We're back to liveblog this year's Academy Award ceremony. And if you've ever seen our previous liveblogs of this "event", you already know it's gonna be pretty half-assed.
Let's go!
(for previous Oscar liveblogs, click the tags on this post...)
8:45ish PM: Faithful Reader KG is hosting her annual Oscar party once again, and once again everything is spectacular.
8:46ish PM: Due to some technical issues, we're a little late getting started. What did we miss? Hugh Jackman told some jokes. Anne Hathaway was a good sport. Frank Langella was an even better sport. Oh, and HJ gave millions of viewers around the world the mental image of Meryl Streep on steroids. AND WE'RE STILL TRYING TO EAT DINNER!!!
8:48 PM: Best Supporting Actress...Penelope Cruz! Hey, shock -- we're 0-1 in the contest!
Penenlope says something in Spanish. We don't speak Spanish.
8:51: A car company spends our money to thank us for giving them our money to pay for commercials during the Oscars. Awesome.
SUCK IT, AMERICAN TAXPAYERS!!!
8:54: Tina Fey and Steve Martin bring the funny to the presentation of Best Original Screenplay..."Milk"! We're 0-2!!!
This year, we adopted the daring contest strategy of going with "Slumdog" in every category.
Yeah, we have no freakin' idea what we're doing...
Wait, Tom DeLonge is an Oscar-winning gay ex-Mormon screenwriter?
8:59: Tina and Steve stick around for the other screenplay category, Best Adapted Screenplay...
Oh, for the screenplay awards, Tina and Steve are *reading* parts of the screenplay, that "set the stage" for the film clip that follows...
This is going to be a very long nite...
The winner..."Slumdog Millionaire"! We're 1-2!
9:03: Only 3 (and 1/2?) hours to go!!!
9:04: Jennifer Anniston and Jack Black?
"Throughout the evening, we're going to be showing you a 2008 movie yearbook..."
ZOMG NO! SOMEONE PLEASE KILL ME NOW!!!
9:05: What's the over-under on when the Academy will start handing out awards for "Best Voice Actor/Actress"
9:06: Best Animated Feature..."WALL-E"! We're 2-2!
9:08: Best Short Film, Animated..."La Maison En Petits Cubes"
True story: ahead of the Grammys two weeks ago, we messaged Faithful Reader KG and told her we would not be liveblogging the Grammys but would be participating in the comments on the liveblog at Idolator. Later, she sent me a reply. Here's part of the actual text of that reply: "...These are way different from the Oscars. No one thanks their spouses, or apparently is expected to." Oh, Faithful Reader KG. You are SO an Oscar person.
Another way the Grammys are diffferent: waaaaay more M.I.A.
9:15: We took a break, and we HOPE we missed one of those Yearbook things...
Daniel Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker present Best Art Direction, even though no one has any idea what the hell art direction is..."The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button!" We've lost count...
And, the first play-out of the night! Who had 9:18???
9:20: Sarah and Danny stay out to present Costume Design..."The Duchess"!
Three-time Grammy winner Fergie now has an Oscar to add to her mantle! AWESOME!!!
9:23: And, Sarah and Danny stay out for Best Makeup..."Benjamin Button"!
9:26: When we learned that, sadly, we did not miss the "Romance Yearbook" Who are these people, BTW?
This yearbook has a Coldplay song for the soundtrack. Too bad WE CAN'T FREAKIN' STAND COLDPLAY, or else we might know which song it is...
9:31: Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller...what an odd combo...and why is Stiller wearing that ugly-ass beard? A: BECAUSE HE'S NOT FUNNY!!!
Oh, I get it -- this is a parody of that interview that Joaquin Pheonix did on Letterman or whatevs, we missed it...
The award is Cinematography..."Slumdog"!
And now, our strategy looks a little better...
9:36: We're sorry, were you trying to read a liveblog? Jessica Biel is on...
9:40: We had some...administrative duties to perform (yeah!), so we missed that entertaining piece with James Franco and Seth Rogen
9:45: Best Short Film, Live Action..."Spiezeugland (Toyland)"!
As usual, we have absolutely nothing funny to say about that ["as usual" -- Eds.]
9:53: We were about to tae another break during Hugh Jackman's salute to musicals...but then Beyonce hit the stage, and we were glad we stuck around...
A couple of years ago, we suggested that AMPAS do everything it possibly could to ensure Beyonce would perform at the ceremony...it looks like someone is finally listening to us...
[pat selves on back...]
10:02: Since we're only 90 FREAKIN MINUTES in to this death slog, let's give out only our second major, because, why the hell not? Supporting Actor...
