The Oscars That Almost Weren't

I'll admit it: the Oscars are one of my favorite nights of the year. It's like the Superbowl, except consistently more interesting. Of course, it's probably only interesting if you've seen any of the films that have been nominated, but that's at your own discretion. I figure that the excitement I get out of watching the awards is similar to how aspiring athletes feel when they watch the Olympics. Maybe not. Whatever.

I'm not going to recap the winners because if you didn't care enough to watch it, I don't care enough to fill you in. I will say the following:

-Amy Ryan should have won Best Supporting
-Thank GOD Juno didn't win Best Picture
-Apparently Americans aren't any good at acting anymore. (Every single acting award was given to foreigners: French, Spanish, British)
-Atonement got robbed

And most importantly...GLEN AND MARKETA WON AN OSCAR!!! Not only was their performance wonderful, but they beat out THREE vomit-inducing songs from Enchanted. And well-deserved. Dan works with them at Columbia (Records) and literally the second we all stopped screaming, his phone started ringing non-stop. I am SO PROUD of them it's unreal. If you don't own the Once soundtrack, buy it immediately.

Otherwise, most of my predictions (and everyone else's) were pretty accurate. It would have been a difficult year to be on the Academy I think, because there were a lot of really great films this year. I was a little worried that there would be a repeat of 2006, when there were four fantastic films and one abomination, and it won. (Crash, of course. Would have been more aptly named Trash. Or Trainwreck. Just saying. I'm not bitter.) In similar fashion, this year there were, once again, four great nominees and one sub-par one. When I first saw the trailer for Juno, I was really stoked for it. And when I saw it, I was...significantly underwhelmed. And I'm sorry Ellen Page, you are not acting, you are playing yourself. Not difficult.

Excuse the tangent. I am happy with the awards this year because my agency more nominations than some of the biggest agencies did, and some were victorious, so yippee for that. And despite the overall boring-ness, there were some notable moments:

-Gary Busey attacking Jennifer Garner on the red carpet
-Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill pretending to be Halle Berry and Judi Dench
-Colin Farrell and John Travolta sliding all over the stage
-Cameron Diaz proves she's blonde after all
-Marketa gets snubbed for her acceptance speech and is brought back out after the commercial break to finish it
-Martin Scorsese is allowed to give the award for Best Directing now that he's FINALLY won an Oscar
-James McAvoy. Enough said.

All in all, considering it was the 80th, I thought it was pretty tame. Especially considering the whole thing almost never even happened because of the strike. You'd think it would have been a little more celebratory. Jon Stewart was moderately funny but a little too tame, and there were a few too many montages.

And now, onto the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS...what they wore!

THE WINNERS: (in no particular order)

Jennifer Garner (in Oscar de la Renta)


Katherine Heigl (in Escada)


Keri Russell (in Nina Ricci)


Cameron Diaz (in Dior)


Amy Adams (in Proenza Schouler)


Anne Hathaway (in Marchesa)


THE LOSERS:

Ellen Page


Jennifer Hudson


Tilda Swinton


Rebecca Miller


Diablo Cody



Speaking of Diablo Cody, not only does she have a naked woman tattooed on her arm and a dress with a way-too-high slit, she also wore these:



...instead of THESE:



Yes. That's right. Homegirl wore FLATS to the OSCARS. When she could have worn STUART WEITZMAN heels that are worth $1 MILLION DOLLARS. Why? Why? WHY?! You IDIOT.

But apparently all of these faux-pas are excusable because she used to be a stripper. Oh, all right. Sure. That's fine.

Anyway.

In case you were wondering--trends this year: red dresses, and being pregnant.

In closing, here is a video of the montage of all 79 best picture winners in the past, not including last night's winner. How many have YOU seen? (My answer: 47)

Something Lame, And The Most Un-Lame Thing Ever

I've been slacking on the posts this week, and believe it or not, its because I've been actually kind of busy. Yeah, I know, wicked lame excuse for someone who is confined to her apartment (hence the subject). But I've been trying to get a lot of work done, and trying to readjust and work out my schedule. Tomorrow I'm going home for the weekend because I have to have yet another meeting with my surgeon. Keep your fingers crossed that he tells me I can start putting weight on my ankle. Oh, and there's the Superbowl. No big deal.

To make up for my lameness (in theory as well as literally/physically), I'd like to take this opportunity to introduce you all, if you haven't been introduced already, to the wonderfulness that is Jake and Amir.

