random thoughts on the 2018 oscars

I am not excited about the Oscars at all this year.. so get ready for either very few or very snarky comments.

In terms of predictions, I will say I'm 110% sure Gary Oldman will win Best Actor for Darkest Hour, and 100% sure that Coco will win Best Animated Feature. Other than that, I hope The Shape of Water wins Best Picture, because it was beautiful visually and story-wise and was the only film nominated that didn't make me depressed or angry this year.

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

Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd are both wearing very different yet gorgeous purple dresses. I assume they will be saying something about the #metoo / #timesup movement tonight... 

Yay! Patrick Stewart is there. Every show is better with Patrick Stewart.  #makeitso

I'm not going to be able to deal with another hour of Michael Strahan hosting this pre-show...

Shout out to my friend Linda, who is sitting in a trailer on the side of Hollywood and Highland right now with her finger on the bleeping button for the Oscar app's live streaming content...

Whoopi Goldberg, EGOT winner. And soon to be Worst Dressed Winner too... wow.

Jennifer Garner, always classy. But she's about to do a show written by Lena Dunham. #doesnotcompute

Yay! Lin-Manuel Miranda! Can't wait for Mary Poppins Returns. Do what he says and help Puerto Rico here.

Is it over yet??

Oh.. for those who don't watch Animated Shorts, here's Kobe Bryant's Nominated short "Dear Basketball," live from the Hollywood Bowl last September 1st, with John Williams conducting the score live as Kobe narrates. Kobe is apparently the first NBA Player nominated for an Oscar..

The Actual Show... 

Jimmy Kimmel going there right off the bat with supporting the #metoo movement, and then making fun of Trump and Pence. And promoting the March for our Lives on March 24th. Love him! Oh and he's giving away a jet ski to the person with the shortest acceptance speech.... some film editor will get up and just say thank you and win. #markmywords

That set is very Beauty and the Beast.. are they displaying the nominees for Production Design?

Best Supporting Actor goes to Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. #notashocker  (speech time: 1min 29 seconds)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling goes to helping Gary Oldman win his soon-to-be Best Actor Oscar for Darkest Hour.

(Not that I'm counting, but I'm 2 for 2 so far based on the things I randomly circled on my Entertainment Weekly Oscar Ballot at around 3:30pm today...)

For Best Costume Design I predict Beauty and the Beast... and it goes to Phantom Thread, which I could not bring myself to watch because all Paul Thomas Anderson/Daniel Day Lewis movies end up being 3 hours of my life I'll never get back. #noregrets (speech time: 36 seconds)

Best Documentary Feature goes to Icarus. I didn't choose a winner in the Documentary categories because I don't watch them.

Best Sound Editing = Dunkirk. This and Sound Mixing are where Christopher Nolan's epic will be awarded.

Best Sound Mixing = Dunkirk. Told you. I'm now 4 of 5 for categories I guessed on the ballot for...

Oh forgot to mention that Mary J. Blige performed her nominated song from Mudbound in between the Documentary and Sound categories. I was packing boxes to ship tomorrow during that so forgive me. I will be paying attention during the Coco song that makes me cry though..

Nice stance on DACA/the Dreamers from Lupita Nyong'o and Kumail Nanjani.. both dreamers, as is everyone in Hollywood. Aww.

Best Production Design goes to The Shape of Water! Yay! I'd picked Blade Runner 2049 because well.. it was BIG. But Shape of the Water was gorgeous. Hope this means it will also win Cinematography.

Yay! The sad Coco song, "Remember Me," written by the composers of "Let It Go." Remember when John Travolta screwed up Idina Menzel's name that year... #goodtimes

How many world premiere trailers are Disney/ABC dropping tonight? Already had Mary Poppins Returns and soon there will be the Roseanne reboot... oohh.. ahh.

Rita Moreno is wearing the same dress she wore when she won the Best Actress Oscar for West Side Story. #funfactlearnedduringpreshow

Best Foreign Language Film = A Fantastic Woman from Chile.. If these guys win the Jet Ski, that's gonna be one hell of a shipping fee. Jimmy Kimmel better hope he talks a long time....

