random thoughts on the 2016 oscars

So no predictions this year, because my heart would conflict with my head.

All I'll say is this... please let the two La La Land songs cancel each other out so that Justin Timerlake, Sting or Lin-Manual Miranda wins for Best Song. That would make me almost as happy as Jonathan Quick returning to the LA Kings goal crease yesterday :)

Note: I'll be updating this in real time, so keep clicking refresh on your browser and help my page views that I'm not monetizing go up ;) 

The Preshow

• Lisa is here and we're drinking champagne and eating cheese, crackers and salami.
• So far our faves on the red carpet are our buddy Sting, and Lin-Manuel's eyebrow :)
• Love Taraji P. Henson, Kirsten Dunst and Octavia Spencer's dresses.
• Oh no Jessica Biel... what is that thing around your neck?
• Robin Roberts is also having a bad gold dress day. And why did you lighten your hair?
• Oh love the cute little kid from Lion. And love his sneakers! If you didn't see that movie, go see it!
• Can't wait for the Jimmy Kimmel / Matt Damon feud to continue tonight. Hahaha.
• Trudie Styler is too thin to wear a flowy dress like that. But have I mentioned how good Sting looks? Always... like a fine wine...
• It's the thing on Mrs. Timberlake's neck again. But look how cute and fun her hubby is :)
• Halle Berry's hair. Wow. 
• Love Lin-Manuel and his mom. So cute. 
• Nicole Kidman's dress is too pale for her pale skin. But otherwise very elegant. 
• I do not love Viola Davis' dress.. not a great neckline. She's likely going to win an Oscar in that dress, preserving it for posterity.
• Oh hi Ryan Gosling.. :) Robin Roberts tells Ryan, "I would be happy to be your arm candy." Lisa says, "You and the rest of America Robin.."
• Is Casey Affleck ever going to finish this mountain man movie so he can shave and get a hair cut? 
• What the heck is Dakota Johnson wearing?!?! That looks like a 1950s nightgown. Ugh. 
• Pro Tip Michael Strahan: Be careful with your hand motions.
• Love Naomi Harris' slick white look and mis-matched shoes. 
• Michelle Willams looks adorbs. And love she continues to bring her BFF Busy Phillips.  
• Emma Stone looks ready to win an Oscar that looks like her... minus the fringe.

The Show

• Bring on JT!! Party time.. best opening ever! Can't Stop The Feeling/Lovely Day remix! LOVE!! SO GOOD! SO POSITIVE! 
• Here we go.. Jimmy and Matt, part 1. Jimmy reaching out and healing the rift.. by pointing out that "The Great Wall" lost $80 million. 
• And Meryl being over-rated gets the biggest applause of the night. (And I really like her dress for once.) 
• And Best Supporting Actor goes to... Mahershala Ali for "Moonlight." I agree with this win. He was great in that film. 
• "This is the fun part of the show.... before you realize you taped your boobs to your dress for nothing." - Jimmy Kimmel
• Best Makeup and Hair: "Suicide Squad.." that's what I picked, even though I still haven't seen it. I picked it because Jared Leto scares me in the trailer. 
• Kate McKinnon is channeling alt facts Kellyanne Conway and no one seems to realize it...
• Best Costume Design: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Yay!! Colleen Atwood looks shocked. Um, FYI, when you work on a Harry Potter film, you might win stuff ;) 
• Okay. LOVE the Cadillac commercial... good will defeat evil people. Keep the faith..