If you like The Office, or actually, if you have any sense of humor whatsoever, you will enjoy their videos. They work for Connected Ventures, which is the media company behind goldmines such as CollegeHumor and Busted Tees. Basically, these guys are hilarious. To use one of their own terms, they are "so ace". (Watch them. You'll get it.) I recently became a fan and am now addicted, and look forward to their new videos as much as I would look forward to a new episode of any of my favorite TV shows (most of which right now, do not exist, thank you WGA strike).

As hard as it is for me to pick my favorite videos, two four of them are below. But if you're smart, you'll bookmark their website. Seriously. Just watch them. All of them. Just do it.






Beer from Amir on Vimeo.


Costume from Amir on Vimeo.

Tomorrow: LOST predictions, questions, etc!

Fun At The Grocery Store And The Garbage That Is MTV

So today I went grocery shopping with my mom to get a boatload of stuff to bring back to my apartment when she drives me back to New York tomorrow, since I certainly won’t be getting to Whole Foods anytime soon. However, hobbling around a huge store on crutches: no dice. But, lucky for me and cripples and senior citizens everywhere, my friendly neighborhood superstore has a little something that helps people like myself make grocery shopping possible, and even pretty fun.



(This was right before I managed an Austin Powers-style eight point turn.) Not only can you putter around with ease, people tend to stay out of your way. But if they didn’t, it even has a horn. Badass!

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I hate MTV. I hate what it does to the "youth", I hate the messages it puts out, and most of all, I hate it on more personal level after having to work A LOT with them doing shoots when I worked at a production company a few years ago. Example: we were supposed to be doing a shoot for Jay-Z. Not one single person at MTV could tell us, up until AN HOUR before the start, i.e. when the crew has already arrived, if Jay-Z was even scheduled to be there. It baffles me how it still functions as a corporation with so many incompetent idiots in charge.

That being said, I am guilty of still tuning in to watch drivel like The Hills, Real World, and the RW/RR Challenges, which are probably my favorite. And honestly, "True Life: I'm From Staten Island" is borderline genius. There, I admitted it, okay? I'm guilty of sometimes watching MTV. I'm not proud of it, but it happens.

HOWEVER. I hate. Hate, hate, hate, how they suddenly seem to be dead set on taking several relatively obscure artists that I like and turning them into commercial bullshit. I used to like Tegan and Sara, until I saw them playing on MTV while they rolled highlights from "Life of Ryan". I cringe to think of teenyboppers listening to Matt White or The Shys on their iPod shuffles, in between Hilary Duff and Fall Out Boy, another band I despise. I almost threw my remote at the TV when I was flipping through the channels and heard Graham Colton during an episode of "Newport Harbor".

On a similar note, a friend of mine just won a trip to Egypt after playing a trivia game on TRL, which I'm pretty sure he entered as a joke. I'm actually surprised he wasn't too old to play. Anyway, here's the video. The end is by far the best. Who doesn't dream of running around the TRL studio getting high fives?



On a slightly less similar note, today I made a change that is probably the smartest thing I could possibly have done with respect to iTunes: I changed my store from US to UK. I know what you’re thinking: “You IDIOT, you’re gonna pay double for everything!” First of all, it isn’t double. Songs on iTunes UK are only 0.79. Yes, it’s in pounds. But it’s not double. And obviously I’m not going it for the bargains. Rather, let’s take a look at what’s on each store’s “home” screen.

On UK: Cat Power, MGMT, Lupe Fiasco, Mika, Kaiser Chiefs, Take That (!), Thom Yorke, Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson. A nice assortment of a bunch of my favorite artists, all right there on the home screen.

On US: Yellowcard, Timabland, Fergie, Soulja Boy, Britney Spears, Chris Brown, Taylor Swift, Lil Wayne. The Juno Soundtrack. AKA, crap. MTV vomit.

And the real kicker for me at least, is that iTunes UK gets in new songs from a lot of my favorite DJs/electronic artists like Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, New Young Pony Club, Bob Sinclar, etc, way before they come in on the US store. And so if every once in a while I have to pay a little extra, fine. A small price to pay (literally). And goddamn, Cat Power sounds better every time I listen.

And while we're at it, my favorite Justice video. It probably wouldn't even be that hard to do if you had a good editor, but it's so fun to watch!