Best Supporting Actress past winners montage was very #girlpower

And the Best Supporting Actress is Allison Janney for I, Tonya. #alsonotashocker She's won like a billion Emmys but this is her first Oscar nomination. Didn't love the movie, but she was great as an evil, selfish mother.

Kobe Bryant just won an Academy Award!! Best Animated Short Film for Dear Basketball. Wow.

Best Animated Feature Film goes to Coco #reallynotashocker

Best Visual Effects Oscar goes to Blade Runner 2049.

Film Editing goes to Dunkirk as well.. I'd picked Baby Driver for the opening scene alone. Oh well...

And here comes "the bit" Jimmy Kimmel is taking celebrities next door to the Chinese Theatre to surprise the audience watching a Wrinkle in Time screening... Mark Hamill, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Emily Blunt, Guillermo Del Toro, Ansel Egort, Margot Robbie, Lupita Nyong'o.... wait for it..

Okay.. asking a normal human to introduce Tiffany Haddish was daring Jimmy. But the normal humans at the theatre seemed to love the celeb interruption.

Best Documentary Short Film goes to Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405. I don't know what that short is about, but I can tell you that NOTHING about the 405 is heavenly...

Having Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph present two of the most boring categories (shorts) was truly a stroke of genius! #hilarious

Best Live Action Short Film goes to The Silent Child. Does saying and signing the acceptance speech count as double time in the Jet Ski contest?

And now for the writing categories..

Awww. I forgot Logan got nominated for something. It was SO GOOD!

Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Call Me by Your Name's James Ivory. Yay! Great film! (Note: James Ivory is now the oldest winner in Oscar history at 89 years old.. wow)

Noticed it a while ago, but notice how all the envelopes have the categories written on the outside of them REALLY BIG and how all the presenters are showing them to the camera? LOL.

Best Original Screenplay goes to Get Out. WOW! That's a surprise. Congrats to Jordan Peele. (He's the first black writer to win for Original Screenplay.)

Best Cinematography goes to Blade Runner 2049 ... I was rooting for The Shape of Water here, but can't complain because that movie was visually stunning (even though it was about 40 minutes too long).

Six awards left....

Song and Score, Director, Lead Actor/Actress and Best Picture... it's 5 minutes til 8pm. I predict the show will end at 8:32pm.

Best Score goes to The Shape of Water -- yay! Although I'd have loved to see John Williams win.

Best Original Song presented by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Emily Blunt / Mary Poppins ...  goes to "Remember Me" from Coco.. aww I'm gonna cry again. That song is so beautifully perfect for that film.

Now In Memorium.. to a Tom Petty song. Sad but sorry, Eddie Vedder is no Dave Grohl singing a Beatles song.

Interesting... Emma Stone is presenting Best Director instead of Best Actor. The nominees are "four men and Greta Gerwig" Woot!

Best Director Oscar goes to Guillermo Del Toro for The Shape of Water... he deserves it. Even if a woman didn't win, at least someone from another country did.

So all the remaining major awards are being presented by women it would appear... except for the top secret Faye Dunaway / Warren Beatty do-over of Best Picture.

Best Actor in a Leading Role presented by Jane Fonda and Dame Helen Mirren.... goes to Gary Oldman #duh. Great, emotional, eloquent speech.

Best Actress in a Leading Role presented by former winners Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence... goes to France McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She said she was hyperventilating.. she looked a little crazy.. but yay for the female inclusion speech!

And now Best Picture... hopefully. (It's 8:38pm. I lost my end time guess...)

And they're back... Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Let's see the outside of the envelope please...

YAY! The Shape of Water wins! So happy!! And Guillermo Del Toro checked the envelope before he started speaking. LOL

And the Costume Design Winner gets the Jet Ski!

End time 8:49pm PT. Goodnight...

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 during the 2016 oscars...

