Academy Awards ’07: Deadblogging

Due to my Australianity, I have chosen to avoid the internet so that I don't spoil the Oscars for myself. My computer is going King Slow, so I can't exactly update this anyway. So here we go: faking the Oscars in a stream of consciousness, as inspired by Mark!

I don't have predictions for reals, but I'll say who I think should win and whatnot at first.

Best Picture: I get the notion that Babel might win, but part of me says that The Departed could. I don't think that Little Miss Sunshine is a real contender, and The Queen seems an odd duck.
I've actually been ignoring the other awards ceremonies, so we shall see.

Best Actor: This is actually the category I've seen the least of, but I'm throwing it at Forest Whitaker for persuading me in The Last King of Scotland.

Best Supporting Actor: I'm going to say Jackie Earle Haley. Much as I love Mark Wahlberg, I think it would be a bit of a joke to give him the award. I suppose that even if he technically qualifies, The Departed was so long you wouldn't notice how good he was. I mean, that role for me is more about the C word than it is about dramatic quality.

Best Supporting Actress: They're going to give this to Jennifer Hudson maybe and, while she was good, check out that Cate Blanchett! She was white hot with passion and fire in Notes on a Scandal! Adriana Barraza is also deserving of recognition.

Best Director: What do I know of direction? Give it to Scorsese … although Eastwood should definitely be respected for getting people who don't even speak the same language to give him such dynamite. But! The same could be said of my friend Inarritu! Also, The Queen had magical atmosphere!
Damnit, these directors all caught the zeitgeist.

Foreign Language Film: Just give it to Pan's Labyrinth, because no one has heard of the other films.

Adapted Screenplay: Children of Men should win based on the fact that it's a good script that bears little or no resemblance to its source material. The Departed is also a good departure from its source material to make something awesometacular. Little Children still feels like a book, and Borat – the whole point was to make it seem unscripted. Oops, forgot how awesome Notes on a Scandal was.

Original Screenplay: Go Pan's Labyrinth! Perfect ending! The Queen was meticulous, Letters from Iwo Jima was heartfelt, Babel intricate and … well … you know what I think of Little Miss Sunshine.

Animated Feature Film: Monster House, because it's the only one on the list that doesn't make me wretch with hatred at the industry. I guess Happy Feet would have been super awesometacular great if it wasn't so freaking boring.

Original Score: You don't think much about this category until you realise that Pan's Labyrinth haunts your dreams.

Original Song: “Listen”, already beloved by the drag acts on Oxford Street. I'm looking forward to seeing Beyonce take it to the limit.

Warning: The contents inside are rambling, unedited and somewhat more political than I usually allow to get out on the site.

The nominees video was fun, and it reminded me of why I like the movies and like the industry despite the fact that everyone is supposed to hate it. Also because I'm leftist pinko commie scum, and you know it.

Ellen's first foray onto the stage was fairly good, but I could really feel where she felt her jokes were falling flat. I think that the people who attend the Oscars hate anyone who isn't Billy Crystal. The Steve Carell joke was great, though.

Yeah! Will Ferrell and Jack Black! John C. Reilley! Helen Mirren will be coming home with me! I love how they didn't make a pretentious speech about how important make up is … they just sang whatever the hell.

Pan's Labyrinth is cleaning up in a way that only a film nominated primarily in technical categories can! Except they cut off the second winner's speech, which didn't seem very nice at all. It's not like they were boring the heck out of us. I vaguely recall last year that, after Crash won, the woman who accepted the award tried to give a speech and she was immediately cut off – probably because the Academy was disgusted with the PC nature of the win.

Judi Dench isn't there? Does that mean she's ceded the contest to Helen Mirren? I like both of them, dangit!

Children are apparently cute, but I'm not quite sure I get it. Oh, look! Look how scripted it is!
And this time they're actually reading out the names … it appears that Will Smith's son can't read very well. I suppose he's only seven, but we should get these people to work earlier, dangit!

"Stick-to-it-iveness” is not a word, for your record.

The sound effects choir lost its novelty very quickly. But Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear came onto the stage and made everything right!
Interesting: Flags and Letters both nominated in this category, and they're the same people. I have to wonder if Pirates will get any tech awards.
There we go: first Letters award of the night.

Yeah! James McAvoy! I don't understand the teaming up of a lot of these people. Why is he with Jessica Beal? I suppose they want the eye candy covered on both sides, but that facial hair does little for McAvoy.
Hooray! Dreamgirls!
You know, this whole drowning out speeches with music thing is mean.

