My Oscar Texts

Here's a ceremony long text conversation between myself and Kyle. We were at different Oscar gatherings. Me being in New York, and him being in Florida, but with the constant back and forth, it felt like we were watching it together like we used to. Here's a few snippet from our so-called "Oscar commentary":

Kyle: Sorry you couldn't be here, but you will be watching with us.

Peter: Wow. Sooooo creepy. Hahaha.

Kyle: Yes. This will be the creepy Oscars.

Peter: Ummm... okay.

Peter: That was like some MTV opening montage. Younger Oscars!

Peter: Starting off with a very awkward acceptance speech for Art Direction.... nice. Sigh. Academy Award winner 'Alice In Wonderland'. 2 semi upsets so far... and we're off!

Kyle: Wow. Awesome. But does this bode well for 'The Social Network'?

Peter: I think so. I should've switched over. Regrets are starting. We'll know whenever film editing arrives.

Kyle: So glad for 'Inception' upset with cinematography. Willing to lose Oscar pool if 'Inception' continues to surprise.

Peter: But it's kinda sad Roger Deakins is still Oscarless, no?

Peter: I almost feel sad for Kirk Douglas. Maybe that's the point? A win for Leo!

Kyle: That's more like it. Douglas was awkward but memorable awkward. Like stories you tell about your kooky grandpa.

Peter: Uh...

Kyle: Love Franco's line to Melissa Leo. Felt like she was trying to make a moment. I think the F bomb was planned.

Peter: Yeah? Just judging from Leo's past speeches, maybe she's just that way. She her Spirit Award speech for 'Frozen River' a few years back.

Peter: And we're back on schedule in terms of winners with 'The King's Speech' winning only one so far.

Kyle: Umm... you think Seidler wrote that speech?

Peter: Props to Anne for throwing it all out there for a crappy, crappy number.

Peter: A ".com" shot out? A little low brow, no? That site is about to explode with traffic volume.

Kyle: On surface low brow, but really shows his admiration and dedication to the real life person.

Kyle: Wow. 'The King's Speech' weak again.

Peter: I sooo should have switched over for Best Picture. That montage clip for original score just made me more mad that Andrew Garfield was not nominated.

Kyle: Was Scarlett taking a nap in the back?

Peter: I think so.

Kyle: And next to McConaughey's tanning bed?

Kyle: Ugh. Burton reign of terror on the Oscars.

Peter: Also, 'Alice' has 2 Oscars. Someone here is asking why 'Lord of The Rings' is in the background after the winner's announced. I told them it's call bad producing.

Peter: This confirms it. All of Newman's songs sound the same.

Kyle: I think he wrote them all 12 years ago and just uses them as movies come up.

Peter: That Chuck guy and Mandy Moore are sounding (and looking) good.

Kyle: Best speech of the night.

Peter: I will gladly sit through another decade of crappy auto-tune for another one of those song montages.

Kyle: Franco seems high but I love his distant attitude though.

Peter: Me too. Took awhile for me to get used to. It kind of works with this "younger" Oscars.

Kyle: "You're all getting an Oscar!!!"

Peter: I will always love the way Jennifer Hudson mispronounces the word 'nominees'. NUM-MEN-NEESE!

Kyle: Is Kathie Griffin singing?

Peter: I don't think so. It's supposedly "country sensation" Gwyneth Paltrow. I don't get it. She did awesome at the Grammys. What happened!?!!

Peter: Did Randy Newman just complain about having 2 Oscars? He won for his worst 2 songs!

Kyle: Is he doing a Sean Penn/ 'I Am Sam' impression?

Peter: Oh. Low! I think he sounds the same rather he's singing or not.

Peter: Oh, Ms. Bigelow. What are you wearing!?!?! Wow. Hooper in it to win it.

Kyle: Wow. Can go to bed now. It's over.

Peter: Maybe 'The King's Speech' can squeak this out after all.

Kyle: C'mon, Inception!

Peter: Uh...

Kyle: Oh I know. Just wishin'.

