Oscars Open Thread

Ugh. The Oscars.

Every year, for like 15 years, I go to my friend J's house for the Oscars. (Now Iain comes along, too.) We make our Oscar picks, we watch the red carpet, and then we watch the broadcast and award points for correct picks (2 points for your #1 choice; 1 point for your #2 choice), and see who gets the bragging rights. J always makes something delicious to eat; last night it was a brisket with parsleyed egg noodles and carrots, and OMG it was delicious.

And that is fun.

The Oscars themselves are usually made of fail. And this year was no exception.

Going in, I was unthrilled about the hosts, and dreading noted feminist James Cameron being anointed King of the World. But I had not the merest inkling that Sandra Bullock would ruin the night for me, by grabbing the statuette away from Gabby Sidibe. Fuuuuuuuck.

Throughout the entire broadcast, I was seething that they'd seated James Cameron directly behind Kathryn Bigelow, so every time they got a shot of her, they also got a shot of her ex-husband looking over her shoulder like some grim specter, evoking the Battle of the Sexes as which their dueling director-best film nods had been framed by the media. Ugh.

But then the most magical thing happened. Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director! FIRST WOMAN EVARRR! And then she kept! winning! The Hurt Locker destroyed Avatar! Suddenly no more shots of James Cameron. Har har Battle of the Sexes isn't so funny when women win, isn't that right, Billie Jean King?

I didn't even love The Hurt Locker (although I will admit that Point Break is one of the ultimate guilty pleasures for both residents of Shakes Manor—"100% pure adrenaline!"), and I would have much rather seen Precious kick the pants off of Avatar, but, given the whole tiresome Battle of the Sexes set-up of Bigelow vs. Cameron (and given the fact that I can't stand James Cameron), I was positively delighted to watch Bigelow walk up onto that stage again and again. Wheeeeeeeee!



She's Queen of the World!
(And—trigger warning—here's Cameron "hilariously" pretending to strangle Bigelow before the show even started. I suppose he spent the after-parties following her around pretending to stab her, har har.)

And OMG Mo'Nique. Come on now. That was some 10-tissue blubbing right there, as she gave one of my favorite Oscar speeches of all time: "I would like to thank Miss Hattie McDaniel, for enduring what she had to so that I would not have to," she began, and then thanked her husband for reminding her that "sometimes, you have to forgo doing what is popular in order to do what's right."


Did you notice that all the women associated with Precious were wearing sapphire? (The author of the book on which the film is based is named Sapphire.) Mo'Nique, Gabby Sidibe, Mariah Carey, and Oprah Winfrey were all in sapphire blue dresses. Blub.

Finally, it was a good night for Losties, too: Evangeline Lilly (Kate) is in The Hurt Locker, Michael Giacchino, who scores Lost, won best score for Up, and Fisher Stevens (Minkowski) produced the winning documentary, The Cove. Woot!