Oscars

Oscar aftermath from the other side of the pond

Unlike TCC, I (the BC) am in Europe, so must watch the thing in the wee hours of the morning - the preshow starts at 1 AM for us. Fortunately we have been able to turn this into an annual eat-and-drink party. Due to the aftereffects of this, at the moment (around noon Monday) I have a slight hangover-ish headache and feel gassy. Anyway, here are some thoughts on the ceremony from my point of view.

• Jon Stewart was a terrific host! He managed to be funny and irreverent whilst not offending anyone, as Chris Rock did with his whole Jude Law spiel. Well of course there was the obligatory Dick Cheney joke, but that's fair game. His black-suit-with-black-tie ensemble did make him look a bit like a funeral director however. We do hope he is invited back as host regardless of his wardrobe.
• Dude, what's with the hyperactive American preshow hosts? However, we are so happy that Pro Sieben decided to ditch their really, really lame German preshow.
• Wow, a lot of cleavage was displayed. Wow. And I guess they have managed to improve plastic surgery so that most of the boobs looked natural. The only pair that looked a bit suspicious were Rachel Weitz's. (Disclaimer: the BC is female, so no male chauvanism going on here.)
• Most of the ladies looked great, but Jessica Alba caused the eyes of the male members of our little Oscar-watching party to pop out of their sockets and roll all around the floor. The other lady that caused a collective "wow" (in the positive sense) was Queen Latifah, who looked smashing in her elegant black gown. Cherize Theron's humongous on-the-shoulder bow was the only slightly jarring note in an otherwise great night of one-off expensive fashion.
• George Clooney. How cooler and sexier can one man get? Incidentally, he was recently interviewed on the BBC, where he stated that he prefers to try to make his political views known by the work he produces, rather than campaigning or running for office. Incidentally no. 2, the earliest Clooney role that the BC remembers is when he played Sela Ward's police detective boyfriend on a show called Sisters. Of course, he only became Cool when he got the starring role on ER. He seems to have trodden a similar TV-to-mega-moviestar route as Tom Hanks has done. (Tom Hanks' breakout TV role was in a show called Bosom Buddies, where he played a guy who dresses up as a woman so he can get into a cheap rent-controlled apartment in an women-only hotel/apartment complex.)
• The BC will pay Big Money for one of those adorable plush penguins clutched by the March Of the Penguins French dudes.
• Prior to the Best Song announcement, we were all saying "At least there's no way that that Pimp song will win, haha." .... Woah. And cool, because Hustle and Flow was one of the best movies we saw last year.
• Is it just us, or do a lot of those Hollywood dudes seem to have Asian wives/girlfriends?
• Lowlight: the costume designer for Memoirs of a Geisha thanking "the people of Japan for the inspiration". Geez.

The best thing to say about the Oscars was that no one nodded off at all this year. At 5:30am or whenever the thing ended, we were all alert, happy and drunk/burping. A good evening indeed.