So yesterday I had the bright idea to live blog my random thoughts on the Oscars today, so here we go....with a few disclaimers:

1. I am already drinking a very nice Wild Horse Pinot Noir. (It's after 5pm!) 
2. I apologize in advance for the negativity that will be spewed if The Big Short wins anything.
3. I'll try to keep the Dave Grohl comments to a minimum since this is a movie thing and he's a music thing, but hey.. I'm not the producer that hired him to perform tonight :P
4. If hours #2 and #3 (and likely #4) get boring, you may end up with random thoughts on the Kings vs. Sucky Ducks of Anaheim game that starts at 6pm PT. (That game will mean the difference between the Kings having a 6-point or 2-point lead in the Pacific division. #priorities)

First up: A Quick Red Carpet Summary

These people looked amazing: Alicia Vikander, Sofia Vergara, Saoirse Ronan, Bree Larson, Cate Blanchett, Charlize Theron

These people need to fire their stylists: Whoopi Goldberg, Olivia Wilde, Daisy Ridley, Rooney Mara, Charlotte Rampling, Amy Pohler

Fave quote from the Red Carpet: "I am presenting best live action short... because I'm short." -- Jacob Tremblay (who is wearing Milennium Falcon cuff links and Darth Vader socks with his mini-tux)

Missing from the Red Carpet: Jennifer Lawrence....

And now on to the show...

Nice of the producers to put Creed and Straight Outta Compton right next to each other, right at the end of the intro montage.... hmm.

The Monologue: 

• Chris Rock is wearing a white tux jacket. Coincidence? 
• "The Oscars... otherwise known as the white people's choice awards." 
• Thank you Chris Rock for saying what I've been thinking for weeks about Jada Pinkett Smith: "Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna's panties. I wasn't invited.... But I get it. She's mad her man Will wasn't nominated for Concussion. I get it. It's not fair Will was this good and didn't get nominated. But it was also not fair that Will Smith was paid $20m for "Wild Wild West." Word. 
• I think he handled the whole controversy well... and made some very biting, yet true comments. I give him an A.

This year the show is following the order a film is made... first up, the writing awards. Um.. ok. I was all ready for Supporting Actor....

Best Original Screenplay: Spotlight. Yay! Amazing film. 

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe should do a comedy together. That was a fun intro.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Big Short. No comment. (I'm trying to be good)

Um... that Stacy Dash bit.. What? She's not big enough to be on that stage even if she is trying a mea culpa for being a complete idiot.

Thank god for Sarah Silverman's brain... show is back on track.. sort of.

I can't believe this Sam Smith song got nominated. Did not like it in the Spectre opening credits and like it less now. Although it is very brave of him to attempt hitting those high notes on live television in front of 80 million viewers. (Sorry Sam, you're no Adele.)

These pop-up video factoids are going to get really old, really quick.

Best Supporting Actress: Alicia Vikander. Yay! She so good in that film... she just makes your heart ache with hers.

Wait, so they are scrolling her thank you's on the bottom of the screen before she even gets to the stage. That's a little too staged for my liking.

"And we're black." Chris Rock on returning from commercial break... to the orchestrations of Huey Lewis and The News' "Power of Love."

Can I just say again how beautiful Cate Blanchett's dress is? Is that sexist?

Best Costume Design: Mad Mad: Fury Road. Bummer. My first prediction fail. And really... did a costume designer seriously wear black jeans, a scarf and a leather jacket to the Academy Awards?!?!?!? And then she gets played off while talking about the possibility of Mad Max's environmental prophecy coming true. Nice.

I heart Tina Fey.

Best Production Design: Mad Mad: Fury Road. Again... did these women not get the "black tie" memo on their invites?

Is Jared Leto wearing a rose as a bow tie?

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Mad Max: Fury Road. This film is going to be the top winner in terms of Oscar count tonight. Mark my words.

Why was Jennifer Garner smiling like a fool while Benicio Del Toro was talking about Leo being mauled by a bear and left for dead as he introduced The Revenant? Was she imagining Ben Affleck was under the scruffy beard?

"Shoulda-be nominee Michael B. Jordan." Chris Rock dig #? (I'm drinking wine and decided an hour ago to not even try to count...)

Best Cinematography: The Revenant. Yep. Beautiful picture....

When Liev Schreiber speaks, I can't help but feel like I'm watching an HBO documentary...

Best Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road. That's four.

[Kings/Ducks 0-0 with 5 minutes left in the 1st period.]

I can only imagine the broken THX intro that made Brie Larson look really confused is leading to the Sound categories....

Yep.

Going out on a limb and betting these will be #5 and #6 for Mad Max: Fury Road.

