8:03: Ahhh. The Super Bowl of the Mobtown household is just getting started. Stewart, you better be funny, you bastard.
8:06: Funnier than that, goddamnit.
8:07: Finally, a laugh frm the crowd! Let's cut to commercial quick, so makeup can do something about that flop sweat.
8:08: Stewart just reported that Bjork was unable to make the show, because "she was trying on her dress, and Dick Cheney shot her." Excellent.
8:15: Okay, the tribute to homoeroticism in Westerns was not only funny, it said what we all have been thinking for decades.
8:16: There are rumors that presenter Nicole Kidman and her down-under Keith Urban may be tying the knot. Dear God, can you imagine their children's jawlines? And their dimples? And their blonde weaves?
8:19: When George Clooney named as Best Supporting Actor, the first thing out of my mouth was, "well, I guess this means he won't be winning for anything else." Turned out to be pretty much the first thing out of his mouth when he climbed the stage.
Wow! To quote Meerkat -- Best. Oscar speech. Ever.
8:25: Okay, so the Tom Hanks acceptance speech thing was a time-waster, but it was funny.
8:26: Hey, speaking of time wasters, it's Ben Stiller in a green suit. Nice, ah, bulge there, Ben.
8:29: Aaaaaaannnd, the Academy Award for visual effects goes to...ah, who cares. Anyone want a beer?
The peanut gallery gathered around the warm glow of the teevee here in Chez Mobtown is not thrilled about the new thing they're doing this year, where they're playing cheesy music in the background during acceptance speeches. "Sweetie," says Meerkat, "through the power of your blog, make them stop doing that!" No problem, honey!
Now she wants me to post about how happy she is over 'Curse of the Were-Rabbit' (her favorite movie of the past millenium) winning an award. If this keeps up, I'm just going to give the laptop to her and let her do her own typing.
8:34: Up close, Naomi Watts' dress looks even worse. The peanut gallery is horrified. It looks like she got into a fistfight with twelve-roll pack of triple-ply Charmin'.
Poor Dolly Parton's voice is a little wobbly on the song from 'Transamerica.' What with all the silicon and botox, she's probably more space-age polymer than human being. Still, she sounds pretty good for an octogenarian.
Now Meerkat wants me to look up where the Wilson brothers are from. Here, just take the damn computer, already! And it's Dallas, Texas. Thank you, IMDB.
Here's a question that Moe has about those lame sequences that they do every year, when they bring animated critters out on stage to do some pathetically weak banter: what do people actually sitting in the audience see while this is going on? Does everyone just pop out to the loo or bust out their cells and start texting their moms?
8:51: As Risemysoul just asked, "what's everyone's infatuation with Russell Crowe all about?" I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm ducking behind the sofa in case he hucks a telephone at us.
8:58: Presenting the Achievement in Makeup Award along with Will Farrell, Steve Carell looks like Alex in 'A Clockwork Orange.' Eek!
9:01: Have you ever noticed how, whenever they talk about the technical Oscars that are given out in a separate ceremony, the presenter is always some super gorgeous woman? Like, this year it's Rachel McAdams, last year it was Scarlett Johanssen, and so on. I think it's a concessionary bone tossed to all the techie geeks who will a) never get on TV, and b) probably never get another chance to stand next to a woman that hot.
9:06: Well, Rachel Weisz was the expected choice for Best Supporting Actress. Still, I would like to have seen Michelle Williams get the statue, for her astonishing turn in 'Brokeback Mountain.'
9:12: Poor Lauren Bacall. She's obviously sick. Still a stunningly beautiful person, though.
9:18: There's Terence Howard again. And that skin. Good Lord.
9:21: Holy cow, what the hell is that on Charlize Theron's dress?!?
Going back to the award for makeup: didja catch how the guy totally ran out the time limit on the acceptance speech, so that his colleague didn't get a chance to say a single word, and they cut the mic off when she finally pushed his yakkity butt off to the side? If I were him, I'd sleep with one eye open tonight. What a tool.
9:25: It wouldn't be an Oscars ceremony without at least one high-concept, bafflingly idiotic interpretive dance number accompanying one of the nominated songs. Hey, behind you! The car! It's on fire!
9:41: Look it's the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts an...ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....
