fair… you have to be fucking kidding me? Melissa Etheridge gets it for her song “It’s Time To Wake Up” from the Gore documentary. Two things, how does a movie that doubles as a musical get looked over for a repetitive rock song from a documentary? Also, when did documentaries start winning musical awards? They are just desperate to honor Al Gore in any way for anything. 9 for 16.

11:34-This is four minutes over the schedueled time, and there is no end in site. They still have yet to give out the two lead acdting awards, Best Director and Best Picture, and God Knows what else, so I am currently regretting doing this. Little Miss Sunshine, another nominee for best picture. Maybe it’s not the speeches the Academy needs to cut down, maybe its the fucking montages.

11:36- Will Smith gets on stage and begins to pontificate about the American embodiment before showing yet another montage of Michael Mann films. And when I say that, I am not sure what capacity he is involved in all of these. I know some he directed and some he didn’t. Maybe I misheard Smith and these are just films Mann enjoys. They vary from Dr. Strangelove to Magnolia to American Dreamz, so yeah, I am not sure what that was all about.

11:40- Kate Winslet presents the award for Best Editing. I am guessing The Departed… 10 for 17. She is going to get like three seconds to give her speech.

11:44- Jodie Foster introduces the “these are people who passed away in the last year” montage. Does anyone know what the criteria is to qualify for this? Is there a certain number of films one has to play a hand in? Any input would be appreciated.

11:52- We are now an unapologetic twenty-two minutes over the scheduled airtime. Actually, Degeneres apologizes. But takes two minutes to do it. Phillip Seymour Hoffman presents the award for Best Actress and is prompt about it. Helen Mirren is a lock for her role as Queen Elizabeth in, The Queen, I hear Judi Dench was in rare form in Notes On A Scandal and I am rooting for Kate Winslet (she’s like the Scorcese of actresses). But Helen Mirren, an insider favorite is a lock… 11 for 18. The voice over fun fact for Mirren is that an Indian psychic told her she wouldn’t reach the pinnacle of her career until her forties. Oh, so its like every other profession for Mirren. Also, its just a guess, but that guy was a decade too early.

11:56- Chris Connelly informs us that every picture nominated in the Best Film category has won at least one award. I am not a historian of this stuff, but I doubt this award has ever been this wide open. I picked a bad year to do this, as the telecast looks to stretch well into four hours, there is absolutely no sense of urgency. We aren’t even getting exit music forcing recipients off the stage anymore.

Midnight?!- Degeneres is pretending to vacuum and in a vein attempt for this hour at humor, bitches about her work detail. Its too late for me to still be laughing, she is handling it as well as possible though.

12:02- Reese Witherspoon presentes the award for Best Actor, all the nominees seem deserving. Peter O’Toole is the crowd favorite, I am pulling for Gosling, but it’s Forest Whitaker’s award… 12 for 20. This is an impressive list of nominees considering how poor I thought 2006 was for films. Whitaker gives an emotional speech about his plight in the acting field. He’s lucky he doesn’t get exit music-ed off the stage. When he walks off he looks back over his shoulder like he just beat the shit out of the crowd.

12:06- Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas present for Best Director, they do some schtick and there is a reason these guys never took a stab at acting. Now they are speeding things up by neglecting to show clips of the films and opting to just read the nominees. Scorsese deserves the award, I am rooting for him, I think he is the most deserving and the crowd is pulling for him. He gets a standing ovation when his name is announced. 13 for 21. They show Scorsese walking off the stage with the three presenters and its safe to say that George Lucas is misplaced.

12:12- The Queen, your fifth and final nominee for best picture. Nicholson and Diane Keaton present the award, I am guessing Little Miss Sunshine, but it’s nothing more than a shot in the dark, Keaton presents the nominees and Nicholson reads The Departed as the winner. Does that happen often? Where a person who was integral to the making of the winning film reads his own movie? I finish the night at 14 for 22, and after hours of actors, directors, musicians and the like, some random producer named Graham King is the last person we hear from. He acknowledges everyone involved with the making of the film including his family.

12:19- Degeneres mine as well be shoving Mr. King off the stage with a broom when she steps onto the stage to sign off, so only 49 minutes over the allotted time for the show. Pretty sloppy on The Academy’s part. If you actually read this entire thing, you deserve a statue of some kind.