Oscar observations

I WORKED FOR THAT GUY! Andrezj Wajda, who got one of the honorary awards, was the director of a film called Stand-Ins, which I worked on in January of 1996!

I never thought I’d say, “I liked what Cher wore at the Oscars”. But I did. That ornament was really cool, kind of medieval.

Why wasn’t Jon Voigt there to see his daughter win Best Supporting Actress?

How the hell could they give Best Song to Phil Collins?

When Sarah McL. was singing, I had to hold my Cartman doll and remember all the evil things Cartman has done. Otherwise I would have lost it.

Michael Caine saying, “The Oscar simply goes to someone who is not a winner”: smooooooooth.

It’s scary to look at Haley Joel Osment and think “This is just a kid. An enormously talented kid, but still just a kid.” I hope he doesn’t go David Helfgott on us.

I never noticed those women in silver. The ones that stand near the presenters, like a cross between Secret Service and Ziegfeld girls.

Was it planned for Isaac Hayes to be obscured by smoke?

I’m glad the guy who found the Oscars got to attend, and got mentioned from the stage.

Why did the directors of Best Documentary Short bring that guy if they knew he might have a seizure on camera like that?

In the Memoriam reel, I wish they’d shown George C. Scott going ass over teakettle in Dr. Strangelove.

Begnini didn’t make a particle of sense.

“All of my parents”? How many do you have?

Opening montage was brilliant, as usual.

Didn’t think much of the gowns, except Trey Parker’s.


“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”

One of the reasons I watch the Oscars is to see what Cher is wearing. This dress was very disappointing. Any woman there could have worn that dress. I can’t think of anyone else who could carry off any of the other outfits Cher has worn. With the possible exception of that African American woman who was wearing the green dress with the sleeping bag on her head, wound around with gold drapery ties. What was up with that?!?

Are we sure he wasn’t there in the back somewhere?

All part of Phil’s pact with the Dark Lord.

Are you talking about the Oscar girls? Who carry the awards out to the recipients and then escort them offstage? They’ve been around forever.

Someone misread the name, thought it was “haze.” No, really, they heard he was a clear so they wanted to make him cloudy. Thank you, I’ll be here all week. Boy, are the Scientologists going to be pissed.

Was he having a seizure or was he just happy that the film won?

Oh, so it’s OK if he falls on his ass, but not the disabled guy.

Can anyone explain to me why the writers referred to Brandon Teena as a “girl pretending to be a boy”? At least Hilary Swank referred to him as “he” in her speech.

I did not like the awards much this year. Also, didn’t you notice lots of people screwing up their lines. This is probabaly because the show was on Sunday. What made me most pissed off is that they saved all the good awards for the end, when everyone was half asleep, and they rushed the end too.
This years awards show (and all the hoopla that preceded it) was lame.


Dr Love has the answer

Otto, do you know something that nobody else, including the people who wrote the movie and all the people who knew Teena, don’t know? Teena Brandon was her real name. She was a girl masquerading as a boy.

Brandon Teena was transgendered. He was physically female but emotionally and psychologically male.

Otto, the film was called King Gimp. He obviously has some kind of disability. He was definitely not “just excited”.


“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”

I have to say, that I did like the show this year. I thought the shots of the off-stage announcer were great, as well as getting to see the stars right off the stage. Whoever was involved with the TV production did a wonderful job. Having the chance to see Kevin Spacey and the rest of the “American Beauty” winners greet the producers after it won “Best Picture” was tres cool. The only problem I have is that if they were not going to give “American Beauty” the sweep, then Spacey should have been ignored in place of Benning. She was incredible in that film, Kevin was very good too - but IMHO she was better.
BTW did Beatty really deserve that award ? I mean come on, “Bulworth” wasn’t that good a flick . . . then you have “Ishtar” and “Dick Tracey”. B.S. The only thing about the award that I approved of was Nicholson getting to announce the recipient, Jack was the man (as usual).

(As a side note “Witches of Eastwick” was on Com Central today. - That man is a god.)


“Empty stares from each corner of a shared prison cell . . .” Pearl Jam

I think Beatty was awarded this more for films such as “Bonnie and Clyde”, “Reds”, and “Shampoo”. I’ll cut him some slack in the films you mentioned. Even the greats(not claiming beatty is a “great”, mind you) don’t consistently hit home runs.

That said, I won’t necessarily disagree with your opinion… I thought the same thing when I heard he’d be awarded this. But I’m not really familiar enough with his body of work to make a judgement one way or another.

One more thing… during the annual parade of corpses memorial, I didn’t recall seeing Kubrick… Was I just not paying attention?
Even Jim Varney was included!

Kubrick died over a year ago. He got a special memorial segment at last year’s show.

Ack. You’re right. March 7th, 1999. Damn, what a quick year.

I thought it was one of the better years. But do we need to recap all the great oscar winning songs? Puhleeeze.

I thought Ray Charles sounded like he was about to expire while singing.

Tom Cruise wash your hair please.

Robin Williams ( God Bless Him) looked stiff during the “Blame Canada” skit. It must be really hard to do musical stuff like that when you are use to stand up. Lots of pressure on one person before the world.

I thought Michael Caine was brilliant. I just love him, despite of Jaws Four.

Who was the poor sap who had to sit behind Eryka Badu and that leaning tower of pisa head peice she was wearing?

