Monday, March 06, 2006

Oscar Wrap Up Day

Like a flipped coin that can predict the future, the URI! Zone accurately picked the winner in 12 of the 24 Academy Award categories (you can see the official list of winners here). This is a marked improvement over previous years -- take that, everyone who didn't believe my predictions!

On Sunday evening, I moseyed on down to a small Oscar party hosted by Chris and Kathy where I filled out a nominee ballot that actually had some sense of internal logic and managed to guess 14 of 24 categories correctly. I only stayed for the first two hours of the ridiculously long ceremony so I don't know if anything goofy happened after that, but overall, my opinion has not changed about the silliness of the whole charade. It's really nothing more than a four-hour circle of self-appreciation. Maybe it would be more meaningful if they let normal movie viewers vote, or got rid of Sound Mixing.

Here are some other thoughts that went through my head during the part I watched:

  • Jon Stewart turned out to be a decent host -- he spent most of his energy cracking safe film-related jokes instead of political jokes. Among his memorable lines (which might be paraphrased because of my horrible memory):
      [After Cinderella Man lost in the Makeup category] "Imagine how hard it was to make Russell Crowe look like he'd been in a fight... I'm getting pummeled after the show, aren't I?"
      [Presenting presenters, Jessica Alba and Eric Bana] "And if there were a nuclear holocaust, these are the two people that I would want to repopulate the Earth."
      [After another ridiculously stupid montage of memorable film moments] "I can't wait till later when we see Oscar's salute to montages. We are literally out of clips right now. If you have any clips, please mail them to us."
      "Piracy hurts all of these wonderful actresses you see here tonight. Take a look around, some of them can't even afford enough material to cover their breasts!"
      "Capote should be acknowledged for its courage in showing that not all gay people are virile cowboys."
  • Ben Stiller's Visual Effects presentation, in which he wore a one-piece green unitard and tried to convince people that he was a disembodied head on a green screen was quite amusing.

  • Dolly Parton is so skinny that she looks like a pair of boobies on stilts.

  • The commercials on Oscars night were so-so. It was definitely not a Super Bowl.

  • They had ambient music playing in the background of everyone's speeches to keep them short which was ridiculously tacky. It sounded like the entire ceremony was taking place in a hotel lobby or Kim's apartment building. When the head honcho of the Academy (who no one knows or cares about other than the actors sucking up to him) came out, the music mysteriously vanished and he talked as long as he wanted.

  • I didn't know that Rachel Weisz had a non-American accent, but boy is it hot.

  • Charlize Theron spent the entire evening getting attacked by the giant bullfrog on her dress.

  • The presenters mentioned DVDs and piracy multiple times throughout the night. Taken from POE News:
      "How many times did they mention that movies looked better on the big screen? They even had a montage of epics that only looked good on the big screen, including that timeless epic Smokey and the Bandit... Want people to watch movies in the theater? Don't charge $10 for a matinee before 6pm, have ushers throw people out who are making noise, and quit showing ads before the movies. It has nothing to do with the movies, it has everything to do with the quality of the experience, and often, I simply have a better experience at home. So Hollywood before you go blame the theater patrons, get your own house in order and fix the freaking theaters."
  • Every time an actor or actress mentioned how important Hollywood is to righting social and political wrongs, I couldn't help but think of the Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins puppets in Team America.

  • In one of the non-acting categories, the winner thanked the Academy for seating her next to George Clooney at the Oscar dinner.

  • On the red carpet, the ABC interviewers showed Felicity Huffman a tape from all her costars of Desperate Housewives wishing her luck and saying she was their best friend in the whole wide world. ABC must have spent a FORTUNE to get that little piece of fiction out the door.

    • What did you think of the ceremony? Did I miss any funny moments? Are you just glad it's all over? Let me know in the comments section!

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