By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
So last night was the 81st Academy Awards. But luckily, I watched them so you didn’t have to. No worries if you fell asleep halfway through! If you’re like me and couldn’t care less who’s wearing what and got more pumped up for the Watchmen trailers during the commercial breaks than the acceptance speeches, then I’ve got everything you need to know right here. Consider this a Twitter feed straight into my brain between 8pm and 12am (EST) last night.
8:00 The pre-show is starting on the red carpet. Tim Gunn starts babbling, but I notice for the first time that this ceremony is the 81st and feel compelled to do some quick math to figure out that the last time that number was a perfect square was 1992.
8:04 Tim Gunn observes to Amy Adams that the Best Supporting Actress category involves a nun versus a stripper. Dude, a stripper nun! Put that plot in space and it’s totally the next Joss Whedon hit!
8:14 OMG IT’S IRON MAN!!! He’s talking about playing Sherlock Holmes in an upcoming movie and I’m imagining a mash-up of the two. Sherlock Holmes would have kicked some major butt as part robot.
8:19 The “most famous accountants in film” make their way down the red carpet. Enjoy it, accountants everywhere. This is your yearly moment of glory. Well, except for April 14.
8:22 Time Gunn observes to Penelope Cruz that the Oscars are twice as old as she is. YOU SUCK AT MATH, TIM GUNN. Or she should be pretty insulted because she’s only 34, not 40.5.
8:30 Hey the ceremony is star…. OMG IT’S WOLVERINE IN A TUX. Wait, when did he get that funny accent? Oh god, he sings and dances too? And did he really just say “that’s the way I roll”?
8:36 Jackman’s opening number includes a song called “How Come Comic Book Movies Never Get Nominated?” I’m wondering the same thing.
8:38 Why does the song about The Reader look like something out of Tron?
8:40 The first gay joke of the evening, when Jackman sits down in Frank Langella’s lap. (Well, except I’m also pretty sure that he and Anne Hathaway just acted out a Frost/Nixon slash fic on stage.)
8:42 Past Supporting Actress winners are on stage. Whoopie Goldberg is wearing a leopard-print bedspread and Goldie Hawn is about a centimeter and a half from a wardrobe malfunction. Somebody hold me.
8:46 Tilda Swinton: “A stripper needn’t ever take off her dignity with her clothes.” Really? Are we sure about that one?
8:48 Oh yeah. I forgot that acceptance speeches are usually really boring. Plus Penelope Cruz says that art is the universal language. WRONG. The correct answer is “math.”
8:53 Tina Fey comes on stage and a I feel a flicker of hope. Followed immediately by an exchange between her and Steve Martin that actually gets a laugh out of me: “To write is to live forever.” “The man who wrote that is dead.” Also, Original Screenplay is the only Oscar that in even my wildest dreams I can imagine winning, so I kind of get warm and fuzzy for the Milk writer.
9:02 Slumdog Millionaire gets its first Oscar of the evening and I’m bored already. I haven’t seen this movie yet but I’m sure it’s great, blah blah blah.
9:06 There’s a clip from The Clone Wars in an animation montage. This is the closest that’s ever getting to the Oscars…
9:10 The two animation winners thank Steve Jobs and Mr. Roboto respectively. Are we sure they’re not the same person?
9:20 The Dark Knight loses for the first time. BOOOOOOOO.
9:25 The Dark Knight AND Hellboy lose to Benjamin Button. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
9:29 LOL Robert Pattinson is on stage looking ENIGMATIC AND BROODING. Are we pandering to the teenage girl crowd now?
9:31 Speaking of teenage girls… High School Musical 3 is in the “romance” montage. And that’s the closest Zac Efron will ever get to the Oscars…
9:34 Second laugh of the evening. Ben Stiller is dressed like Crazy Joaquin Phoenix, and Natalie Portman (looking smoking hot) tells him he looks like he works at a Hasidic meth lab. Also, Ben sticks his gum on the podium. I wonder how much that would go for on eBay?
9:36 Slumdog beats Dark Knight. Ugh, I’m getting bored again.
9:38 And Jessica Biel comes up to give the geek crowd a whole minute and a half of respect for the Scientific and Technical Awards. Except then she says “sci tech thingamajigs” and I lose all respect for her. Though apparently Ed Catmull is God.
9:43 Okay, the Judd Apatow short is pretty funny. Especially at the end when they ask whether they can make an Oscar into a pipe. Haha, I get it, they’re pretending to be stoners!
9:48 Except when they both crack up as James Franco mispronounces the German title of the Short Film winner, I realize that they probably weren’t acting.
9:56 Oh no, I was totally wrong about Zac Efron. He’s actually ON STAGE. Singing and dancing. Who is making these decision?!
10:09 Heath Ledger wins Best Supporting Actor and I actually get a little misty when his dad looks like he’s trying not to cry. :(
10:14 Hmmmm somehow I think Bill Mahr was off-script when he made that comment about “silly gods.”
10:23 Oh right, here’s the good movies! Fast cars and explosion montage! Will Smith says he likes these movies because they have fans. No kidding, dude.
10:25 WHAT. Benjamin Button won for visual effects? GRRRRR. I feel slightly better when The Dark Knight beats Slumdog for sound editing, but then Slumdog gets sound mixing… and I realize I have no idea what the difference is anyway.
10:56 I think I almost fell asleep. At least we passed the halfway point. Ugh, even the scores are boring this year. Where’s John Williams when you need him?
10:58 UGH ZAC EFRON AGAIN? GO AWAY. And “if the score is the narrative the song is the punctuation”? Who’s writing this garbage?
11:10 I think the singing over the death montage is to discourage people from clapping and turning it into a popularity contest. Except it totally is anyway. I call the winners as Sydney Pollack, Paul Newman, and Michael Crichton. Though Ricardo Montalban didn’t make a bad showing! Also, there is an eerie silence for Charlton Heston. Hrm.
11:21 More Slumdog. Yawn.
11:30 My TIVO stops recording and we’re not even through best actress yet… oh dear god, Sophia Loren looks scary. Someone cast her in a zombie flick, stat. Kate Winslet, no shocker there. She’s totally cute, though.
11:36 Adrian Brody shows up as one of the best actor presenters and suddenly I’m crossing my fingers that Sean Penn wins and kisses him. Also he says something about googling Richard Jenkins, which is probably because no one knows who the heck he is.
11:40 Robert Pattinson is sitting behind Mickey Rourke when the camera pans over. He’s still brooding and enigmatic.
11:43 Sean Penn wins but no kiss. I don’t blame him, Adrian Brody kind of looks like Severus Snape tonight.
11:54 AND THE WINNER IS… Slumdog Millionaire. Man, if I had to wait this long there could have at least been a twist ending! (AND THE WINNER IS… The Love Guru!)
11:57 And the show ends with Jackman introducing a montage of upcoming films for 2009, noting that you never know which one will be here next year… somehow I don’t think it’s going to be Night at the Museum 2.
11:59 Next year I’m TIVOing this so I can fast forward through the boring parts.
[Image Source: Flickr]