This year, we five random former winners who each give an introduction for one of the nominees...Cuba Gooding Jr. (snickers...)
10:08: Best Supporting Actor...Heath Ledger! obvs, moron...
His Family accepts the award, which was a very nice thing for the Academy to arrange
10:11: Can't say anything about that emotional moment.
10:11:30: Oh good -- another one of these idiotic Yearbook thingies...it's a good thing we set aside time for these things, and not oh, performances of the Original Song nominees...No, we didn't need to see any of those...
10:15: Who should we choose to give out the award for Documentary Feature, this award for a serious film about a very bad thing in real life? Oh, I don't know, maybe a FUCKING POLITICAL COMEDIAN? Yeah, that sounds about right...
Best Documentary Feature..."man On Wire"!
10:17: Comedian dude sticks around for Documentary Short..."Smile Pinki"...DHMBIB's readers will find this hard to believe, but we did not see any of these Documentary Shorts...
10:22: The "Post-Production" Yearbrook has "Tick Tick Boom" by The Hives as its soundtrack, and no one here ('cept for us) knows what this is...
10:25: Speaking of songs and artists no one knows, here's Will Smith! Presenting the award for Visual Effects, because why the hell not?
Best Visual Effects..."Benjamin Button"! Didn't see it, BTW...
10:28: Oh, NOW he gets jiggy wit the sound categories...
Sound Editing..."The Dark Knight"!
Sound Mixing..."Slumdog"!
Memo to selves: remember in the next 12 months to figure out what the hell is the difference between "sound editing" and "sound mixing". Or, to continue to not give a shit, whatevs...
10:33: What the hell is Smith still doing here? Oh, another award..."Editing" is now in the "post-production bloc" of the show...
Editing..."Slumdog"!
10:40: Hacktacular comedian and comic actor Eddie Murphy is somehow exactly the right choice to present The Jean Hirsholt Humanitarian Award to JERRY FUCKING LEWIS [types that imagining Professor Frink's voice...]. This is the portion of the evening when the party we're at mutes the TV to do a trivia contest, so, sadly, we have no idea what Jerry Lewis is saying. But we're sure its very humanitarian. And unfunny.
10:50: We're back with the volume, and the orchestra is playing some kind of monatge, so it must be time for the sound categories...looks like M.I.A. is m.i.a. this evening
[Ha! bet ya didn't see THAT coming...]
10:52: Alicia Keys and Zac Efron (ZOMG!!!!!11!!11one!!1) are here to present the sound awards...first up: Original Score..."Slumdog"!
10:55: And here are the nominees for Original Song, which are being presented in one mash-up medley, because why the hell not? We don't have TIME for full performances of these songs because there are THREE of them, people! If we performed all THREE of these songs, we'd go over by 23 minutes, instead of 13 minutes, doncha know???
Okay, here's that one song from "Slumdog" that had Oscar offering to allow M.I.A. to perform in a freakin' bed if she would just stop griping about the fact that she just had a baby barely a week ago and get her lazy ass on a plane to Hollywood...
And here's that one song from WALL-E by Peter Gabriel, which Peter Gabriel reused to perform because he's somewhat of an insufferable prick, or maybe was pissed off about this whole medley thing, yeah that works...John Legend bravely offers to be not a prick and step up and give Oscar viewers ninety watchable-listenable seconds...
And here's that other song from "Slumdog" which did not have M.I.A. on it...
And ta-da that's it! And the winner is "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog", and now the music categories are gone, so we can get all these brown people off the stage and go back to giving awards to Jerry Lewis...
11:05: Two people we don't know are here to present the award for Best Foreign Language Film..."Departures"! This Japanese dude actually makes a joke about his film, but no one gets it, and the director very awkardly jumps to a reaction shot of the audience, who are silent. And then, the Japanese dude is played out. This awkward moment is the most unintentionally hilarious moment of the evening.
11:10: Queen Latifah introduces the death montage, and she sings...she is good...
11:19: Here's Reese Witherspoon to present the award for Best Director...ZOMG, only four awards to go and we still have 40 minutes to kill...maybe we can reprise the Original Song medley???
Best Director...Danny Boyle for "Slumdog Millionaire"...no one here is shocked...
11:25: They really are trying to hit that 12:00 uptime, aren't they? The Best Actress montage begins...
11:30: Which color crayon in the jumbo box most closely resembles Sophia Loren's skin tone? Is it "burnt sienna"? What the hell, let's go with "burnt sienna"
11:33: Best Actress...Kate Winslet finally wins her long-overdue Oscar, and absolutely no one is shocked...her acceptance speech is far-and-away the most genuine and emotional of the nite...
and how great is it that she asked her dad to whistle so she would know where in the theater he was, and he did, and she shouted out and waved to him...