Best Sound Editing: Mad Max: Fury Road.. and there was either a sound problem or a censor button going off right when they got to the stage. Those naughty Australians ;)

Best Sound Mixing: Mad Max: Fury Road. #6. Am I psychic or what? :p

Andy Serkis can only mean it's time for Visual Effects.. and I predict this is Mad Max: Fury Road's win #7.

Best Visual Effects: WHOA! Ex Machina UPSET! I am not happy. This is the award my friend Paige's hubby was up for for Mad Max. Bummer. If there was going to be an upset I thought it would be The Revenant's bear.

Okay, Jason Segal and Oliva Munn are pretty hilarious summarizing the Sci-Tech awards. A friend of my friends Daryl and James had something to do with "The Image Shaaaakkkkerrrr." I know this because James told me about it on our hike last weekend.

Yay! John Williams. Tonight is his 50th Oscar Nomination says C-3PO, so it must be true.

They keep teasing music.. where is Dave Grohl?

Okay Chris Rock, selling Girl Scout cookies in the audience was kind of genius. I hear the audience is usually starving. Way to win "Dad of the Year" and "Best Host" in one bit.

Best Animated Short: This is the one I predicted based on the posters. The Minons presented this in Minion-language. Bear Story won... well since a bear didn't win Best Visual Effects..... this is however the first Oscar for the country of Chile.

Buzz and Woody are presenting Best Animated Film and celebrating Pixar's 20th Anniversary. Gee, I wonder what is going to win this award ?? ;)

Best Animated Feature: Pixar's Inside Out. SHOCKER (not really)

Finally getting to the other Best Original Song performances... next up, The Weeknd performing "Earned It," the song that made Fifty Shades of Grey an Oscar Nominee the same year it swept the Razzies...  he is singing much better than Sam Smith, but not better -- I predict -- than Dave Grohl will.

[Kings/Ducks 1-1 to start the 2nd period. And check out this Drew Doughty hip check on Dave Perron.. apparently I'm missing one of the best games of the year according to the NBC Sports announcers, who, knowing it's Oscar night, also predict Dreeeeew will be up for a major award -- the Norris Trophy -- this year. Duh.]

Are those the same glasses Kate Winslet wore in Steve Jobs?

Chris Rock goes to the movies in Compton. This is going to be good....

• Chris Rock: "Do you feel that Trumbo should've been a bigger hit?" 
• Compton Movie-Goer: "What?"
• Chris Rock: "What about The Bridge of Spies"
• Compton Movie-Goer:"Where are you getting these movies from? You're making this up and messing with me, right? I come to the movies all the time..." 
• Chris Rock: "These are real movies!"
• Compton Movie-Goer:"Like in London and stuff?"
• Chris Rock: "What was your favorite movie of all time?"
• Compton Movie-Goer:"Super-fly."

Best Supporting Actor: Mark Rylance in "Bridge of Spies"! Yay. His performance deserved it. Sorry Sly. And a hug from Steven Spielberg :)

[Kings up 2-1 thanks to Tanner Pearson! Woot!]

Louis C.K. presenting Best Documentary Short Film ... and changing someone's life in the process. "This Oscar is going home in a Honda Civic." As someone who used to own a Honda Civic, I'm kind of offended.....

Best Documentary Short Subject: A Girl in the River - The Price of Forgiveness

Best Documentary Feature: Amy -- the one documentary I saw. Sad, sad story of Amy Winehouse.

[Sucky Ducks just tied it. Dammit]

Chris Rock raised $65k selling Girl Scout cookies.. thanks in large part to Suge Knight. Way to ruin it...

Required statement on diversity from the Academy President...

In Memorium... with a special performance by Dave Grohl and his guitar (but not that guitar) of "Blackbird."  (Sniff .... Alan Rickman :*( Sniff David Bowie.)  And beautiful performance by Dave.

Yay! It's time for Jacob Tremblay to present Best Live Action Short..... from on top of an apple box.... cuz he's short. He's so cute, even if he's standing too far from the microphone. I blame Chris Rock for that for his inaccurate apple box placement. Yet cute Jacob still said "Thanks Chris. I loved you in Madagascar." Aww.

