It's Oscar Night

Ok, my last few posts have been pathetic.  I'll admit it.  A guy stands me up and I jump off the deep end.  Yes, I do see my own flaws clearly in the mirror.  But, the first step in correcting faults is to accept their existence and move forward from there.  So, there goes me being pathetic, ok, thanks, bye.

Let's get back to what I love, the movies.  There's no better way to celebrate a love of movies than to break out the popcorn, a good bottle of wine and delve into the glamor that is Hollywood.  It's Oscar Night!  Woot!

How am I spending Oscar Night?  Well, since the red carpet starts in only a few short hours, I'm going to get dolled up and start preparing one of my famous "living room picnics."

The Living Room Picnic.
It's been a tradition in my family for years.  What you do is go into your kitchen and find every single finger food there is to munch on.  From chips and dip to sliced tomatoes with buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto-wrapped melon, cold cuts, crackers and Brie, whatever your tastes, it all gets laid out.  It takes a good couple of hours to get everything ready for the evening, but with a clean living room, pristine vacuumed floors and everything dusted to perfection, all you need to do is light a few candles and set up your picnic just the way you'd like.  It's a buffet that you just pick at during the marathon telecast that is events like the Super Bowl or The Oscars.  So, break out your table cloth, throw it over your coffee table, break out the little serving dishes for your favorite condiments and prepare yourself for a grand gnoshfest.  It's a couch-potato's dream.  The best thing about a living room picnic?  The leftovers.  You get to eat like a king or queen for a week from all the stuff that's left over.

The Red Carpet.
At 3 p.m. Pacific time, the Red Carpet footage starts rolling on channels like E! Entertainment Television.  What's nice is that the cut-out from my kitchen sink that looks into my living room will make it easy to prepare food while I'm watching the interviews and seeing the fashions that the stars are wearing.  It's fun to watch folks, who have been getting primped and preened since the early morning hours, walk as finished products down the Red Carpet.  Is it me or is it just fun to give the "nod" or "shake" of the head to gowns and tuxedos that weren't well done?  Think about it though, what they wear and how they look will dictate to millions how they want to look.  Me?  Nah, not so much.  I just watch to see what they're wearing to just admire the work of countless stylists and how they market the "brand" that is the star they've worked on all day.

The Telecast.
At 5 p.m. Pacific time, the telecast starts.  This is the part where I'm going to be curled up with my fleece blanket on my couch, school books in my lap, reading during the commercials (and taking notes on the well done ads).

In total, 24 categories are being honored tonight, from Best Picture all the way down to sound mixing and visual effects.  It's what the academy voters think should be recognized as the best in last year's films.  I have to say one thing, let's give props to the writers, without their imagination (or lack thereof considering all of the reboots and remakes we're having to endure) we wouldn't have movies without the writers.  Now, if we could only inspire them to be ORIGINAL in their work.  Gratefully, there are five pictures that were classified as "original" for this year's awards.  The list includes a movie I've never even heard of, Another Year.  I'm contemplating that possibly, given the reboot/remake factor, they really had to scrape the barrel to find anything.

This year, we're assaulted in the Best Picture category with 10 different movies.  Of all the movies on the list, I've only seen two, Inception and Toy Story 3.  The rest of the list, outside of The Kings Speech, is filled with movies I could care less about seeing.  My big film of the year, Tron: Legacy isn't the type of material the awards shows like to covet, so the majority of Oscar's list for Best Picture is all 'meh' to me.  But TEN films in the Best Picture category?  Come on.  That's too many. I know they're taking a page out of my rulebook which says we have to make sure everyone knows the nutritional value they give us, but come on, ten is too many.  They need to scale it back to only five again.

The other part of the whole Oscar hoorah is one that brings me the most dismay, the choice of this year's host, James Franco.  Ok, he's not even remotely sniffing at my hotties list and according to some of the articles I've read, we're all O.D.'ing on James Franco.  His film, 128 Hours, is on the Best Picture list.  From his appearance in Eat, Pray, Love to his (what I know him best from) work in the Spider Man films, to me, he's just a giant 'meh' too.  I mean, what happened to Billy Crystal?  HE was an Oscar host!  Jackman flopped, but still, he was good eye-candy.  James Franco?  He always seems to have the consistency of styrofoam to me, so I'm just hoping he does well and proves me wrong.  The saving grace and silver lining of the whole thing is that they've paired him with Anne Hathaway.  For all Anne's quirky awkwardness combined with glamorous exterior, I think she'll save the whole evening.  Good luck Anne!

All that taken into consideration, it's going to be a long night.  Last night on ABC News they had a little story about how acceptance speeches are 45 seconds long and how some stars don't like to take the hint that they've gone too long by ignoring the music.  For those folks, I think they should bring the Vaudeville hooks back...you know those really long hooks that grab people around the waist and forcibly remove them from the stage?  Yeah, 45 seconds is enough to say thank you to everyone.  If you're speechless, then just grab Oscar by the neck, hug him tightly, get out the words "Thank You" and move on.  There are 24 awards to get through in roughly three and a half hours, doing the math, that's eight awards per hour with the stage show and commercials thrown in.

But speaking of time!  Oooh!  It's 2:50!  I better get going!

So whether you're doing a Living Room Picnic or sitting at a swanky restaurant (swoon...Spago Oscar Parties...*faint*), enjoy Oscar's big night.