Oscar, Oscar

One of my daily tasks at work is to hit the blog so that I can look at my statistics on how many people visited the site the previous day. It is one of those thirty second breaks from spreadsheets that I enjoy. Today I clicked on my bookmark for this page and saw that the corporate web filter had blocked it and listed it under the category “sex.”

Ok, not only have I read everything on this site I have written every word of it. I have no idea how in the world they decided it fit that category. “Nonsensical ramblings written in improper English” sure but the last thing that I would consider this place to be is adult content. Immature is more like it. (Later in the day I wasn’t blocked so I don’t know quite what was going on.)

Anyway, I didn’t live blog the Oscars last night because I couldn’t bring myself to stay up past midnight but I have some comments on the proceedings. Here they are

1) Last night marked the first time that I ever cared when someone mentioned who they were wearing because Meryl Streep was wearing Chris March. Yes, the guy from Project Runway who was famous for making drag queen outfits and won a competition to make an outfit for a WWE diva. Obviously he and Meryl are a perfect combination. He was easily one of the most talented, funniest and coolest people ever to appear on that show so I am happy to see him get a big break.

2) Whoever decided to let Kathy Ireland be a red carpet interviewer deserves to be fired out of a cannon. There is a reason why she never had a career outside of appearing in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issues. The woman simply cannot speak.

3) Now I am not one to ever question having Neil Patrick Harris appear in anything. In fact, I would put him on every show if I could. But wasn’t it just a little odd to have him be the first person on stage singing a song about the fact that there were two hosts? No fault of NPH there because he went for it with gusto and I love the fact that it cements him as a top tier personality but there seemed to be no point of it.

4) Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were surprisingly unfunny. The monologue went on much too long and had a few too many dead spots. The problem with two hosts is unless they are a comedy team it doesn’t really make sense to do a monologue. They had no timing with regards to passing jokes on to one another and it seemed to be a poor showing by two incredibly talented people.

5) How do you have Michael Jackson in the “applaud for dead people” segment but not Farrah Fawcett? If you don’t consider Farrah a movie star then how could you consider Michael? I’m not a fan of that segment to begin with as it really becomes a popularity contest amongst the deceased but it just shows how poorly done it can sometimes be.

6) No real surprises amongst the acting winners though I still wish that when they hand out the awards that they would mention the winners lesser accomplishments like “Miss Bullock also starred in All About Steve and Speed 2: Cruise Control.” Also, props to Sandra for winning a Razzie and an Oscar in the same weekend. Jeff Bridges deserved an award for lifetime achievement at least so I have no problems with his victory either.

7) Speaking of lifetime achievement awards, how the hell could you not let Roger Corman and Lauren Bacall speak? I mean, it’s Lauren freaking Bacall. She would have thanked Humphrey Bogart in her speech. It would have been an amazing moment. The honorary Oscar is one of the cool moments of the night and they took it away from us.

8) The totally unexpected moment was the tribute to John Hughes. I did not see that coming at all. While he was a great director and essentially created his own genre his style typically does not result in such a posthumous honor. It was amazing to see all of his former stars on stage providing memories of his influence on their careers, which in Judd Nelson’s case appears to be working the late shift at a 7-11. But do you know what this segment really brought home for me? It’s the fact that we are old now. I mean, Hughes films were about teenagers that came out while I was a teenager. Now I look at Anthony Michael Hall and Matthew Broderick and go, wow, they are old. Which means I am old, too. Ally Sheedy may still look great but the fact is that are youth is over. We are adults now and John Hughes is gone so we have no idea how adults are supposed to be.