Best Live Action Short: Stutterer

Best Foreign Language Film: Son of Saul

Veep Joe Biden gets a standing ovation... as he tries to find his teleprompter. Based on the start of his speech -- about intervening when men and women are abused -- I think he's introducing Lady Gaga's "Til It Happens to You" performance from "The Hunting Ground." Yep... "Welcome my friend Lady Gaga."

She's amazing. And what a powerful moment bringing abuse survivors out on the stage with "Survivor," "It Happened to Me," and "Unbreakable" written on their arms. A most deserved Standing O for them too.

There are still technically two more Best Original Song nominees left to perform, but since they're not going to win, can we just give Lady Gaga and Diane Warren their Oscar now?

Pharrell and Quincy Jones are presenting Best Original Score. Pharrell's hair is blond. Did he, Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera start a "Voice Coaches Blond Hair Club"?

Best Original Score: Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight. Yay! He's there to accept. He and John Williams got to sit together in a box. Fancy. He gets a standing O too... and a hug from Quincy. He has an Italian translator, he give special thanks to his fellow nominee John Williams and dedicates the award to his wife Maria. Aww.

OOH, Common and John Legend are coming out. They won Best Original Song last night. Maybe we won't have to hear the other two nominated best songs.

Best Original Song: WHAT?!?!?!?!? The crappy James Bond song?!?!?!?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?

[And while that was happening, the Sucky Ducks are somehow now up 4 goals to 2 and the Kings acquired forward Kris Versteeg from the Hurricanes for a player I've never heard of and a draft pick.]

Now you bring out Sasha Baron Cohen to disrespectfully introduce Room?!?!? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

Best Director: Alejandro G. Inarritu for "The Revenant" ....that's Back to Back wins! And he's getting played off as he's making a point about diversity and "making the color of our skin as irrelevant as the length of our hair."

Alright.. the final stretch. I've eaten way too many crackers with cheese tonight. Should have bought Girl Scout cookies....

Best Actress: Brie Lawson from "Room" ... and little Jacob Tremblay (who was ROBBED of a Supporting Actor nomination! ROBBED!) gets her second hug! Her speech is so happy! No tears at all... that's good. She was miserable enough in that movie.

Okay... Best Actor is next. I'm afraid to say anything right now...

Best Actor: THANK GOD! Leonard DiCaprio!! First Oscar, 6th Nomination. Is Kate Winslet crying? In the wide shot she's jumping up and down clapping. Standing Ovation. He totally rehearsed this speech.. but that's okay. He had long enough to prep... And yay for the climate change statements! Note: He did NOT get played off. (The director's not that dumb)

Best Picture: SPOTLIGHT!  Not The Revenant, but not The Big Short either! Whoo hoo! YAY FOR JOURNALISM!!! And an amazing cast!

[And the Kings just lost 2-4 to the Sucky Ducks. Lead in the Pacific down to 2 points :( ]

And Chris Rock ends the show with... "I want to invite everybody here to BET Awards this summer. I just want to say good night, this has been an amazing experience, congratulations to all our Oscar winners, buy some Girl Scout cookies, Black Lives Matter. Thank you Brooklyn!"

And then all the winners came back out on stage.. nice touch.

The END!

Chris Rock was pretty great considering what he ended up having to deal with... that probably made him better.

• Best bits: Compton Movie Goer Interviews and the Girl Scout cookies. 
• Worst bits: Stacey Dash and the kid accountants

Final Tally:

• Mad Max: Fury Road = 6 Oscars
• The Revenant = 3 Oscars
• Spotlight = 2 Oscars
• Everything else that won = 1 Oscar

Correct Oscar Prediction Count: 18/24
(I think that's what I got last year too... ) 

random thoughts during the 2014 oscars

Who knew Lupita Nyongo’s brother was in Kid-n-Play?

Ellen just said what everyone has been thinking about Lisa Minnelli for years by calling her a man (aka a drag queen). Burn.

And now it's time for the lead singer of 30 Seconds to Mars to win his Oscar.

Will be hard to beat Jared Leto for best speech of the night. Love to his mom, dreamers and victims of AIDS and injustice.

American Hustle did not win Best Costume. That was honestly the best shot they had unless there is a major acting category upset. Some woman wearing a sequined Hawaiian mumu won for Best Costume... for The Great Gatsby. Oh she's married to Baz Luhrmann. That explains it. Oh she's the woman who showed up in the American Express gold card dress long ago. She's old now.

