On The Topic Of: The Oscars

Salutations.

How's your winter been? Notice that broad stroke? How I can ask you how an entire season of your life has been? And why? Because I've been so shamefully M.I.A. (missing in action, that is... not birthing a little Sri Lankan heir to my rap throne a mere 3 days after appearing at the Grammy's, mind you...)

I'm very sorry about that. I've made several attempts to post in the past couple of weeks, and they always start out the same way... me explaining where I've been - in truth, just working... - and it's never remotely funny and then POOF - time to leave before I've even started to wax engagingly regarding Jessica Simpson's overblown weight gain. But fuck it. I'm just going to go balls deep without any lube or preparatory taint massage, so bite ya pillows, y'all...

So yeah... Last night... OSCARS.

A snail paced marathon that I'll simply never tire of. Last night's seemed exceptionally snail paced, but was not without its charms.

I've got to say: I felt the fuck out of that thing that they did with the five past winners welcoming this year's recipient into the club. My first impression was that the multiple introductions and the wedding-esque speeches would get a little long and a little nauseatingly precious, but nope. Felt the fuck out of it, did I. I'm someone who loves that sort of stuff, though - over-appreciation sort of stuff. Almost like delivering an obituary early... remarking overly fondly about living people... I do it a lot to my friends when I'm drunk, so yeah. That was very up my alley. That was one wheel whose reinvention went off without a hitch...

Some things that I most absolutely did NOT feel the fuck out of:

I thought the In Memoriam was handled disgracefully.

I'll admit it: I love the In Memoriam. I look forward to it. First off, I loves me a montage. Secondly, I love trivia. Thirdly, I love a popularity contest. Alternately, I'm not entirely impartial to moody, swelling strings. The In Memoriam montage has all these things... AND MORE! I was quite comfortable with the classic paradigm of having a full screen, hastily spliced-together montage flashing clips and pictures of those we lost this year to intermittent applause breaks and the requisite dimming of the lights to close. Whomever's idea it was to have Queen Latifah serenade us with a frumpy jazz standard while skirting the camera back and forth, short and wide so the names and faces were respectively unrecognizable and [Heath] illeg[er]ible needs a swift kick in the box. It was an arrogant attempt to put a personal stamp on something that hardly needed fixing in the first place... and totally undermined the people it was supposed to be pay tribute to in the first place. Not to mention the GROTESQUE oversight of Estelle Getty and Anita Page.

After substantial rumination, I've concluded that the musical is most definitely not back. Even if it was enjoying a modest upswing at the moment, it was a dealt a massive setback last night in the form of that deplorable salute to the movie musical care of host Hugh Jackman, Zac Efron, Vanessa "Pizza Beav" Hudgens, glorified chorus members Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper of Mamma Mia, and of course, Beyonce. Because no one can embarrass themselves in a musical number at the Oscars quite like Beyonce... or have you forgotten about this:



Now I don't speak French, but have heard from those who do, that it's almost insulting. Also, did anyone else notice that part when she busted into "At Last"? What did that have to do with movie musicals? Was that a deleted number from "Meet Me In St. Louis" or some shit? Nope? Nope. Methinks it was a boldfaced jab at Etta James - yet another manoeuvre in my second favourite May-December cat fight of late (my favourite, of course, being the Faye Dunaway v. Hilary Duff bout currently in progress... LOVESIT!!!) ...

Aaanyballs - other highlights came c/o that mischievous French tightropist (that's right... take THAT Beyonce and your smoke 'n mirrors... you was upstaged by a fucking street mime who could balance an Oscar on his chin and make a coin disappear up his sleeve... awesome...), Tina Fey's mere presence (and holy BALLS how gorgeous did she look?), and, of course, the completely unnecessary panning to Angelina Jolie during a visibly flustered Jennifer Aniston's award presentation for animated features. That was actually amazing. I live for that shit. At one point, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie were quite actually steps apart from each other. AMAZING.

The statues followed a pretty predictable course... Penny Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Viola Davis WILL rise again!)... Heathcliff Ledger for The Dark Knight (Why was there 0.0 mention of Michelle Williams? She's KIND of the mother of his child/most underrated member of Destiny's Child)... Kate Winslet for The Reader (which they kinda HAD to give her at this point)... the only surprise was Sean Penn for Milk - not that he didn't deserve it, because holy fuckfuckfuck he sooo did... I wept at that movie. WEPT - but because the old boys club that is the Academy is notoriously stingy about lionizing gays.

Well I guess a lot of those old dudes died between Brokeback and Milk, because Milk totally won a bunch of important shit! ... And generated the two most heartbreakingly memorable moments of the telecast... Sean Penn's hilarious and poignant acceptance speech - in which he addressed the Academy as "commie, homo-loving songs of guns" [half-facetiously, maybe], made light of his not-always-so-agreeable nature, and sternly urged for equal rights for all. And with that, a very unlikely gay icon was made. Like for real - busted, serious, "Jude Law Is One Of Our Finest Actors"-saying Sean Penn. Pretty crazy stuff.

The highlight of the night for me, and, I assume, every other gay dude on the planet (excluding that bunch that were on last week's episode of The Tyra Banks Show, topic: I Hate Being Gay... ohhhhhh brother...) when Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black won best original screenplay.

I was really hoping for a soap-box moment, and boy-oh-boy did I get one. His speech, below:



Class frickin' act, I tells ya. Not to mention, the boy has a standing invitation to sit, full weight, on my face at any space and/or place in time. Yes, that invitation honours the possibility of time travel.

Anyballs... that was that with that.

What's is what with what, however?

That's right. Another one. All new girls!!! I'd strongly urge you to click the above image and see it in all it's high-ish resolution glory.

Back tomorrow. Let's talk about this Rihanna/Chris Brown 'Domestic Disturbiance' stuff.

Deal!

--- Aj