I'm not actually a person who is an avid fan of award season. I don't watch the Grammys, Golden Globes, whatever. Which is odd, because I grew up with a brother who produced an awards show, which I attended for many years. The Bay Area Music Awards (the Bammies!) were like a family holiday.
Normally I wouldn't have written anything about the Academy Awards, which is the only one I consistently watch, because I feel that their productions are a bit redundant, but this year! Wow! And if we're honest, nothing was really different than any other year up until the end. Let's explore anyway, wanna?
Dude is kind of creepy, right?
- First things first. HUGE congratulations to Zootopia (and my friends who worked on it). It is not only beautiful animation but has a timely story. I was pretty sure Kubo was going to get the award because of how the Academy normally seem to do things, so I was extra pleased. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it.
- It was really touching to see Jennifer Aniston tear up mentioning Bill Paxton at the head of the In Memoriam. It was lovely that she paid respect to his passing. This year the In Memoriam was a tough one anyway, so I get it. I even teared up. PLUS, apparently, they added someone who's alive? I'm sure that poor woman is channeling Monty Python and the Holy Grail right now. "I'm not dead yet!!"
- While I was pleasantly surprised by Jimmy Kimmel (I'm not a huge fan of his in general although I do love Mean Tweets), I thought he went too far with his Matt Damon thing. A couple times would have been plenty (playing the music over his presenting was funny). A comedian should know when to pull back on a joke, right? Or am I just being oversensitive on Matt's behalf?
- Two things I enjoy about watching the Oscars with my posse are 1) the whole Red Carpet extravaganza. Beth and I turn into brutal (but fair, I think) fashion critics. Some of the women and men on that red carpet seriously need to look in a mirror before they leave the house (I'm not naming names, Casey Affleck and Dakota Johnson). And 2) Oscar Bingo. Beth always prints out Oscar Bingo where you have to "spy" certain things they call out like "Leonardo DeCaprio presents an award" for instance. Todd won this year, but if only ONE STINKIN' PERSON had thanked God directly (many skirted around it) and someone wore some fucking reading glasses I would have been IN! (Remind me some day to tell you all about the Paris Bingo we created when we were there. Naturally it included seeing someone walking with a baguette.)
- This year was also all about racial equality. It's nice to see the Academy recognizing and correcting their glaring oversights. Everyone can grow, right?
- So. The elephant in the room. The elephant that stampeded through the room. There we were, finally at the end of a typical award show. I thought I had actually correctly guessed another Oscar winner (Best Picture) when, lo and behold, everyone behind the La La Land producer, who was in the middle of his acceptance speech, started looking extremely uncomfortable and that one poor PA was running from person to person showing them the envelope. GAH. What a massive fuck up. The first thing I thought of was one of the Bay Area Music Awards when Faith No More were kind of being dicks, throwing things around the stage and being just generally stupid while accepting an award. My brother was pissed, but man, Faith No More has NOTHING on PriceWaterhouse. The La La Land group were gracious in the extreme and the poor Moonlight folks got absolutely robbed of their time in the spotlight. To add to the mayhem, Warren Beatty (who had kind of sold out Faye Dunaway by making her read the winner to begin with. He clearly knew something was wrong!) felt the need to redeem himself and explain. Sure, we all needed an explanation, but it felt a bit like "Not my fault! They did it!!" Without a doubt, someone is going to get fired for this. I guess Warren just wanted to make sure it wasn't him.
- **I was watching something just last night that pointed out that the above debacle is NOT unprecedented! In 1964, Sammy Davis Jr was handed the wrong envelope for either Music Adaptation or Music Score (I'm not clear on which one). He handled it really well, actually, saying "Wait 'til the NAACP hears about this!" Heh.
If there is any kind of silver lining on this, my thought would be that people will probably remember for a long time who won the Best Picture of 2016.
(My drink and snack pairing are as follows: a couple bottles of pink bubbly and these cookies (beware, you will eat more than just one because they are delicious but you probably shouldn't because they are rich!): http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2013/03/01/salted-caramel-dark-chocolate-cookies/)
My takeaways:
#1 - I can say from experience that award shows in general are much more fun if you are attending vs watching on TV.
#2 - I did like the opening of this year's Academy Awards - Justin Timberlake coming in singing. Beth and I noticed that many of the moves were steps we do in Zumba and were a bit miffed that no one called us to perform. Hmph.
#3 - Those cookies in the recipe above are even better the next day. Just sayin'.
xoxo...hashtagSueslife
Seriously. Creepy.
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