Thank god Bad Grandpa did not win for Hair and Makeup. I'm now 2 for 3 in the Oscar pool.

I guess Harrison Ford isn't presenting Best Picture like he normally does...

Matthew McConaughey deserves the Oscar just for making it thru that award presentation with Kim Novak.

Kind of ironic that Kim Novak and her frozen face were chosen to present the Best Animated Short and Feature awards.

Visual Effects goes to Gravity… as it should.

Shorts, documentaries... the hit or miss categories in the Oscar pool. Entertainment Weekly you've failed me.

Darlene Love is singing really loud, which the Academy producers obviously weren’t prepared for. There goes their Sound Mixing Emmy. And does the Academy have clearance for that song?

Yay Italy wins… as it should... just because it's Italy.

It won't win Best Picture, but Nebraska wins in my book as best surprise film of the year. I had no expectations going in and loved it. Sweet, loving family drama that in many ways reminds me of the men on my dad’s side of the family.

Brad intros U2, who's performing acoustically... Highlight of the show thus far. And they get a standing ovation. Too bad they won't win.

Ellen just broke twitter. I can't retweet the celeb group shot.

Best Supporting Actress. Great category. June Squibb was awesome. JLaw was hilariously over the top. Julia held her own with Meryl. Too bad they can't all win. But Lupita Nyongo’s performance was too heartbreaking. The soap scene stole the film.

Thank you Brad Pitt from saving poor Lupita from that drag queen Liza Minnelli.

Okay. The pizza bit looked like it was going to bomb, but was actually pretty funny. I hope Harrison Ford made Calista eat part of his piece. And the owner of Big Mama and Papa's pizza just started crying tears of joy.

Great callout to Harold Ramis from Bill Murray during his and Amy Adams' presenting bit. Nice to get him into the broadcast in the event they weren’t able to edit him into the “In Memorium” in time.

Train wreck approaching. Here comes the Wizard of Oz/Judy Garland tribute. Don't let Liza talk. Don't let Liza talk. Oh good. Pink is going to sing instead. Phew. Actual entertainment.

Great dress on Jennifer Garner! Sassy fringe flapper dress. Love!

Great ad for the Pepsi mini cans with famous movie lines. "Show me the mini!"

Ellen's celeb selfie just broke the Twitter record and passed one million retweets*. That makes me one in a million :) (And shout out to Lupita's brother from Kid-n-Play for being more visible in the photo that three of the people who actually won Oscars this year!)

Harold Ramis made it into the “In Memoriam.” “Slates for Sarah” sort of did (after the fact).

I knew Bette Milder would be singing the sad Beaches song during the “In Memorium” the moment they announced her as a performer. See, I could produce the Oscars :p

The bubble people Oscars at the back of the stage are starting to freak me out. They look like the casts for the people stacked in the pod holding bay in The Matrix.

Hey John Travolta, her name is Idina Menzel. Ass.

"Let It Go" wins best original song, which Bono called on The Tonight Show two weeks ago. Robert Lopez is now an EGOT winner thanks to a Disney movie and....The Book of Mormon. And U2 is NOT an Oscar winner.... yet.

And the Let It Go winners’ speech is the most entertaining of the night...all rhyming. But Jared's is still the most heartwarming, followed closely by Lupita's.

Alfonso Cuaron is Best Director. Duh. Gravity was amazing. So was Sandra Bullock, but she won't win because of that crappy Woody Allen movie. (No offense to Cate Blanchett.)

Best Actress goes to Cate Blanchett. Yeah. Whatever.

Alright, alright, alright. And Matthew McConaughey is rewarded for putting up with Kim Novack. And playing a devastatingly heartbreaking role in Dallas Buyers Club. Whoever thought the stoner in Dazed & Confused and Ed TV would win a Best Actor Oscar? I can believe the lawyer in A Time to Kill one day would though.

Really like the graphics for Best Picture nominees.

And 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Brad Pitt is now an Oscar winner too. Take THAT George Clooney and Matt Damon!

The end. 3 hours and 30 minutes exactly.

The only real surprise of the night was that American Hustle was totally shut out. Oh well. Yay for Gravity!