• "Algebra's Angels" (love that!) aka the women of my fave movie of the year, "Hidden Figures" -- Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, Janelle Monae ... the real life Katherine Johnson! Standing O, and some tears. 
• OJ continues to win things... "OJ: Made in America" = Best Documentary Feature. And classy to thank Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown and their families. 
• Dwayne Johnson is coming out ... could it be to introduce our favorite could-be EGOT winner??
• Lin-Manuel Miranda time... doing an original prologue to "How Far I'll Go." SO GOOD!  Lisa is freaking out on my sofa right now. She's just a sort of huge LMM/Hamilton fanatic. ;)
• Moana girl knocked it out of the park... didn't miss a beat, even when one of the dancer's "waves" whacked her in the head.  #nopressure
• And she's been gif'd. Poor thing
• I really thought Jimmy's mom or Cousin Sal would bring over canoli's or something. But parachuting movie candy was a much more fun visual.
• Best Sound Editing: Arrival. Interesting.. So far Suicide Squad, Fantastic Beasts and Arrival have more Oscars than La La Land. 
• Oooh, and now Mel Gibson's movie has more Oscars than La La Land (so far). Hacksaw Ridge = Best Sound Mixing
• Oh, now it's time for Viola Davis to get her Best Supporting Actress Oscar....
• What's with the weird camera angle on Mark Rylance and his little Charlie Chaplin hat?
• Called it. 
• Best Foreign Language Film goes to .. the guy who can't get into America thanks to Trump's travel ban. ("The Salesman")
• Sting performing the beautiful "The Empty Chair." Note: I saw him do this same song, sitting on a chair about 12 feet away from me two weeks ago at the Palladium. It was just as beautiful then.... probably more so because he was RIGHT THERE. But this time, he ended with this on the screen behind him. "If we don't have the moral courage to challenge authority... we don't have journalism."  LOVE (says the Journalism major.)
• Best Animated Short Film = "Piper" Lisa is happy. 
• "As a human being, I'm against any sort of wall that wants to separate us" - Gael Garcia Bernal. If you haven't seen Mozart in the Jungle (on Amazon Prime), go watch it. Great show. And he's a joy. 
• Best Animated Film.... please Moana. But .... Zootopia (not a shocker). It's more fit for today's political climate... but not as touching as Moana. 
• There's Dakota Johnson's bad dress again. Let's just look at Jamie Dornan. 
• "La La Land" finally wins something! Best Production Design. And the winners get played off....
• And now the tourists from the tour bus gag walk in.. and just start taking photos. Ryan Gosling and Nicole Kidman are being the official greeters. 
• This bit was kinda lame to start, but the stars playing along is making it awesome!
• Best Visual Effects goes to The Jungle Book. Considering every character in the film except Mowgli was a visual effect, I agree with this win too. 
• From Mashable "Seth Rogen wearing Back to the Future shoes and singing Hamilton is as jarring as actual time travel would be." 
• And the award for Best Film Editing goes to .. Hacksaw Ridge, which now has more Oscars so far than La La Land does.
• Best Documentary Short Subject: The White Helmets. 
• Best Live Action Short Film: Sing
• ... And Jimmy Kimmel is tweeting Donald Trump. Asking if he was up and letting him know #Merylsayshi
• This John Cho/Leslie Mann technology awards intro about the Film Tech Awards is hi-lar-ious. #gofilmscientists 
• Best Cinematography goes to "La La Land".. okay so now it's in a tie for most awards won (2) with Hacksaw Ridge.
• Mean Tweets.. the Oscar edition. Jeff Bridges and DeNiro's were the best! 
• Oh god. And there's the song I can never get out of my head. UGH. 
• And Matt Damon just tripped Jimmy Kimmel.. on accident. Yeah. HA.
• Time for Music Awards... don't crush my dreams Academy. Don't do it!
• Best Original Score can go to La La Land.. that'd be fine
• And Best Original Score goes to La La Land.. okay. Fine. This is allowed.
• Best Original Song goes to.... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! "City of Stars" wins. DO NOT LIKE.
• "Hilary, and now this" - Erika Shen
• In Memorium... I can't take this this year. And Jennifer Aniston almost losing it over Bill Paxton (#rip) at the beginning. Oy. At least last year I was distracted from the sadness by Dave Grohl. 
• And now, Ben Affleck "and guest".. aka Matt Damon, who keeps getting played off the stage, to present the writing awards.
• Best Original Screenplay: Manchester by the Sea. I agree with this.
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Moonlight. I also agree with this. 
• Best Directing: Damien Chazelle... the man responsible for that friggin' song being on the big screen. The youngest Best Director ever. 
• I have to say.... the clip packages before some of the awards this year are pretty spectacular.
• Brie Larson is seriously glammed up this year. 
• Best Actor will be Casey or Denzel... depending on how you feel about alleged sexual assault allegations.
• And the Best Actor Oscar goes to Casey Affleck. He deserves it for the performance. It was heartbreaking. That whole movie was heartbreaking.
• Denzel looks like he's gonna cry. #sniff
• Why doesn't Ben Affleck look happier that his baby bro just won an Oscar? He's still winning in that race with two (but neither for acting... hmmm.)
• Oh hi Leo...
• Meryl does not look amused by her clip.
• Best Actress goes to Emma Stone!! WOW. Now we get to see that dress next to the Oscar. 
• Okay.. now let's give La La Land Best Picture so we can all go home. (Oh wait.. I'm already here.)
• And the Best Picture is La La Land. SHOCKER.
• WAIT what? Moonlight has won Best Picture!!! WOW. They read the wrong name for Best Picture!?!? Wrong envelope? What the heck just happened?

And goodnight. Is Jimmy Kimmel doing an after the Oscars show this year? I feel like we need an official follow up to that. WOW.

Okay.. I just went back and rewound the announcement on Tivo. Warren Beatty did look in the envelope for another card. He knew it was wrong. He should have said something then instead of letting Faye Dunaway read the wrong movie. Some envelope-stuffing accountant is getting fired tomorrow. WOW.