Oh, hay: Rachel Weisz. That means that it's the first non-technical award of the night. This is a pretty good category, especially Jackie Earle Haley. Wow, never would have picked Alan Arkin. Little Miss Sunshine seems like the made up dark horse of the awards this year. I mean, it's like … you don't give my favourite movies respect! Little Miss Sunshine is a little miss awesome film, but it's not Academy attracting material in my eyes. Maybe the Academy just wants to kill me after they stabbed my friend Brokeback Mountain in the face with a tire iron and then embarrassed me and itself.

Silhouettes are fun?

NO CARS! DEAR LORD, STOP HAUNTING MY DREAMS, YOU TALENTLESS FOUR WHEELED HACKS! YOUR MOVIE MADE NO SENSE!
I know I'm supposed to love Randy Newman or whatever, but come on! Stupid sentimental songs about things that your target audience cares not a fig for!
John Lasseter, you are fired!

The mics aren't be transmitted to the TV. Oh, check it out, environmental messages are being flashed on the screen behind Melissa Etheridge. Really ironic that they played this song directly after the song from the movie about cars.
Wait a second, there's a message in the background about praying for environmental change? What the heckfire is up with that? You're supposed to be a godless society, Hollywood! Either that or run by Jewish people, make uppa you minds.

I like Al Gore, although I couldn't tell entirely why he was on the stage. Oh, right, climate crisis. Shut up, leftoro. Oh, wait …

Where's Jack Nicholson's hair? Cameron Diaz isn't that great at presenting this award, but she does it all the time! Putting the characters in the audience is also really stretching it.
Booooo, communist penguins! Go home!

Ben Affleck? As if you ever wrote a movie! Check you out, Nancy Meyer, you think that you wrote The Holiday as a tribute to olde Hollywood … and you did, which was the best part of the movie.
Plus two appearances by Geoffrey Rush. Then I saw Woody Allen and thought he was Geoffrey Rush. Then I realised I can't type Geoffrey Rush if I'm not looking at my computer screen.
Sometimes I wish there was romance in my writing, then I realise that I'm sweet enough just writing about evil chickens who alternately love and hate each other.

Take that stage, Helen Mirren! Take it! Why have you got to share it with Tom Hanks? He's looking around shiftily as if he's feeling guilty for being in one of the year's worst adapted screen plays. It's funny to hear Helen Mirren narrating Borat.
Interesting: Cuaron's work on Children of Men was separate from the team of three who started it.
It's really strange that they read stage directions to illustrate the quality of the script. This part is really at the discretion of the directors, I would have thought, because it translates onto the screen, but not in a way you could tell from the script.
Wow, the repressed homosexuality of Notes on a Scandal was way more obvious in the script, even moreso than in the super obvious movie.

THEY JUST CALLED INFERNAL AFFAIRS A JAPANESE FILM. Hopefully he will correct them.
I know I should be listening to the speech, but I find it difficult to focus on anything but Jack Nicholson's lack of hair. He had to speed it up, sadly enough.

At this point I would like to illustrate that those weren't predictions but personal choices.

Whoo, Emily Blunt. She's not as pretty as I recalled, because I had her confused with Amanda from Ugly Betty. Look how contrived these acts are … Emily Blunt's line "she's such a good actress” was quite ironic … but Meryl Streep reacted really well
Oh, can I just point out that if Meryl Streep gets best actress I have to kill someone? I know that she won't, but … for serious, if she does for that admittedly great but still unworthy role …

Damned Oscars, why got to remind me I loved Dreamgirls despite your lame posing? Ah, Marie Antoinette. I know that they hate you, but I will always have a place in my heart for your detached vapidity.

Hey! Check it out, Marie Antoinette won! Now I want to see it again.

Yarr, here's some Tom Cruise. I should probably find out who Jean Hersholt is. I wonder if Sherry Lansing will win this award, for which she is the only nominee? Okay, time to quit some snark and find out what's going on.
Oh, hey, she actually made some really good stuff. Or things that I would have to assume were good, had I actually seen them. It seems that after the nineties came around this woman failed to age.
Wait a second, why does the Academy give away Humanitarian awards? That seems really weird. It's like … they make movies. I've got admit it's ingenious to have all of these people do lefty things on such a big night. No wonder the right stereotypically hates Hollywood.