Peter: The clip for Annette was more for Julianne than the actual nominee.

Kyle: Tinkerbell is nominated? (re: Williams)

Peter: Kudos to Natalie for naming crew! I so thought she was going to name my friend Tony, the script supervisor for 'Black Swan'.

Peter: Dance, Colin, Dance!

Kyle: What a very British speech.

Peter: Yeah. I said poise. Someone here said boring. LoL

Peter: There you go. 'The King's Speech' pulls it out. How about that?

Kyle: Not the sweep I expected, but it still got it. Okay, have to work at 4am. Have a good night!

Peter: Was fun and had fun!

Kyle: Good show.

Peter: Umm... sure. Night.

My Oscar Snacks & Predictions

For as long as I can remember, my friends Kyle and Julie have been watching the Oscars together even though we live hundreds of miles apart. This would be the first year in awhile we won't be able to- I blame many things, but mostly my busy work schedule. But we're definitely keeping another one of our mini-traditions going, getting snacks themed after the Best Picture nominees. Who can forget the goodness that was Frosty Flakes cereal ('Frost/Nixon') with Milk ('Milk') or the shrimp cocktail ('District 9') with some Taco Bell ('The Blind Side')?

So we've distributed our nominees to year and I've been assigned 'Black Swan', 'The Fighter' and 'Winter's Bone'. Here's what I came up with:

Black and white cookies for our black and white swan.

A shot of Irish Monkey for our Irish Mickey.

A pile of wither chicken bones for our Winter's Bone. A huge stretch.

As for my Oscar predictions. I'm confident in all these except for Best Picture. I'm going with 'The King's Speech' for now but I'm feeling less and less secure about that with every moment. There could be a last minute switch to 'The Social Network' on my part:

Best Picture: The King's Speech

Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network

Best Lead Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech

Best Lead Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Best Original Screenplay: The King's Speech

Best Cinematography: True Grit

Best Film Editing: The Social Network

Best Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Language Film: Denmark

Best Documentary Feature: Inside Job

Best Art Direction: The King's Speech

Best Costume Design: The King's Speech

Best Make-Up Design: The Wolfman

Best Visual Effects: Inception

Best Sound Mixing: Inception

Best Sound Editing: Inception

Best Original Score: The Social Network

Best Original Song: 127 Hours

Best Short Live Action Film: Na Wewe

Best Short Animated Film: Madagascar, A Journey Diary

Best Short Documentary: Strangers No More

Happy Feasting!

My Oscar Bait Trailer

The only thing I can think of that's missing from this trailer is a full-on musical number. Even without so, it's oh-so-true in so many ways and hilarious because of it. My favorite part being "Lead female's name!". So, can you think of any Best Picture winners that could literally just plug in dialogue from their film to this trailer?

My Worst Oscars Telecast Ever

I'm sad to report that I was right. More on the disastrous Shankman/Mechanic production in future days because I need the time to recover from all the vomiting inducing "organic dancing" and redundant bias towards the lead acting categories oppose to the supporting ones. Don't even get me started on the abrupt ending to the ceremony. Okay, too late... the floodgates have opened. Here's what went wrong:

- Why was Neil Patrick Harris there? He was successful on both the Tonys and Emmys because he's relevant for stage and television. Here? It already looks desperate on the producer's count.

- We're then greeted by the 10 LEAD acting nominees, by name. One by one. Like this is some deranged Miss America competition.

- The awkward opening from Baldwin and Martin that namedropped everyone in the room.. twice. Thank goodness for George Clooney whose facial expression mirrored mine in how silly and trite it was.

- The organic dancing. They scrapped the original song performances for this!?! I wasn't aware of the Oscars when Snow White & Rob Lowe went on, but this has got to be a new performance low.

- By hour two, Shankman & Mechanic realized that their show is running long and started scrapping clips and showing nominees on categories. If only they were smart enough not to show a montage clip reel for the first four categories on the evening.

- Forgetting Farah Fawcett. Any questions regarding Shankman's sexual orientation were answered during the 'In Memoriam' segment by that painful omission.

