One or two. Oscar parties are to movie buffs as Super Bowl parties are to sports fans: an excuse to get together with friends, watch a televised event (and/or its commercials), predict/celebrate/rant about the outcomes, eat, drink, and hang out.
I’ve been to one. At the time, some very close friends of mine had friends who were very into movies. They invited me to the party. I suspect that was mostly because there were a few couples I knew that were going, and they tended to have one person who cared about the event, and one who didn’t. I certainly didn’t - I rarely see movies, and thus rarely care about the awards.
I kinda had fun. It was a party - I mingled with friends, drank some beer, had some food. I just ignored the TV and half the conversations. 
I do have a friend who went to a REAL Oscar party. I forget who hosted it, but it was some celeb on the west coast. My friend was one of the important-but-not-important-enough-to-go-to-the-big-show people involved in a movie that was nominated for Best Documentary. He says the party he went to was completely awesome. To be fair, his movie actually won, so his experience might not represent everyone else’s.
I’ve never been asked. Still, that would be fun.
I hope somebody does and I hope they don’t let it (as an annual event) die out…
Yes, the thread topic is Oscar parties, not Oscars/awards/movies in general. I don’t understand why people who have no interest in such things even click on the thread.
I would NEVER go into a thread asking opinions about Super Bowl parties and opine that not only would I never attend a Super Bowl party, I hate the Super Bowl, think it’s stupid that anyone would care enough to even think of having/attending one, and furthermore, I hate football, think it’s just a bunch of rich idiots running down a field, throwing a ball around and bashing each other to the point of broken bones and retardation, and why anyone would care about such shit I’ll never understand. Oh and by the way, I haven’t watched a Super Bowl (or any football game) since 1969, when my dad made my family watch his favored Kansas City Chiefs play my uncle’s favored Minnesota Vikings and I’ve never been more bored in my life.
Yet it’s perfectly natural that people come into awards/movie thread and makes sure everyone knows how they have no interest. Why is threadshitting in movie/awards thread accepted when it wouldn’t be accepted in any other thread that’s not asking for a broad, general opinion? This thread was NOT asking for a broad, general opinion, it was only asking about Oscar PARTIES.
No, I didn’t see that episode of Game of Thrones/The Big Bang Theory/Breaking Bad/The Wire/Better Call Saul etc. etc etc. In fact, I’ve never seen an episode of any of them and don’t understand why anyone cares about them*. In fact, I don’t even own a TV, and haven’t watched a TV show since 1999 when Due South went off the air.
(*btw, I DO realize they’re quality shows and DO understand why people care about them. But I still would never open a thread about them, let alone post in a thread about them, because my not watching them has no relevance and no one would care).
Equipoise, let’s not discuss this in-thread. Feel free to report any posts you feel are inappropriate or send a mod a PM.
Thanks.
That being said…
Everyone, please keep opinions about the Oscars themselves to another thread. I will be modding this thread for threadshitting on that point. This thread is about opinions on the enjoyability (or not) of Oscar parties. To restate, those opinions can be positive or negative.
This was my point and what I wanted to hear. Thank you.
I went to one hosted by some good friends in the early 2000’s and it was quite fun, although I was somewhat taken aback by the fact that some of the party-goers actually cared who won what award. I was there more for the party part than the Oscar part.
Then I missed one a coworker hosted a few years back. She just didn’t seem like the kind of person would put together the kind of party I might enjoy, so I bailed. I later found out it was a blast, and at one point the meek little squeaky-voiced hostess got up and belted out a karaoke number that left everyone speechless. So I that taught me a lesson not to miss parties.
TORN had an Oscar Party when LOTR:Fellowship of the Ring got nominated. PJ and some of the folks showed up. I’m sure it was nuts when ROTK won 11 Oscars including the big one - but it was a lot harder to get to.
I think I would enjoy an Oscar party if I saw more of the movies.
Though the Oscars end kind of late in CST land (must be horrible on the east coast)
Brian
Well I got second place in our party’s pool tonight, with 17 correct. I did win four DVDs from the trivia questions!
Stomp and those silhouette dancers may have improved things but Time Mag back in the 80’s brought out two theories: 1) the Oscars must be the most boring tv show ever invented, and 2) Americans must really like movies. Easy to see the relation.
Your experience is certainly typical with me. I’ve never been to one, and I don’t recall any of my friends hosting one. Personally speaking, it’s not enjoyable to watch/listen to a bunch of people use an awards show as a platform to tout their political beliefs, regardless of the issue. Much like major elections. I’m somewhat interested in the result, but I don’t find enjoyment watching the process unfold. I’m just as content reading about it the next morning.
N91WP writes:
> TORN had an Oscar Party when LOTR:Fellowship of the Ring got nominated.
Minor quibble: It’s a good idea to explain abbreviations when they aren’t at least a little bit well known. You don’t have to explain LOTR of course, since you put the words “Fellowship of the Ring” immediately afterwards. You should explain TORN though. It took me a lot of searching to discover that you were talking about TheOneRing.net. If one puts just “TORN” into Google or Wikipedia you don’t get anything except names that include the word “torn”.
Sorry about that. I meant to explain TORN but obviously didn’t
Brian
Never hosted one, but I’ve been to probably 5 or so. We printed out ballots and made our choices. Everyone put money in and the person that got the most right won the money.
Sure, I’ve been to several. I don’t even care about the Oscars, same as I don’t care about the Superbowl- but I got to these parties anyway because why not? It’s an excuse to hang out with friends and eat junk food and drink beer. I don’t think it’s necessary to announce to my friends how stupid the Oscars are and why are we watching this, anyway- we’re just having fun, that’s all.
My Manhattan girlfriend thows an Oscar party each year and it’s one of our recurrent theme-dates. Didn’t get to be there for it this year due to family-of-origin stuff that cropped up, but I’ve been to several in the past. A shame, since for once I had actually seen nearly all of the best picture nominees.
I’ve never been to one, but I’d probably attend if I were invited - parties are fun.
About all I know is that Oscars = Academy Awards, so I guess I’d watch and learn.
Many years ago, my former roommate used to host one, so by default, I guess I was also a host. He worked in the film industry, more on the business side than the creative, and invited lots of fellow co-workers who were also too junior to be invited to any real Oscar parties.
There was a lot of talking during the entire thing, but I found it interesting because most of the conversation was more informed than average – there were a lot of fun, personal stories about all the films and individuals nominated. And they were just as excited about the smaller awards.
I was really tickled to see via FB that one of the young guys who used to attend this party now attends the actual Academy Awards.
I throw my own little Oscar Party for One every year, while AHunter3 is at his Manhattan girlfriend’s party. (She dislikes me, so she never invites me.) There are always special foods and special cocktails, though I don’t dress up fancy. This year there featured a French 75 cocktail, cava with ginger liqueur, tzatziki with pita bread, and peanut M&Ms. I considered putting on my dangly rhinestone earrings, but I would have felt silly.
In recent years I have made the effort to try to see as many of the Best Picture nominees as possible before the Academy Awards show, and this year I managed to see all of them, as well as all of the nominated short films. AHunter3 would have seen all the Best Picture nominees, too, except his family stuff happened before I managed to score a DVD of Mad Mad: Fury Road at a local library.
It would be fun to actually host an Oscars party of my own, except the space in which my television is situated is not comfortable for more than just a very few people to sit in. Hmm, I suppose I could move all the furniture out and move in more chairs.