Ah, Ellen, you just trawl that room until you get some laughs! Exploit that Spielberg! Right on!

Now every time I see someone come on stage, I expect them to come on with the intro to "One Night Only”. I really suck at this here "score guessing game”. I've seen a lot of recent movies, but my watching movies that I know the history of really needs working on.

Why do the cinematographers get to comment on their work but no one else does? Interesting choice for the cinematography on Children of Men – less than obvious.

You go, Pan's Labyrinth! Watch me hum your lullaby theme, if I can remember it!

This silhouettes thing is really lame.

I knew Robert Downey Jr. would turn the special effects thing into a drug joke! I'm not sure that I knew what Naomi Watts' real voice sounds like. I just heard it,and I'm still not sure. Wow, it's interesting to see Bill Nighy in his octosuit. May I take this opportunity to say that Bill Nighy rocks? For he does: early, and often.
Now I'll take this opportunity to say that John Williams' work is samey a lot of the time and his Superman theme is mightily uninspired.

Yeah! Pirates wins for visual effects. No real surprise there: it was the only truly fun nominee in the awards. Then the camera cut to Beyonce smiling, as if the Academy were saying "you are technical! We hate you!”
Dear Academy, if you have three people on stage, please let the third one say at least a little bit before he gets kicked out.

Catherine Deneuve! Demake Dancer in the Dark and I will accept you on my stage! Ken Watanabe! How can I be mad at you? I can't. Keep shining, you crazy diamond!
The language of film speaks to us more than the language of love! Hooray for meaningless empty clichés, Catherine Deneuve! No, for real, we haven't had a lot of them tonight. I don't know how to make that not sound sarcastic, but I didn't mean it in a sarcastic fashion.

I don't know why they're bothering with best foreign film, when they can so easily just throw it at Guillermo Del Toro … what the Hell? The Lives of Others? I wonder if this movie came out here? I do not recall it.

Snakes on a Plane does not work in silhouette. Actually, the poster does really well. Curse you, Academy!

It's at this point I'm wondering how much longer this has to go.

Ooh, Best Supporting Actress! Al Gore is not the Vice President. Oh, I get it, vice. You are clever, Mister Clooney. You can really tell what the Academy thinks of the actor or actress based on the clip they show. You knew Nicole Kidman was doomed because they showed a clip from the embarrassing part of Moulin Rouge a couple of years ago. Jennifer Hudson is seeing this as all very shocking
Oh, check that out, no surprise! Jennifer Hudson is an Academy Award winner! I don't quite understand the whole thing, but Dreamgirls is one of my favourite movies of the last couple of months so I shouldn't complain.
If the Academy cuts Hudson off from her speech, I will … I don't know, stab something. I should stop being so violent, but … you know.
We're your Dreamgirls, boys … we'll make you happy …
See, God, is into the night.
Hey! You kicked her off the stage!

I think you should give actors a chance to have a good time, Academy. I'm saying this as someone who doesn't remember the years of interminable speeches, though.

This Babel montage is pretty good. Although it's strange to think that Inarittu ended up with a movie the opposite of his expectation. It was always going to be as it was, though.

I love Eva Green and, to a lesser extent Gael Garcia Bernal. WHY DO THEY ALWAYS HAVE TO MAKE PENIS SIZE JOKES AT THESE DAMNED CEREMONIES (actually, they only ever make the same joke)

Why did Jim Carrey come out to "My Prerogative”? Why did I call Jerry Seinfeld "Jim Carrey”? Why did I know "My Prerogative”?
I missed most of the speech because my parents came home and chose to brood at exactly that moment. They gave him time because he looked funny! I missed out on funny, damnit!

It seems foreign to me, but I love the idea of Clint Eastwood as a nice guy.

Ooh look, Celine Dion is on. This is getting really tedious. I suppose that what I'm saying, Hollywood, is that I like watching your products and … well, I don't know, but I don't feel the need to stick around for a spot of Celine Dion.

If they cut off Morricone, angry I will be! It's a freaking lifetime achievement award, you sods!

You know, theme Oscars are a bad idea. Remember how a few years ago it was the "Black Oscars”, with Halle Berry's win landing a blow for "women of colour everywhere”? This year it's the "International Oscars”, which is like saying "we are kind of accepting on a very small scale that other nations make films”.