Well.. upon further investigation, it looks like a show producer will be losing their job. The envelope Warren Beatty opened said "Actress in a Leading Role." Someone said Leo put the card back in and handed it to a producer when he and Emma Stone came off stage, and that the producer then accidentally handed it to Warren Beatty. BUT in an after-show interview, Emma Stone says she had her card the whole time. BUT she didn't have it on stage when the La La Land people were accepting. #envelopegate2017..

Maybe this means they didn't win Best Song too? Hey.. I can dream... :)

random thoughts on the 2017 grammy awards

It's time for my annual tradition of watching cool musical performances with some awards sprinkled in between. This year, for the first time in eons, LL Cool J is NOT hosting. This year, that "honor" goes to The Late, Late Show's James Cordon of "Carpool Karaoke" fame... let's see how well he can control this wild bunch..

• Yay Adele is singing first! Can she just sing the whole time?
• Okay the weird picture-in-picture thing going on on the screen behind her is super-annoying. Maybe they shouldn't have put the screen *right* behind her...
• James Cordon's opening intro/dance disaster was less than funny.
• His rapped monologue was good though.
• J-Lo is getting political.. now you know we're in deep sh*t.
• So John Travolta has finally admitted to not being able to read the teleprompter. (Two years too late.) Next, can he finally admit that's not his real hair?
• The psychedelic scrolling background stolen from Real Player (or was it the Windows Music player?) behind Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood is hurting my eyes.
• Twenty One Pilots missed the pantless LA Metro ride day by a month or so...
• Jetsetter and one-man band Ed Sheeran.... from SNL to the Grammy stage in 16 hours (+ a 3-hour time change). I keep meaning to actually buy his music. He's awesome.
• And David Bowie wins Best Rock Song for "Blackstar." #sniff
• Since when do singer's moms get to do Grammy intros? I guess when they are Beyonce's mom...
• So is this pregnancy going to be Bey's next concept album?
• Um... how can these professional musicians (roped into a live Carpool Karaoke) NOT know the words to "Sweet Caroline"? Shame on you John Legend... for that, the two songs you're performing at the Oscars this year should lose. (Props to J-Lo for at least getting into the performance aspect.)
• Bruno Mars looks like he's going to the Olympics.
• And OMG.. I swear that triangle thing behind/above him is leftover from the NHL All-Star Game! #staplescenterhand-me-downs
• If anyone can follow Beyonce, it's Katy Perry! Love the #resist armband! And The U.S. Constitution graphic. The fence makes more sense now. (Yes, it takes me a while...)
• I'm really loving Gary Clark Jr. lately.... makes me wish I'd shown up earlier to the Foos concert he opened for on the Sonic Highways tour.
• Adele performing the George Michael tribute. #love
• Adele's luck with earpieces on Grammy live shows. #hate
• Seen just now on the EW Twitter: "Only Adele could make the Grammy's start over." Yep. #queen
• "I'm sorry. I can't mess this up for him." #sniff #love
• She slayed. Beautiful.
• Lady Gaga with Metallica. Not as odd as you'd think...
• What is odd is James Hetfield's microphone not working. Someone's not getting hired as a sound tech again next year. 
• Note: Demi Lovato was not alive when Stayin' Alive came out. Neither was Tori Kelly. Lady Antebellum was... well most of them.
• How sad is it that they keep cutting to Barry Gibb.. the sole remaining Gibb. #sniff
• Andra Day apparently thinks kimonos were big in the '70s. She wasn't alive then either.
• Yay! Adele's "Hello" wins Song of the Year. #love
• Cutting off her co-writer Greg Kurstin to intro a Tribe Called Quest #hate
• The Prince tribute from The Time isn't nearly as sad as the George Michael tribute was... 
• And now "Let's Go Crazy" -- my fave Prince song. Bruno has the look down. But he still reminds me more of Michael Jackson.
• Bruno also has the guitar playing down. Wow!
• Yay Adele's "Hello" wins Record of the Year! And yay Adele for calling the producers out for cutting Greg off last time!
• Yay Adele's "25" wins Album of the Year! I love that album... shows her true beauty, heart and sass. #love

sunday funday: nature

Most Sunday mornings, my friend James and I go on a 3.5+ mile hike through Fryman Canyon. We've been rained (or Disneyland-ed) out the last few weeks. But today we were BACK and EVERYTHING was SO GREEN!!!  Fresh air, new life sprouting from the ground everywhere and pretty clear blue skies looking both West and East. It was gorgeous!

I can almost see my house from here! 

sunday funday: main street electrical parade

If you can't be a Disney employee with a Silver Pass, the next best thing is having a friend who's a Disney employee with a Silver Pass... or Disneyland employee holiday party passes with an expiration date!