- The lamps wall was terrible. It looked and felt cheap.

- They devoted 30 minutes to the lead acting categories and pretty much set no timer for the winner's acceptance speech. It was evidence Shankman & Mechanic knew what they wanted to air and in no circumstances were going to cut it.

- Therefore Tom Hanks had to RUN to his mark and announce the Best Picture winner without even recapping who's nominated.

- With all the talk about the first woman ever to win the Best Director trophy, where's the promo and tease for the first Black writer to win a screenplay award? Even Kathryn Bigelow seemed embarrassed by all the hoopla. Did they really have to play her off with "I Am Woman"?

- FOUR hours.... and it still felt rushed.

My Oscar Allegiance

This is not a prediction post. It's simply some observations I have on this Oscar race that seems to get longer every year. I'm so weary of this year's telecast. Quoting Peter Knegt, the decision made by producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic "all feels really desperate." There's entirely too much change and saying you want to make it feel more like "reality television" doesn't exactly give the Oscar audience the vote of confidence.

Sure, maybe it's the skeptic in me but hiring featuring 'So You Think You Can Dance' dancers while scrapping the opportunity to have both Jeff Bridges AND Marion Cotillard perform showstopping numbers? C'mon! You might as well announce you're getting Taylor Launter, Zac Efron and Kristen Stewart to present... oh wait. Yes, I have very low expectations for this year's kudosfest especially after last year's stellar Bill Condon-produced presentation. Unless Shankman and Mechanic has something truly inspiring up their sleeves, this could easily be the worst produced Oscars I'll ever witness.

On the awards front, the 11th hour "controversy" regarding 'The Hurt Locker' producer Nicholas Chartier sends a mass email out to Academy voters asking them to vote for his film and "not a $500M film." He later apologized for his violation, but of course, publicists across Hollywood for the other nine Oscar-nominated films are jumping on this like a fat kid on cheesecake. The course of this is still brewing despite the ridiculousness of it. Smear, smear, smear... It only solidifies my support for 'The Hurt Locker' taking the grand prize next Sunday even though I ranked 'An Education' higher on my list.

So here we are, getting down to who I'm routing for. It's different than my predictions even if it seems like it's not. I'll save those for when I get to Florida next weekend and am ready to pencil in my ballot next to the 2-liter of '7-Up' for 'Up'. But for now, it's just who I want to see win.

Best Picture: 'The Hurt Locker'

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, 'The Hurt Locker'

Best Actor: Jeremy Renner, 'The Hurt Locker', though a Colin Firth win would rock as well.

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan, my future wife.

Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, 'Inglourious Basterds'

Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, 'Precious'

Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, 'The Hurt Locker'

Best Adapted Screenplay: Nick Hornby, 'An Education'

Best Foreign Language Film: 'The White Ribbon'

And some, but not all technicals:

Best Cinematography: 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince'

Best Original Score: Michael Giacchino, 'Up'

Best Original Song: 'Almost There', 'The Princess and the Frog'

Best Costume Design: Anyone but 'The Young Victoria'

My Oscar Shorts!

Since 2003, the Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences (The Oscars folks) have been screening their nominees for short film live action and short film animation during an one-day event. I was fortunate enough to get a hold a few tickets five years ago and still remember vividly meeting Andrea Arnold (director of 'Fish Tank') at the event right before she won her Oscar for the short film 'Wasp'.

This year, the tickets for the New York rendition of the event (LA also holds one) are on sale and I made sure I got my tickets so not only will I have a clue to what I'm watching during the Oscars when these short film categories arise but also meet future successful filmmakers. It's safe to spread the word now since I just printed my tickets, but hurry... it's an extremely small screening room and tickets will no doubt be sold out soon due to A) its popularity and B) it's ridiculously low price of $5. So go get your tickets now if you're in the NYC area on the 27th.

My Initial Oscar Nominations Reaction

- "The Hurt Locker" managed to tie "Avatar" for nomination total. A combination of some surprise nods for the former (Original Score) and some omissions for the latter (Original Screenplay) got the two frontrunners to tie in the tally.

