A little rehearsed, a little long. I'm docking points for the twang and the reference to Tennessee. But Reese Witherspoon's left eyebrow twitched so nervously throughout her Best Actress acceptance speech that she won me over. I'm going to say that she was the most earnest winner since Sally Field.
This is just a conspiracy theory. But it seems as though there is an agenda tonight -- to fool women into gussying up as ’80s-era whores.
Hear me out. There was the performance of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,‿ obviously. But we saw the exact same look in two commercials: for Tab energy drink, and on a very garish Beyonce for L’Oreal’s HIP High Intensity Pigments.
Good thing I held onto my electric blue mascara from junior high, and all that Spandex.
When the dancing hookers weren't distracting me, I'm pretty sure I heard some naughty words slip through the ABC censors. Is the "s" word OK now? That's progress, right? And then, if I'm not mistaken, presenter Queen Latifah used the "f" word before clapping her hand to her mouth. And THEN Three 6 Mafia was bleeped during their acceptance speech. What word could be left? Is there a "q" word?
I want to hate Meryl Streep on principle -- frankly, she's a role hog; give someone else a chance! -- but she was absolutely charming while she was ad-libbing with Lily Tomlin.
Maybe that's why auteurs love to work with her (and not, say, Ben Stiller?).
Richard Roeper sent along this photo with the caption: "Jennifer Aniston, thrilled to be on the red carpet." And I saw her roll her eyes after her pre-ceremony interview with Chris Connelly.
Vince Vaughn is going to have to work a little harder.
Listening to the music play over the minor award-winner speeches is getting to me. LET THEM TALK!
For a rough-and-tumble guy, Russell Crowe has an awfully precious “Superman‿ curl on his forehead.
Morgan Freeman, voiceover-artist extraordinaire, flubbed his intro onstage. Maybe his snappy ascot got him all choked up?
Jack Nicholson’s daughter is definitely a future Miss Golden Globe.
I think Nicole Kidman walked the red carpet without a date, but Keith Urban was sitting next to her in the audience. They appear to have matching hair blowouts, too.
The only celeb who blew off the photogs and the press was Joaquin Phoenix. He just raced into the Kodak Theater and ignored everyone who called his name. Everybody else posed and posed and posed...
Also: After I arrived at my hotel Thursday, I went to the bar at the hotel next to the Kodak Theater for a quick Amstel Light. At the table next to me: three guys in giant pants and baseball caps. Nobody noticed or bothered them.
Yes, it's true: I saw Three 6 Mafia before they were "Oscar-winning artists Three 6 Mafia."
I’m not sure who Matt Dillon brought as his date, but I’m disappointed it wasn’t his brother. Kevin Dillon’s character on HBO’s “Entourage,‿ Johnny Drama, would never let this opportunity pass.
I am now rooting for Felicity Huffman to lose. I’ve seen her crying twice already – when her “Desperate Housewives‿ co-stars saluted her, and when Dolly Parton sang – and I’m just not strong enough for a nervous breakdown at the podium.
Joaquin Phoenix is chewing gum.
Michelle Williams needs to stop letting Heath pick out her gowns for her. She looks like Big Bird. I’m trying to come up with a more original comparison, but she looks like Big Bird.
There seems to be a Hispanic row in the audience: Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and Salma Hayek are seated next to each other, and I’m assuming that Penelope Cruz was just off camera.
There’s something big, black and shiny sitting on Charlize Theron’s shoulder. Could she not have thought of a better body part to draw the eye?
I like to say that George Clooney is the new Cary Grant, and nobody agrees with me, but you all have to have fallen in love with him tonight. I still had tears in my eyes, laughing from the shtick with Jon Stewart…
(Digression: Wouldn’t George and Jon be the cutest gay couple? The passion for politics, the salt-and-pepper hair?)
…and then Clooney cracked me up with his “All right, so I’m not winning ‘Director’‿ opener. He worked in his “Sexiest Man Alive 1997‿ credit, and was reunited with his “The Peacemaker‿ co-star, Nicole Kidman, onstage. What a Hollywood ending.
Cheers, George! Celebrate with the interchangeable brunette of your choice.
(Photo courtesy of Richard Roeper.)
UPDATE: The official transcript of Clooney's speech:
Wow. Wow. All right, so I'm not winning director. It's the funny thing about winning an Academy Award, it will always be synonymous with your name from here on in. It will be Oscar winner, George Clooney. Sexiest Man Alive, 1997. Batman, died today in a freak accident at a -- Listen, I don't quite know how you compare art. You look at these performances this year, of these actors and unless we all did the same role, everybody put on a bat suit, and we'll all try that. Unless we all did the same role, I don't know how you compare it. They are stellar performances and wonderful work, and I'm honored, truly honored to be up here. And finally, I would say that, you know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talk about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy, proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch. And I thank you so much for this.
*William Hurt says he has a "thing" about jet black, so he wore navy blue. I could listen to him and the wiggy Gary Busey all night.