The New Charlie’s Angels presenting Costume award was just awful. All that was missing was the Nike Swoosh. Aaron Spelling must have made a deal with the devil.

My favorite presenter was Mel Gibson. Always manages to pop the ego balloon.

Ashley Judd looked great and was dead on in citing that Tommy Lee Jones was one of the coolest guys in the room.

Best acceptance speech was the Russian Guy (Animation?) who spoke little english.

What was the deal with Peter Coyote doing the announcing live?

It’s from the Scarlett O’Hara Window Collection.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love South Park. The movie was marginally amusing. The fact that the song got nominated ROCKS. (As do the dresses that Parker and Stone wore…he looked prettier in Gwenyth’s dress than Gwenyth did…) but that DAMNED song has been stuck in my head since I went to bed last night. BLAME CANADA! BLAME CANADA! Seems that everything’s gone wrong, ever since Canada came along! It’s funny, but ARGGGGGGGH.

Kevin Spacey is a god. And Brad Pitt showered. (yah!) And that is the end of my Oscar observations.

Did anyone else notice a voice while they were intoducing the nominees for best short Live action film? As the films were announced I swear I heard “Not that one” followed by “Not that one either” and when they got to the last one it said “That’s the One.” The last one introduced was the winner! I was taking cold medicine so maybe I hallucinated the whole thing!


“In this life you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.” -Elwood P. Dowd in “Harvey”

That was the Adonis known as Jude Law. He said something in the pre-award banter that one film had the strangest name of the evening. Hence the “not that one, not that one, either. That’s the one!” thing. My roommate and I were louder than construction workers while he was announcing…

Otto,

That’s a bizarre categorization that you’re making. What if I declare that I’m trans-specied? Suppose that I say that physically I’m human, but emotionally and psychologically I’m a turnip. Does everyone have to refer to me as a turnip from now on?

Please understand the distinction I’m making. I’m not claiming that anyone had the right to stop Teena Brandon from dressing as a male. I’m not saying that anyone had the right to stop her from having any kind of sex she and her partner wanted to have (although it’s pretty dangerous to have sex with someone to whom you’ve lied about your sex). I’m not saying that she didn’t have the right to call herself anything she wanted to call herself. I’m not saying I have any business judging her psychological or emotional state. None of that is any of my business. I’m just saying that I’m not going to call someone who’s physically a female a man, just as I can’t force you to call me a turnip.

You don’t have to be an electrician to plug in a lamp, and you don’t have to be a doctor or a psychiatrist to recognize the difference between male and female sex organs. Transgendered is a description of someone’s emotional and psychological state. My choice of pronouns depends on the person’s sex organs.

Yeah, but he looked liked he missed more than a few spots when he shaved.

As far as I was concnerned only two of the five songs were worthy of nomination. “Blame Canada” and “When She Loved Me”. I can’t listen to the latter without crying, so you can guess which one I wanted to win. I disliked Phil Collins song so much I left to go to the bathroom. I don’t know what the hell the Academy ws thinking there. Randy Newman has been nominated 13 times and he has never one. I don’t know who he pissed off, but there must be a lot of short people in the Academy.
The medley of past winners looked like the Academy’s attempt to “top” the superbowl half time show.

If Billy Crystal sings 'It’s a wonderful Night for oscar once more I will feel compelled to shoot a rocket at him.
Finally, I thought the “In Memorium” segment was weak. Other than George C. Scott and (possibly)Madeline Kahn there weren’t a lot of people who did anything memorable. (Eve might disagree.)
Keith


You want brilliance BEFORE I’ve had my coffee!!!

Yeah, but he looked liked he missed more than a few spots when he shaved.

As far as I was concnerned only two of the five songs were worthy of nomination. “Blame Canada” and “When She Loved Me”. I can’t listen to the latter without crying, so you can guess which one I wanted to win. I disliked Phil Collins song so much I left to go to the bathroom. I don’t know what the hell the Academy ws thinking there. Randy Newman has been nominated 13 times and he has never one. I don’t know who he pissed off, but there must be a lot of short people in the Academy.
The medley of past winners looked like the Academy’s attempt to “top” the superbowl half time show.

If Billy Crystal sings 'It’s a wonderful Night for oscar once more I will feel compelled to shoot a rocket at him.
Finally, I thought the “In Memorium” segment was weak. Other than George C. Scott and (possibly)Madeline Kahn there weren’t a lot of people who did anything memorable. (Eve might disagree.)
Keith


You want brilliance BEFORE I’ve had my coffee!!!

Oops, sorry, I couldn;t find this thread, and started my onw (where the hell was this hiding this morning?).

So, to repeat: I managed to suffer through most of the Oscars—turned in around 11:30, when Claire Diaz and Keanu Law were presenting
Best Makeup in a Foreign-Language Short Adapted from a Novel. Thank goodness for the Mute button, at least I managed to miss most of Billy Crystal’s painfully awful monologues. “Who can we get who’s even worse than Bob Hope ever was?” I hear them asking.

I was disgusted with the low quality of the songs, and amazed that Blame Canada (the only one that actually had a melody or even a high-school quality wit in the lyrics) didn’t win. The rest of them sounded like something a lovesick teenager would scrawl in his notebook during math class. That sound you hear is Cole Porter spinning in his grave.

No really hilarious dresses this year, which was a big letdown. Jane Fonda looked pretty awful, though—and I could hear the SDrs hissing and jeering her in my head!