- "Inglourious Basterds" is not too far behind with eight. Good for them, but the omission for Art Direction and Costume Design were a little puzzling.

- LOVED the Original Song nod for "Paris 36" and of course, the well-deserved Cinematography nod for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince".

- "The Blind Side" got a Best Picture nod. Has this 10 Best Picture nominee experience backfire yet? Not sure, because worthy films that normally wouldn't get in due to lack of media buzz got the prestige of being titled a Best Picture nominee ("An Education" & "Up").

- Speaking of which, "Up" now gets the distinction for being the second animated feature ever to be in the Best Picture consideration. Another animated feature "The Secret of Kells" surprises everyone for showing up on the short list for Animated Feature.

Well, I'll digest this for the next month until I go to Tallaheehaw for Oscar Weekend '10! Those Best Picture themed appetizers sure get harder every year...

My Ten Best Pictures

In a bold move, the Academy of Motion Pictures of Arts and Science has announced there will be TEN Best Pictures nominees starting next year at the Academy Awards next year. While I understand the reasons behind the move (increase ratings by inserting more films for the fans), my reservation tells me not to mess with tradition despite the fact the Oscars started with ten nominees back in 1929. Who knows, my favorite film at the end of the year might benefit from this move- much like how 'The Dark Knight' fanatics wished this ruling came a year earlier. (Variety)

My Favorite Oscar Speeches

It's a close one, but these two were my favorite of the night -although much props to the "Mr. Roboto" guy. Relive them now before AMPAS takes them away!

Dustin Lance Black, with perhaps the most touching and inspirational speech of the night.

And of course, la Winslet herself. Watching her go up there and greeted by modern legends almost seemed like she was getting knighted, no?

My Top Five List: Supporting Performances?

I love lists. I love movies. So of the course the first list on this blog is going to be about movies and more specifically, awards. Many performances in the past were considered as supporting roles but really should've been placed in the lead. Some of those demoted their rank translated into award recognition, some have not. Since there are way too many of these performances to choose from, I'm going to break it down to those that stood out from this century (2001-current).

5. Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), is it because of Brad Pitt's star status that bumped the equally dominant character to supporting ranks?

4. Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind), this one was a no-brainer. It was an instant Oscar as soon as she categorized herself in the supporting actress since she had stiffer competition in 2001 with Sissy Spacek, Nicole Kidman and the eventually winner, Halle Berry.

3. Scarlett Johansson (Lost In Translation), this one was iffy. The film itself was billed more as a Bill Murray vehicle, but Johansson's Charlotte had an equally nuance self-discovery in Japan. 

2. James McAvoy (The Last King of Scotland). Not that it would have resulted in anything, but the entire film was Nicholas's story from the get-go.

1. Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls). Unlike Catherine Zeta-Jones in 'Chicago', where her performance dominated to the point where some people were convinced CZJ was the lead, I blame Hudson's misplacement on the script and editing. It should've been the eventual Oscar winner in the lead and Beyonce in supporting, not that it would've helped Beyonce at all with awards. 

So did I miss any? The only other one I considered from this century was Ethan Hawke in 'Training Day'. 

My Falling Slowly

While browsing through my iTunes, I noticed an album by Oscar winners Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova titled 'The Swell Season' from 2006. The kicker? It features the Academy-Award winning song 'Falling Slowly'- which sparked my curiosity regarding the tune's eligibility. Now that the awards are all given and all that's done, it's too late to do anything. What can they do? Give it to my man who butchered his performance? Just throwing it out there... (Independent)

My Obsession with Jon McLaughlin

Every year around this time, I get a little crazy over a musician (see Jack Johnson last year). This year, it's none other than Jon McLaughlin. He might not sound all the familiar to you, but he came out with a small hit last year Beautiful Disaster off his debut album and was at the Oscars this past Sunday performing 'So Close', one of the three nominated songs from 'Enchanted'. 

Apparently, he's a good ol' Christian boy from Indiana... all nice, sweet and married. Just the way I like them.