P.S. I won the Oscar party pool with 20 correct. Yay me!

PPS: By an hour after the show ended, Ellen's celeb selfie has ready 2.1 million retweets... a 7-digit number that Twitter designers apparently never thought about how to display (see screengrab above). So that one tweet has actually broken Twitter in two different ways tonight.

random thoughts on the 2013 oscars

I've decided to save all my commentary for my blog vs tweeting this year. So here, for your reading pleasure, are all the things I thought as I watched this year's Oscars (don't call them the Academy Awards!)

-- My best dressed list is Jennifer Lawrence, Jennifer Garner, Amy Adams

-- Pretty stage design

-- Peter Brady, I mean Seth MacFarlane, looks good in a tux. And yay for saying the Academy screwed up in not nominating Ben Affleck

-- The re-enactment of Flight with sock puppets was pretty funny. Especially when they were "rolling" in the dryer.

-- The song and dance numbers with Seth + Channing Tatum, Charlize Theron, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Daniel Radcliffe were actually surprisingly entertaining.

-- Best Supporting Actor is the biggest toss-up category, imho. I picked Robert DeNiro on my ballot, but can't be upset about Christoph Waltz winning. He was great in that icky, overly violent movie.

-- So pissed that Brave won over Wreck It Ralph. It was not a good movie.

-- The Avengers bit was awkward. Did Samuel L. Jackson just not want to go by the script or was that the script? And where the heck was Chris Helmsworth? (aka an actual Avenger vs Samuel L. Jackson)

-- Using the Jaws theme to play people off the stage is kinda hilarious.

-- The Bond 50th tribute was underwhelming. Thanks a lot for ruining the lineup of all the Bonds Pierce Brosnan.

-- Yay! Searching for Sugar Man won Best Documentary Feature! It's so so so good. Great, uplifting story.

-- Amour won for Best Foreign Film. Shocker.

-- Catherine Zeta Jones looked a little robotic in her All That Jazz number but sounded great thanks to lip synching. :p

-- Then Jennifer Hudson came out and blew her away live. (Note: She lost American Idol...just one of the reasons I don't watch that show)

-- The Les Miz cast sing-along was great...thank goodness. I was really scared when I heard Russell Crowe was going to be singing live.

-- Ick. One of my best friends' ex-husband just won another Oscar for Sound Editing.. Well half of one since he tied. Ick. Ick. Ick. His hair still looks like crap too.

-- Anne Hathaway's dress tonight had its own twitter account due to her pointy breastage area by the time the show started. Just one more thing about her to be snarky about.... Here's some more: Her speech was so rehearsed. She's just gotten more annoying as the awards season has gone on.

-- Adele. Amazing. But the sound mixing on her performance sucked. The orchestra and choir totally over powered her. 

-- Babs honoring Marvin Hamlisch with "The Way We Were." Classy.

-- Sound mixing on Norah Jones is terrible too. Maybe next year they should bring the orchestra back into the theater.  Just a thought.... 

-- Yay! Adele won Best Orignal Song. And she was so cute in her speech. Love her! And now she'shalfway to her EGOT.

-- Wait ... There was a screenplay for Beasts of the Southern Wild? Coulda fooled me.

-- Yay! Argo wins for Best Adapted Screenplay. It screwed me up in the Oscar pool but, combined with its Best Editing win, is hopefully a good sign for Best Picture.

-- Best Director was a total toss up since Ben Affleck wasn't nominated. I picked Spielberg in the
Oscar pool, but am happy Ang Lee won. Life of Pi was a beautiful film. 

-- Oh poor Jennifer Lawrence. Her gorgeous dress made her fall. But yay for Hugh Jackman rushing to help her. 

-- And Daniel Day Lewis makes history as a three-time Best Actor winner. Tom Hanks... Whatcha gonna do about that? 

-- The Oscars are going to be FOUR hours at this point. Wow. 

-- YES! YES! YES! Argo wins Best Picture!!!!  So happy for Ben and George. But mostly for Ben. He made an amazing movie that is the perfect mix of drama, comedy, action and suspense, with a great cast and a riveting STORY. And I loved his fast-talking, flustered, from-the-heart speech. Choking up when mentioning his kids.. Sniff.