The Oscars Running Diary
With the Oscars on tonight and the potential for one of my favorite films to win Best Picture being somewhat realistic, I thought it be best to document the night in some shape or form. What did I come up with; running diary. I’d explain it, but my brain is an antelope right now and yeah. Let’s just dive into it!
8:28: We are live from Parts Unknown waiting patiently for the Red Carpet special to end. Highlights of the carpet include Kerry Washington making a run for most beautiful woman of all time, Michael Strahan being absolutely awful, Charlize Theron talking about hamburgers and MARK RUFFALO’S WIFE BEING NAMED SUNSHINE! Good lord, that poor woman; Apple Martin sympathizes with her.
8:30:
8:33: Only the Academy would have an opening video montage dominated by films that didn’t make the cut. Never change Academy, never change.
8:54: Wow, lot to get to. First, Chris Rock delivered what has to be the best opening monologue in Oscar’s history, and it wasn’t even that funny. You couldn’t be any more articulate and spot on as he was there. Secondly, there’s now a ticker at the bottom of the screen where all the people the winners want to thank are featured. Why; hell if I know! Thirdly, Spotlight took home the Oscar for Best Original screenplay, despite the fact that it’s a) not an original idea and b) was anywhere in the league of Inside Out, one of the most original films of all time. Way to get it wrong again Academy. Finally, The Big Short (deservedly) won Best Adapted Screenplay, which now means the guy who made Anchorman and Talladega Nights is an Oscar winner. What a time to be alive! Excuse me while I now go throw water on myself.
9:05: Poor Sam Smith; not only is he singing the worst Bond song since “Die Another Day”, but he had to follow an amazing video montage of African American actors taking the place of the stars in several Best Picture nominations and Sarah Silverman completely calling out James Bond for being bad in the sack. Is it wrong that I think she has a point? Half of those women do try to kill him after all; perhaps they’re not actually evil and are actually just upset with his performance. I’d buy it.
9:08: Kerry Washington and Henry Cavil introducing Best Picture nominees is like watching Anne Hathaway and James Franco host the Oscars all over again. Spoiler alert; Cavil is the Franco. Come on Superman!
9:09: We’re getting Best Supporting Actress out of the way this early? We’re getting Best Supporting Actress out of the way early.
9:10: Bad sign for Jennifer Jason Leigh’s chances; I was more impressed with Walton Goggins’ performance in that Hateful Eight clip than hers.
9:11: On a scale of one to LUGER WON THE TITLE, how happy would Titanic shippers be if both Kate Winslet and Leo won Oscars tonight?
9:12: Alicia Vikander wins and a million Titanic shippers just cried out in terror and suddenly went silent. One day people; one day.
9:15: We’re not even a third into this, but I can safely say right now; Super Bowl commercials > Oscar commercials. Which is saying something, because the Super Bowl commercials were so bad, Gods of Egypt shook its head in disbelief at them.
9:16: And we’re back…only not to be back. I will never understand why these awards shows come back only to say they’ll be coming back a few minutes later. JUST KEEP RUNNING COMMERCIALS!
9:18: Cate Blanchett out to present Best Costume Design. And the Fury Road-Revenant rivalry begins!
9:20: Fury Road wins! Yeah baby, yeah baby, I really like it. No I’m not biased.
9:20: “What another lovely day!” Best Oscar speech ever.
9:22: Steve Carell and Tina Fey, aka two people who absolutely need to host the Oscars one of these years.
9:22: Text from my mother, who is also watching this; “Money money money!” No, I don’t know what’s happening right now either.
9:23: Fury Road again! Best part of this film winning is we keep getting to hear Junkie XL’s beautiful score every time the winner’s walk up to get the trophy. Seriously Academy, WHY DID YOU NOT NOMINATE THAT SCORE?!
9:25: Jared Leto is talking about Magic Mike 2 and merkins. The Academy Awards everyone!
9:26: We are now living in a world where a Mad Max film has cleaned up three straight Academy Awards in a row. Somewhere, Christopher Nolan is plotting to assassinate all the Academy members.
9:28: We are flying along faster than Speed Racer here as Benicio Del Toro introduces The Revenant and Jennifer Garner introduces Fury Road. Goodness, these two films cannot escape each other! Let’s at least agree that Fury Road got the bigger reaction after the two clips were shown right? Again, I’m not biased.
9:35: Wait…was that really Suge Knight?
9:36: Best Cinematography time! Dare I say the most underrated category at the Oscars?
9:37: Revenant finally gets one up on Fury Road as Emmanuel Lubezki gets his third straight Cinematography trophy. Might be time to get the man a director’s gig no?
9:39: Best Editing time. Not sure what’s a bigger deal; the continuation of Fury Road-Revenant or the fact that the girl from Quantico was deemed a big enough deal to present this award with Liev Schrieber. I’m sorry, but you have to be a special performer to be presenting with Cotton Weary, not the lead of a Shonda Rhimes esq spy show.
9:40: Margaret Sixel wins! YES! Aside from Best Picture and Best Director, this is the award that Fury Road most deserved to win. Now let’s hope her husband takes home Best Director!