That was me last weekend, when my Disney employee friend Linda invited me, Daryl and James to drive to Anaheim on Superbowl Sunday (a historically very crowded day at the Park) to use her passes and free churro coupons! 

We each arrived with one specific thing we wanted to do at the Park, since we knew going in we wouldn't get to do much due to the crowds. My one thing was watching the "back for a limited time only" Main Street Electrical Parade! 

Some of my earliest memories of Disneyland include this parade. And while the theme song annoys some (Hi Daryl), I love it! In fact, I started jumping up and down like a little kid, bopping along to it as the parade approached our viewing spot in Town Square, at the end of the "early show" route.

Here are photos of some of my fave floats in all their light-bright glory. Enjoy :)

The lead float, driven by Goofy, with the main Mouse riding on top.

Cinderella's pumpkin with her Fairy Godmother riding shotgun. 

Peter Pan and Captain Hook battle it out!

Tinkerbell and pretty fauna.

Dopey driving the Dwarves sparkling haul down the route. 

The Elliot from Pete's Dragon float... this is one of my earliest memories of Disneyland from my first trip there when I was 4 or 5. I'm not sure if it's because he scared me or because I had the soundtrack record ;) 

all-star spectacular

For the second time since the opening of Staples Center, the LA Kings got to host the NHL All-Star Weekend this year, Saturday January 28th and 29th. 

Being me, I of course had to be there for both the All-Star Skills Competition on Saturday and the All-Star Game on Sunday. 

Here's a photo essay of the weekend-o-hockey-fun!

Saturday: Fan-Fair and the Skills Competition

Oh, hey Drew Doughty. You look a lot better up there than Crybaby Crosby does ;)

Because it's LA, we of course had an All-Star Weekend Sand Castle  :) 

My favorite All-Stars, for obvious reasons

In honor of the 20th Anniversary of Wayne's World, a pop-up Stan Mikita's All-Star Cafe was set up in front of the Fan Fair. They gave away free donuts (that tasted like Krispy Kreme) and hosted autograph sessions and player/celebrity panels every few hours. 

We just happened to arrive at the All-Star Cafe in time to catch the Great One (aka Wayne Gretzky) on a panel with Brett Hull and David Boreanez, talking about the All-Star Celebrity Shootout game Saturday afternoon they were all participating in. (Wayne was not as grumpy as he looks in this photo, I swear.)

We also caught Hall of Fame hotties Mike Modano and Chris Chelios signing autographs. (And I was super-annoyed when some lady who just showed up for the free donuts asked me who they were!)

The NHL Fan Fair had food, kids stuff, autograph lines I wasn't going to wait in, collectibles and a really cool display of all the NHL Awards. Here are the awards with LA Kings on them (minus the Stanley Cup.. you had to reserve time to see that up close).

The Norris Trophy for Best Defensemen, won by Rob Blake in 1998 (photo on right) 

and Drew Doughty last season.

The Selke Trophy for Best Defensive Forward, won by Anze Kopitar last season.

The Conn Smythe Trophy, for NHL Playoff MVP, won by Jonathan Quick in 2012 

and Justin Williams in 2014.

The Veznia Trophy, for Best Goaltender, never won by a King (yet... Jonathan Quick has been nominated twice). But I include it here because, seeing it close up, I noticed that is has a goalie net in the middle of it, which I think is pretty cool :)

The Jennings Trophy, given to the goaltender with the fewest goals against, 

won by Jonathan Quick in 2014

The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, for the player exhibiting the best sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct, won by Wayne Gretzky multiple times, and Anze Kopitar last season.

Inside of Staples Center decked out (see the walls below the restaurant) for the weekend with logos from all the teams and the names of the four divisions competing.

The pre-Skills Competition intros.

Jeff Carter (#77) and Drew Doughty (the 2nd #8), being from the host team LA Kings, were the last players introduced before the four fan-voted Captains.

Sunday: All-Star Game

Dreeeeew and Carts during warmups.

Prior to the game, the members of the "NHL 100" (who had been introduced in a ceremony Friday night) all walked onto the ice and were introduced one by one. This was probably the coolest moment of the weekend...seeing that caliber of talent all in one place at the same time, in their jerseys. #chills

The current All-Stars went down that line as they were introduced (they skated out from under that triangle thingy), shaking hands with each historic player. Then, after the anthems, the members of the 100, all dropped a puck to a current All-Star to start the game, performing the largest, most talented puck-drop in NHL history!

The final score of "Round 1" which sent my Pacific team to the Final Round against the Metropolitan division, who ended up beating them 4-3 (cuz they were coached by Gretzky ;p).