mellicious | Oscars, part 3 (Reply)

Actually some interesting things happened during my little break. For one thing, the best line in an acceptance speech so far tonight: "I'd like to thank the Academy for seating me next to George Clooney at the awards luncheon." Also, we got Charlize Theron in a dress with a bow on the shoulder so big she looks like she's going to fly away... which is sort of appropriate, I guess, because she ends up giving an award to March of the Penguins. And all of the many, many winners came onstage holding very large stuffed penguins. Did they have those things with them at their seats?

Burning automobiles in the background for a Best Song nominee? A little weird, but on the other hand that song (from "Crash", if you haven't guessed) is so low-key I might have gone to sleep otherwise. (In its defense, it's really rather pretty. But a little bit... slow.)

That Diet Coke commercial with the woman going to the barber and getting her hair all chopped off? Am I the only person who thinks she looks better at the beginning?

Well. My goodness. Memoirs of a Geisha won another award after all - Art Direction. Well, it is a very pretty movie, by all accounts, so I guess that's appropriate.

I sorta zoned out for a while there... there were some more clips (I think they had to do with prejudice, although I missed the introduction). And then the president's speech, which I'm sure the whole world zoned out on. Now we have musical scores, with Itzhak Perlman (did I spell that right?) playing along with the orchestra. I would vote for Pride and Prejudice out of this bunch, but I'm betting that Brokeback wins. We'll see in a minute... Yup. Brokeback it is.

Epic films... the latest clip-fest. (Jon Stewart says, "Wow, we're out of montages.")

Now we have Sound. Memoirs of a Geisha had a good many nominations, didn't it? (It was also in the Score nominations.) But King Kong wins, instead, even though all of these guys already have Oscars for ROTK. (I liked Kong quite a lot, and it deserves some attention. It seems like it got ignored, as much as a movie that cost that much and made that much can be ignored.)

Robert Altman gets a special award. Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin do this sort of virtuoso improvisational act (which I imagine is not improvised at all) in introducing him. And he says he's good for another 40 years or so because he's had a heart transplant. (He's 81. We looked.)

(Also, Jon lied. There were more clips.)