"I'm sorry, Meryl, but you'll have to just suck that up!"...classic!
11:36: The Best Actor montage begins...
11:43: Best Actor...Sean Penn wins in a non-upset that everyone has been predicting for the last month even though Mickey Rourke was considered a lock around New Years Day...
..and we are very proud to say we marked Penn, one of our all-time favorite actors, on our ballots this year...
interestingly, the Wikipedia page for Best Actor Winners was updated before Penn had even begun his acceptance speech...
11:47: Steven Spielberg introduces a Best Picture montage that honors the current crop of nominees and some previous classic winners...this, along with Penn's and Winslet's -- especially Winslet -- overly-long acceptance speeches practically guarantee we'll miss our 12PM upcut...but! Oscar, you still get a trophy just for participating!
11:52: Finally, the nominees for Best Picture are announced..."Slumdog Millionaire"! And once again, no one is surprised...
11:54: If "Slumdog Millionaire" had only one nominated "Producer" why are there like eleventy billion people on the stage? Someone at the party just said: "I think everyone who has ever seen the movie is on stage right now"
11:55: BREAKING: Hugh Jackman says good night! We made it before midnight!
we're signing off now...edits and updates to follow over the next day or so...
-- DHMBIB
Sunday, February 22, 2009
OSCAR 2009: DHMBIB's Liveblog
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3 comments:
Believe it or not, I stuck it out through the whole thing, including the last half-hour of ABC's red-carpet thing. Tim Gunn (Project Runway whip-cracker and Liz Claiborne exec), Robin Roberts (who looked marvelous, dahlings), and the managing editor of Entertainment Weekly, Jess Cagle. Yeah, you can guess how lame-o that was. Gunn is always entertaining (his enthusiasm for fashion is so genuine), but give Cagle the WTF award for really bad Ryan Seacrest imitations during his interviews.
Ex: Frank Langella, nominated for BA for Frost/Nixon, who brought a gorgeous very young woman with him to the Oscars.
Cagle: "Who's your date?"
Langella (slight hesitation about whether or not this is a joke): "This is my daughter, Sarah. She's very shy."
Cagle: "Oh, then I won't ask her how she feels about Nixon."
(followed by quick cut to Tim Gunn gushing over some hot female celeb in their dress)
Every time Cagle was onscreen, it was awkward. Yikes.
I liked that the Oscars did manage to get everything done in 3hr34min (one of the shorter ceremonies in recent years). Yeah, there were some weird production decisions (the "yearbook" segments) and some jokes that just went nowhere (Ben Stiller in that lame-o beard bit), and HAAAAAAATE to the producers for a medley of the nominated songs when there are only three songs nominated to begin with, but I really loved using past award winners in a category to present the Oscar to the new winner in that category.
I too adopted the Slumdog strategy, but it paid off 8 times, so, hey. Didn't pick Penelope Cruz, Heath Ledger was a rock-solid lock (even though I had a sentimental favorite in RDJ), I had Mickey Roarke over Sean Penn (even though I had a real sentimental favorite in Frank Langella), and I flipped a coin between Kate Winslet and Meryl Streep (and it came up Kate).
I did like the montage at the end of upcoming movies in 2009. That was cool.
Oh, and I almost forgot my Jess Cagle Seacrest-wannabe moment of the night: Robert Downey Jr., looks phenomenal, with his wife, producer Susan Levin Downey, on his arm in a spectacular red dress (up close, the details were stunning), and Cagle asks, "Who's your date?"
Downey (pauses; can't believe a celebrity interviewer on the red carpet of the Oscars didn't do homework on the major nominees): "This is my date for the remainder of this incarnation...my wife Susan Downey."
Cagle: "Oh, great! I know you're busy working on Sherlock Holmes in London...how's that going?"
Susan Downey (who is the producer of said film): "Great! We just wrapped shooting and now we're putting the finishing touches on."
(Now, at this point, an interviewer who's IMDB'd RDJ would know that he has another movie, one that's already getting him Oscar talk for 2009, The Soloist, opening in April, and even ask him about it for a 5-sec pimp on national TV. Or maybe he'd try to get an Iron Man 2 exclusive. Not like RDJ doesn't have a gazillion hot projects going right now.)
Cagle (looks annoyed that Mrs. Downey cut off his face time talking to The Man Of 2008): "Oh. Well, great talking to you and good luck to you tonight. Tim?"
Grr. F-ckhead.
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