9:56: Mm-mph. Huh? Wha? No, I'm awake, now, really. The peanut gallery is talking about which celeb are on their respective "laminated cards" of people they could shtup guilt-free. Terence Howard and Maggie Gyllenhall are consensus favorites.
10:00: Oh great, Eric Bana is on stage. Keep it in your pants, Meerkat, jeez. Looking at Bana standing next to Jessica Alba, Meerkat just mused, "you know, those two could really just repopulate the earth..."
10:05: Lesser actors would have totally butchered the cutesy overlapping-dialogue shtick in the introduction to Robert Altman's lifetime achievement award, but Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep are so consummately phenomenal that they actually manage to pull it off. They don' t make 'em like that anymore.
Seems to me like they left out a couple of films from the clips sequence leading up to the presentation of Altman's honorary Oscar. What, no 'Pret-a-Porter?' No 'Streamers? And what Altman retrospective is complete without a nod to that masterpiece, 'Popeye?' For shame.
10:20: Gee, I guess I've never reflected on just how hard, in fact, it is out here for a pimp.
Nice, er, "ho's" in the production number.
10:24: Huh. Only three original songs nominated this year. As John Stewart just said, "if there's one way to communicate to an audience the difficulties of being a pimp, it's through interpretive dance!"
10:28: I don't know if Jennifer Garner's dress is really that beautiful, or if it's just that her breasts make it appear that way. Yowza.
10:30: George Clooney is on deck for, as the peanut gallery just put it, "The Dead People Award." Tasteful!
10:39: That may be the first time that Zulu has ever been spoken from the Oscars stage. Now I really want to see 'Tsotsi.' Amandla!
10:46: Best Actor is a tough category to handicap this year; it's a good pool. I'm pulling for David Strathairn, but I predict that Philip Seymour Hoffman will get the statue.
10:47: Told ya. What a sweet tribute to his mother. Who, if she's the person sitting next to him in the audience, is disturbingly hot.
10:58: So what, is it just de rigeur now to nominate Judi Dench for an Oscar, no matter what she's in? Who even saw the Mrs. Henderson movie, anyway? I'll tell you who. Nobody, that's who!
Hmmm. I think I need another beer.
Jamie Foxx is opening the envelope. My pick is...drum roll...Reese Witherspoon!
And, as we crest the third hour, Reese takes the prize! Remember to thank your costar. Remember to thank your costar. Remember to than -- there you go. You know, thinking back on 'Walk the Line,' Joaquin's performance was flashier, but it was Reese Witherspoon's that really stays with you. She did justice to a great lady in that film.
11:08: Has Dustin Hoffman ever said anything unscripted that isn't totally, gratingly, fatuously, egotistically annoying? Didn't think so.
Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry just won for Best Adapted Screenplay for 'Brokeback,' surprising exactly no one.
11:12: Uma, Uma, Uma. Bad dress, bad eyeliner, bad hairdo, bad color combination...what happened, there? Tsk tsk.
Risemysoul just pointed out that when an auteur quotes Bertoldt Brecht ("Art is not a mirror to reflect society; it is a hammer to shape it") to laud his own screenplay, as Paul Haggis just did...the phrase "pretentious prick" is not inapposite.
11:19: Awright, let's keep this train wreck moving, and give Ang Lee his well-deserved Best Director Oscar.
11:20: Thank you.
11:21: Y'know, 'Crash' is exactly the sort of safe, mainstream, faux-provocative film that the Academy loves to honor. The studio also mounted a last-minute -- and apparently successful -- campaign to win over Oscar voters. So I suppose it's not too surprising that it won top honors. But it's still really disappointing, especially in the face of amazing competition like 'Brokeback Mountain,' 'Munich,' and 'Good Night and Good Luck.' Bleah.
It's 11:30. Okay, everyone get the hell outta my house! I'm hitting 'post', typos be damned. Good night, and good luck.
My theory on Charlize's dress:
the big bow-thing was really just covering up the hideous, evil, extra head beginning to sprout from her shoulder.
Posted by: jeem | March 06, 2006 at 01:45 PM
I was thinking the same thing you posted at 10:05!
Posted by: Megan | March 06, 2006 at 04:23 PM