I had forgotten Babel's score, but my friends said it pushed them over the edge into depression. Lucky stiffs, with their ideas of depression.
Rinko Kikuchi really looks very pretty at awards nights.

I really got the impression that was racing to beat the music.

You know, I miss Judi Dench.

I love that they always send Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst out together, despite the fact that they allegedly can't stand each other. Kirsten Dunst could beat down Tobey Maguire any day of the week, even if Maguire can synthesise an unbreakable web to swing across the nation.

On The Queen: I hate the word "presently”. I like that the script refers to her as "The Queen”. Oddly enough, only in the directions. For dialogue, she is "Elizabeth”.
Not "cabbage”, though.
Hey, Little Miss Sunshine! You did have a good script, I'll grant you that.

I love that you still are allowed on stage after Gigli, J-Lo. But … if Kevin Smith is allowed on stage ever, I give up on the world.

Let's hope these performances are good! "Love You I Do”! Yeah! They edited "Listen” pretty poorly. It looked like Jennifer Hudson was trying to outsing the rest, then Anika Noni Rose took over a bit, and then Keith Robinson was just trying to keep the song going. Oh look, silhouette. Much as I love the soundtrack, it doesn't translate that well to the Oscars stage.

What was Queen Latifah nominated for? I hope it was Chicago rather than Bringing Down the House.

Let us sing the praises of global warming! I just hope that Tammy Lee doesn't go home to drink champagne with Isaiah Washington. I'm glad that Etheridge suggested that climate change isn't political, and I dearly wish it were true.

I think that Steve Carell is the best man in Hollywood. I particularly loved his character in Little Miss Sunshine.

I don't particularly like watching dancing Klansmen. Then I realised I didn't really like O Brother, Where Art Thou? anyway. It looks like this here montage is just about racism or some crap, I don't know. It basically shows some really ugly sentiments, then … hey! Roy Batty!
Or is this about religion? I don't know? I'm bored of these Awards already. I'm just like … I don't know what I'm all like anymore. Except that … this is the tackiest Oscars montage I've seen ever. Do you suppose they'll play Linkin Park over this year's reel of the departed?

Why did this montage give screen time to American Dreamz? I'm not sure that we should acknowledge its existence.

Kate Winslet, I like you, but I don't like your ironic speech about editing.
In Australia we pronounce it "Babel”, not "Babble”.

The Departed was pretty well edited, yeah.

Everyone knows that Jodie Foster is wicked mad awesome. So she gets to introduce the departed. Look! They can pay respect to dead people!

So many awards left, damnit!

HEY BEST ACTRESS FREAKING HELL JUST PRESENT IT

Yeah! Helen Mirren! You surprise no one! But you're good, so I'll forgive you!

So 3,000 words down and nothing has actually happened at these awards! I've just seen a lot of ads for Jessica Simpson slagging around.

It occurs that Ellen has not actually done anything tonight beyond the monologue. She's given a couple of lines here and there.

Half Nelson, from the clip, doesn't look like it will be easy to watch.

Forest Whitaker! We knew it would be this way all along! But he's a good man, and he follows the way of the samurai, albeit in a really boring way (that's Jim Jarmusch's fault, though).

God hasn't been trotted out a lot tonight, but this is the second major one. It's good that he was allowed to speak out, though.

Does this leave us with best director and picture, or do I need a million more? Do we get best producers nowadays?

George Lucas is looking like a lollipop or something? I don't know. Just give it to Scorsese, even if it is a pity Oscar. He probably deserves it or something. He's not a bad man.

Oh, check that out! You directed good, man!

Yeah, standing ovation! I don't know, I haven't been trying for about 37 years to get an Oscar, getting so close and failing. I think that Scorsese missed his calling: with those eyebrows, he could be a great actor!

I like Diane Keaton. How do they choose the presenters? It's obvious in the case of the actors, but the rest not so much.

Oh, look at that: The Departed wins. It's the most mainstream of movies in the lineup, and that's not a bad thing. I think that the Oscars have been drifting away from the lowest common denominator in recent years, which I certainly don't mind, but it sure as heckfire doesn't help the elitist "snobbywood” view of the world.

Anyway, that's another year down. You know, last year I missed the Oscars because I was at the movies. Eventually a tribute to the movies becomes a long parade of boredom because they simply can't maintain the momentum to keep the show interesting.

Final thought: why are we sitting and talking and watching the hawk(ing) making lazy circles in the sky? And Taking Our Breath Away?