9:43: A Black History month segment that pays tribute to Jack Black. Clever.
9:44: Mom just texted me about how well Mad Max is doing. And the jinx is on!
9:46: Yet another “we’re back at the Oscars to tell you we’ll be right back with more Oscars” thing. I’ll let Captain Picard sum up my emotions there.
9:47:…and that just happened. What was it? I don’t know, but it happened.
9:52: Mother of puss bucket, Fury Road is on one of those Titanic/Ben-Hur/Return of the King runs right now! They cleaned up both Sound Mixing AND Sound Editing! Could it be? IS THE UPSET IN THE WORKS?!
9:54: Whoa…are they giving Andy Serkis a special Oscar for being the GOAT of motion capture performance? Because the only thing more overdue than that is Leo’s Oscar.
9:55: Dammit, it’s just Serkis presenting the Best Visual Effects award. Come on Academy; give the man his due already!
9:56: Upset alert! Ex Machina edged out Fury Road to win Best Visual Effects. I’m…actually okay with this. Sure, Fury Road should’ve won for, you know, creating a summer blockbuster that was balls to the wall with hardly any special effects, but as I said in the preview, Ex Machina did such a good job in making Alicia Vikander actually appear to be a robot that it deserved recognition. Not a bad choice by any means.
9:59: Olivia Munn and Jason Segel did their best to talk about a double secret Oscar’s ceremony that took place a few weeks ago. I don’t know I tuned out for pretty much all of it.
10:00: A lesson to all those doing an award show; if you’re going to do a Star Wars related thing, doing it with the most annoying character from the series (besides Jar Jar Binks of course) is a bad idea. Good lord was that bad.
10:02: The follow text message exchange about the Star Wars thing just occurred between me and my mother.
Me: That segment was dumb as hell.
Mom: No response.
I’m taking that to mean it was so bad she fell asleep.
10:05: Did we really just have a string quartet version of Dick Dale’s “Misirlou”? Ugh. Thank goodness Chris Rock is making up for it by guilt tripping everyone into buying Girl Scot cookies from his daughter.
10:06: Oh good lord, the Minions, aka the most annoying creations in the history of the western hemisphere, are presenting awards now. My mother sums it up by finally getting back to me about that Star Wars segment; “This whole show is dumb as hell”. True story.
10:10:…and now we’re doing a segment with Woody and Buzz from Toy Story. Did Roman Reigns and Vince McMahon take over this show while no one was looking?
10:11: You’ll never believe this, but Inside Out won Best Animated Film. I’d probably be more excited about this (and the excellent speech by both of Inside Out’s filmmakers) if the last few minutes hadn’t gone all brain bug from Starship Troopers on me.
10:14: Did Kevin Hart just give a poignant speech? Is this show on LSD?
10:15: The Weekend is performing and for the first time in my life I’m actually regretting being straight edge. Just kidding; or am I?
10:17: Am I the only one wishing the Doof Warrior from Fury Road would come out during these songs and shred it with the flaming guitar? Surely that would be better than the crap we’re hearing right now.
10:20: I’m not sure what disgusts me more; the fact that ABC actually thinks this show The Family will work or the fact that I might actually watch it just because Allison Pill is in it? What can I say; I have a soft spot for ex members of Sex Bob-omb.
10:22: Kate Winslet wearing Rivers Cuomo glasses is the gift I never knew I wanted till now!
10:26: Years from now, we’re going to remember Chris Rock’s performance as host tonight as one of the best ever. What we won’t remember is how good the segment where he interviewed numerous African Americans how they felt about the nominations. By far the funniest moment of the show and the most revealing of how much of a disconnect there is between cinema and the African American audience.
10:28: We go from a serious moment to the Best Supporting Actor award. Come on Sly! COME ON SLY!
10:31: And…Mark Rylance wins. Okay then.
10:34: That might’ve been the most deflating Oscar moment since Sean Penn beat Mickey Rourke a few years ago. Even Fury Road likely losing to The Revenant later won’t be as lame. Come on Academy!
10:37: Only the Academy would subject a still recovering audience from Sly Stallone’s snub with a string version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly theme and the awards for Best Documentary Short.
10:39: LOL at Louis C.K. brightening the mood by joking Fury Road was winner of Best Documentary Short Film. At least someone is trying to save the show.
10:40: “I don’t even want to watch anymore” says my good friend Joe Brown. Tell us how you really feel man!
10:41: Is Dev Patel trying to be Adam Driver? Because no.
10:43: The Amy Whinehouse documentary won Best Documentary. I’d say that’s probably the right call, though my knowledge on Documentary filmmaking post college is about as strong as my jump shot.
10:45: Chris Rock just did something with three little kids. It wasn’t nearly as good as his other stuff. This show…
10:49: Just like that, Rock redeems himself by exclaiming that Harvey Weinstein can “kiss his ass!” Amen to that. Also, Rock’s daughter raised $65,243 in Girl Scout cookie sales and Suge Knight bought the most. You can’t make that shit up.
