It's been quite a while since I was last here, laying out my thoughts in the written form. I have missed it. I was blessed to have last week off of work and thus, Hayden and I went home for the weekend and then he went up to Edmonton to do a tiling job for my aunt and uncle. I went up for a night with him and then went back to my parents house for a couple more days before venturing home. Since getting home, last Friday, life has been in the fast lane! I did get to do some fun blitz shopping whilst away, however. It was much needed as nothing in my wardrobe fits anymore!
When I arrived, I quickly surface cleaned my house and got myself pirate ready. It was my turn to host our girls "dress club" night and I made it pirate theme. Twas fun.
Saturday I had the cleaning frenzy descend upon me and I completely cleaned my room and purged my closet. Boy did that ever feel great! I love walking into my room and not stumbling over shoes and clothes and other "things" that were just laying about. I feel so much more organized. Now to finish off the 3 other shelves in my pantry.
But Sunday was what I was looking forward to the most. The night of The Oscars!!!
Now to some, this may not seem like such a big deal. But there's just something about this particular awards show that I just love. I watch them every year (or try to at least) and I print off the ballot and mark down my predictions and watch breathlessly to see if I got it right! A definite high point. However, this year, wasn't thrilled with the choice of hosts.
Anne Hathaway, bless her heart, tried so hard to make the evening enjoyable, even by changing her gown every 20 minutes or so, but James Franco just wasn't a good guy to bounce anything off of. He looked stoned the whole night. Maybe he was! :) Verdict: woe hands down.
Now for some of my favourite categories…
As far as best actor, actress etc goes, I hadn't seen any of the films represented, so I couldn't rightly judge the grade of acting. So I guessed. 2 out of 4. I got both leading roles correct, Colin Firth for The Kings Speech and Natalie Portman for Black Swan, but stumbled on the supporting roles. No biggie.
As far as Animated Feature was concerned, I knew Toy Story 3 would take the Oscar. How did I know this? Well, it was also nominated for Best Picture, and come on, we all know that a Pixar movie, no matter how great, is not going to beat out the likes of The King's Speech, Inception or 127 Hours, just to name a few of the 10. But when nominated in both categories, it's going to win one of them. However, I was still disappointed with this win. Don't get me wrong, I love Toy Story and the third instalment is no exception, however, How to Train Your Dragon, in my opinion, should have won. It was creative, new, imaginative, funny, and well put together in all aspects. Plus, it was not the third part of a trilogy. Woe for sure.
The Animated Short Film was also a woe. I loved "Day & Night" and thought it brilliant and Oscar worthy. "The Lost Thing" beat it out. I have never even heard of this film…and it won the Oscar. Woe!
Inception did extremely well, as a movie of that caliber should. It took home the Oscar for Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing (although, Tron equally deserved this Oscar, so I was torn over this a bit), and Visual Effects. All of these were well earned. A high point of the night. However, why Christopher Nolen was passed over for being nominated Best Director is beyond me. He deserved to be at least nominated for Inception, even if he didn't win the Oscar (for it was rightly won by the director of The King's Speech). I shook my head, and maybe my fist as well, at this outrageousness. Another woe where Inception was concerned was Original Score. Hanz Zimmer (my favourite composer of all time, just FYI) went above and beyond in the score for Inception. One of his finer compositions, to be sure. He got the Oscar nod, which is good, but he should have had his name called and accepted that Oscar. I would have been understanding is John Powell had won for How to Train Your Dragon, but the Social Network? Really?? Definitely a Woe of the evening. The biggest Woe actually.
Alice in Wonderland got my thumbs up, my vote, and the Oscar for Art Direction and Costume Design. Both were earned absolutely by this film, which was brilliant. A shining moment for Tim Burton.
Original Song went to Randy Newman for Toy Story 3's song "We Belong Together". I was happy to see him win, as this was his 20th nomination and only his 2nd Oscar win. If anyone has been Oscar teased, it's certainly Randy Newman. His win was a nice victory for all his hard work and contributions to many beloved films of the past (6 of which are Pixar films).
The final award of the evening, however, was Best Picture. The word of thumb with the Oscars is this, whoever wins the Oscar for Best Director, their film will 99% of the time win Best Picture. That's just how it works. The Kings Speech did just that this year and took home the most coveted Oscar of the entire night. Hats off to you!
All in all it was a great night hanging with some great girls, eating some great food, laughing, cheering, booing, enjoying, celebrating even, as this night went on. It was certainly one of the shorter Oscars I've ever watched. And it was so refreshing to not see Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt even once. I don't even know if they were there. One year I'll be there…maybe. Maybe for a screenplay I've written, or just because I have a seat way up in the nosebleed section. But one way or another, I would LOVE to be at the Oscars, live, dressed to the max, surrounded by and participating in the reverberating, thrilling electricity that is The Oscars.
Till next time!