*Jessica Alba is the most beautiful person in the world, and yet the last movie of hers that I loved was "Never Been Kissed." I believe she dressed up as Disco Barbie.
*Giuliana DiPandi is speaking Farsi, for some reason.
*Felicity Huffman looks a little masculine in her daring dress. Maybe she's just going with the transgendered theme?
*Sandra Bullock appears to me as if she's in the first stages of pregnancy. Her face looks a little puffy. Of course, by those standards, her date, Keanu Reeves, is also pregnant.
*Salma Hayek is absolutely luscious, as always. A minor quibble: That blue gown makes her breasts look askew.
Best Actress nominee Amy Adams showed up in a brown showgirl-y gown that she attributed to Carolina Herrera. I was under the impression that Herrera still had a handshake agreement with Renee Zellweger not to outfit any other actresses at major events. Is it OK because Zellweger's not attending? Or is she attending, and we're in for a couture clash? Cat! Fight! Cat! Fight!
Naomi Watts showed up for an interview with Ryan Seacrest in E!'s odd little lounge, dressed in a gown that had obviously been in a shipwreck. At one point, you could see her look off camera and nod to her publicist, then announce she had something to say about how she got there.
It was in a Lexus hybrid.
How hard up can she be? She could have been nominated for "King Kong," and instead she's shilling for the local dealership? She couldn't afford to just lease it herself?
I'm going to hope for a drug problem. That's the only thing that could explain all this.
Traditionally, the first faces on the crimson carpet are the ones most in need of exposure. Richard Roeper mentioned Sally Kirkland; God bless her, every year she shows up first and then must wait in her seat for hours for the ceremony to begin. You know she's got power bars in that satin clutch.
I was going to predict that it'd be Brittany Murphy with her limo idling at the curb, but I was wrong. The first celebrity sightings are in:
On the E! Channel, John Legend was standing by for his Ryan Seacrest interview. Then Jennifer Jason Leigh and her nominated husband, Noah Baumbach, braved Isaac Mizrahi.
On the TV Guide Channel, Lisa Rinna submitted herself to Joan Rivers' fake-breast jokes.
P.S. By 4:41 p.m., Joan had already been bleeped. It was a word, incidentally, often used to describe female homosexuals -- in this case, Rosie O'Donnell.
I think I'm already oversaturated. I can now definitively answer the question: Is there any such thing as too much pre-Oscar coverage?
(Um, yes.)
Today, I have seen:
*Joan Rivers fondle an Oscar statuette and say, "If this little guy was equipped with batteries, I'd take him home with me."
*A commercial for M&Ms in which the big yellow candy has overdone the lip collagen. I don't think I hallucinated this.
*Debbie Matenopoulos get felt up by "America's Next Top Model's" Jay Manuel, in a segment ostensibly devoted to creating cleavage.
The TV Guide Channel and the E! Channel have given work to "The View's" Matenopoulos, "The Bachelor's" Chris Harrison, and "American Idol's" Kimberly Caldwell.
If I abruptly leave the blog, you'll know I've been snapped up for spokesmodel duties, too.
Here's what it's like on Oscar morning. Many many hours before the first recognizable person will walk down the red carpet--it's usually Sally Kirkland or Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Borgnine if they're both still alive--the streets around the Kodak Theater are closed off by concrete barricades, metal fences, security personnel, etc. You'd think the pope was on his way later today, but it's only the Gyllenhaals.
They've shut down the mall next to the Kodak. Frantic media people are distressed because this means the Starbucks is closed--but there's another Starbucks a few blocks away, on "Tacky Museum Row," as I like to call it. Past the Guinness Museum, beyond Ripley's, near the Scientology Center, there it is! An open Starbucks, with the line snaking out to the sidewalk.
I fuel up on coffee and return to my hotel, navigating my way past maniacal fans that have been camping out for hours. They'll stay here for hours, waiting for that magic moment when a Philip Seymour Hoffman or a Felicity Huffman emerges from a limousine and waves in their direction.
I just got word that I have to be in place at 1 p.m. PST--four hours before the Oscars--in order to pass through security and get into place for TV duties. That means I'll be wearing a tuxedo for at least the next 14 hours. You don't even wear a tux that long on your wedding day, do you?
The New York Post's Page Six says that Time magazine says that Mel Gibson says that he'll appear tonight on the Oscars in a taped message. Speaking Maya.
Those suspicious Page Sixers speculate that he's doing it to promote his next movie, "Apocalypto," which is filmed in the ancient Mexican language.
Mel Gibson pretty much lost me at "The Man Without a Face," so I can't say I'm surprised.
I definitely can't say it in Maya.
(Digression: I'm dying to get one of those "As seen on Page Six" shirts. Is it too pathetic to get one if you've never been on Page Six? Or is that the point? Or was Lindsay Lohan so excited when she finally qualified?)
Gibson says he's not going to tone down his antics. "After what I experienced with 'The Passion,' I frankly don't give a flying f - - - about much of what they think," he told Time.