10:50: Is that a tattoo of a dragon on Whoopie Goldberg’s shoulder? Hardcore man.
10:50: Spike Lee won an honorary Oscar? Gee, wonder what brought that on.
10:54: Now that was a speech.
10:54: GOOD GAWD, THAT’S LOU GOSSET JR’S MUSIC! I haven’t seen that guy since he was destroying all the hope Richard Gere had in the massively overrated An Officer and a Gentlemen. And now I feel really bad for making that joke because he’s here to introduce the always moving In Memoriam segment.
10:59: It’s indeed a little dusty here in Parts Unknown.
11:03: A really cool moment happens when Jacob Tremblay from Room and the kid from Beasts of No Nation present the award for Best Live Action Short. Way to make me actually care about the award little dudes!
11:06: I’m not sure that Sofia Vagara wants her list of accomplishments to include her role in Hot Pursuit. Remember that film? I’d say Pepperidge Farm remembered it, but they were probably so traumatized by it that they’ve blocked it out of their mind.
11:08: Son of Saul wins Best Foreign Film. Yet another category I need to get more up to date on.
11:09: Joe Biden just came out to the Indiana Jones music and got a standing ovation. What a strange night this is. Even stranger is that he delivered an absolutely great speech about how rape needs to be stopped before introducing Lady Gaga to perform her Oscar nominated song. Right on Biden!
11:13: In the last two months, Lady Gaga has won a Golden Globe for acting, sang the greatest rendition of the national anthem at a Super Bowl since Whitney Houston and is likely going to win an Academy Award tonight for Best Song following an absolutely amazing performance of her song “Till It Happens to You”. Can we safely say she’s the queen of the pop stars for sure now?
11:18: Matt Mortensen is telling me he believes Fury Road is getting at least one of the last two awards it’s nominated for. I’m not sure if he’s trying to add on to the jinx or if he’s actually serious.
11:19: Turns out he thought it was winning Best Song. Spoiler alert; Fury Road isn’t nominated for Best Song. Nice going Matt!
11:20: I swear, if Morricone doesn’t win here on top of Stallone losing...
11:22: Morricone wins! JUSTICE! JUSTICE!
11:25: That was one of the best moments I’ve ever had watching the Oscars. I cried. #ThankYouMorricone. Yes, I just sold out and used a hash tag. I don’t care; the guy who scored The Great Silence, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West just won an Oscar!
11:27:…Sam Smith really just beat Lady Gaga?! After that performance?!
11:28: ALI G IN DA HOUSE! Fine way to recover from Lady Gaga being flat out robbed.
11:29: Ali G calling Idris Elba “Idris Elbow” is right up there with Kate Winslet looking like a Weezer groupie as best nerdy moment of the evening.
11:35: We return to commercial to see J.J. Abrams presenting Best Director. It's funny because Abrams is nowhere close to being in the same league as these five.
11:37: Alejandro G. Inarritu becomes only the third man to win Best Director back to back in Oscar’s history. I’m not mad…I’m just disappointed. Judging by the fact that George Miller got the loudest ovation out of all five directors nominated, I’m guess the rest of the audience is too.
11:43: “It is Infomercial late!” says Chris Rock. He’s not kidding.
11:44: Eddie Redmayne is out to present Best Actress and dammit I just don’t care anymore. I didn’t think I’d be this deflated by Miller losing to Inarritu; shows how much I know.
11:45: On the funny side, El Hijo del Santo is really pumped about Inarritu winning. If this leads to him pitching an El Santo biopic to Inarritu and Inarritu somehow accepting, I will change my mind about him winning tonight in an instant!
11:49: Brie Larsen wins, delivers an excellent speech and causes Jennifer Lawrence’s soul to die just a tad as she witnesses the greatest challenge to her throne as America’s Sweetheart finally arrive. I’m down for a decade of Larsen vs. Lawrence at the Oscars.
11:51: This broadcast desperately needs an M. Night Shyamalan esq twist right now. Yes, even more so than Leo having his Phil Mickelson at the Masters 2004 moment.
11:55: Is it Leo’s time? YES!!!
11:56: It may have been predictable and it wasn’t anywhere close to his greatest performance, but damn it’s nice to see Leonardo DiCaprio finally getting his due. Good for you Leo; you finally are the king of the world. Yes, I had to.
11:58: Wow, no commercial break before the Best Picture presentation (by Morgan Freeman, a wise choice). Time must indeed be short!
11:58: Come on Fury Road. Come on Fury Road. COME ON FURY ROAD!
12:00:..and it’s Spotlight. Huh?
12:02: Still trying to comprehend that Spotlight actually just won Best Picture. On one hand, at least it wasn’t The Revenant. On the other hand, really? The only way I could be more confused by this show is if it ended with Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” playing. Oh wait…
And that’s the Oscars. Here’s what we learned; the show is still an overlong, bloated affair that has more good than bad, Chris Rock is the man, the best moments of the Oscars are really great (which makes it even more painful that it’s such a slog to get through) and most of the people and films that deserve to win don’t because IT’S THE ACADEMY DAMMIT! Sum it up Immortan Joe!
