By Julia Gray
Talking back to most overrated event of the year.
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Question: Whoa, what is Miley Cyrus doing at the Oscars? Is her dad her date? She’s a sure thing, Billy Ray!
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Miley is one of the first to arrive, which is so uncool. Miley, if you’re going to attend an awards show where no one gives a fiddler’s fart about you, at least be cool and arrive when the cool kids do. Her dress reminds me of Disney cake that’s been sitting in the sun for a little too long and is teeming with barf-inducing goodness.
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Good lord, Giuliana Rancic’s head is hopelessly large. I know I’ve written about her sizable noggin before but it requires constant comment.
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Ryan Seacrest is hopelessly tiny. He looks like the scruffy human version of the Oscar statue with bed-head. How 2002.
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Wow. Phoebe Cates looks incredible. Long gone are the days when she graced the cover of Seventeen magazine. Or Brad Hamilton’s imagination.
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Madonna is hosting an after-party? No. Thank. You. I’d rather eat ground glass.
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Phony baloney lovebirds Zac Effron and Vanessa Hudgens are . . . oh, nevermind.
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I didn’t know Best Actress nominee Melissa Leo moonlights as a schoolmarm when she isn’t acting. Interesting.
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Heidi Klum and Seal? They would show up at the opening of an envelope. They’re taking over for the late Red Buttons.
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When did Robert Pattinson’s ship to his home planet leave? More importantly, why wasn’t he on it?
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Will someone tell me the difference between Jessicas Biel and Alba?
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How tall is the apple crate that Seacrest is standing on? C’mon, Ryan, We all know you’re about an inch taller than a hobbit.
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What is the fascination with Sarah Jessica Parker? Why the long face? (*rimshot!)
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Oh yeah, there’s an awards ceremony!
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Or . . . I went to a fashion show and an awards ceremony broke out!
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7:30 P.M.: Wow, Hugh Jackman looks like he was carved out of cream cheese. And the set looks like it was pulled out of one of Sam “Ace” Rothstein’s casinos. Where are the Sam Rothstein Dancers?
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Craigslist Dancers. Now, that’s funny.
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Whoopi’s dress – hmm . . . um . . . well, umm . . . Somewhere a drag queen is missing her bathroom curtains.
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Tilda Swinton does a great David Bowie impression, post-Ziggy Stardust.
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Best Supporting Actress Winner Penelope Cruz! She’s great, but you can only understand what she’s saying when she’s acting as someone you can understand what they’re saying.
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7:56 P.M.: Nice jab at Scientology, Tina Fey. How can one not take jabs at a religion that is endorsed by a dude who named his kid Pilot Inspektor?
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7:58 P.M.: Milk wins Best Original Screenplay. Acceptance speech brings a tear to my eye.
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8:02 P.M. I just fell in love with Steve Martin. I’m picking out our home in the Palisades right now and deciding how to decorate it. Eclectic Country French? Charles Eames-esque? Wagon wheel furniture with a big jukebox that features banjo and zydeco music?
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Hi, I’m Jennifer Aniston’s dress. I’m very elegant and flattering. You see, Ms. Aniston is built like a whippet and has an ass that doesn’t quit. Plus, she’s tan all year round.
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8:10 P.M.: Jack Black just makes me tired. Of Jack Black.
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8:11 P.M.: How random was it that the winner of the Best Animated Short quoted a Styx song? He should be brought back to do that every year. Plus, if you play his acceptance speech backwards, he’s also calling for Roland Burris to resign.
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8:17 P.M.: Perhaps whoever wins Best Art Director can devise a prop to push Sarah Jessica Parker’s boobs even higher up into her neck. Even Daniel “007” Craig is unnerved.
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8:28 P.M: This “Romantic Films of 2008” montage is giving me indigestion.
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8:32 P.M.: Best Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire) to presenter Ben Stiller-as-Joaquin Phoenix: “You look like you work in an Hasidic meth lab.”
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8:40 P.M.: SciTech Awards recap. Time to get some popcorn and perhaps a beverage. Maybe I’ll take a quick catnap.
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8:44 P.M.: Who’s a better actor? Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama? Answer: Roland Burris.
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8:53 P.M.: Beyoncé looks like she just finished ice skating to a Miami Sound Machine montage with Scott Hamilton at the Ice Capades in Valencia.
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9:14 P.M.: Bill Maher’s suit is so shiny I can hardly see the keyboard.
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9:24 P.M.: Why are they playing music over the sequence that’s supposed to showcase sound design and sound editing? Do the producers not understand the concept of, I’ll say it again SOUND DESIGN AND SOUND EDITING? Also, not all action films have the best sound design and sound editing, folks. Just because it’s big and loud doesn’t mean it’s the best, mmmkay?
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Help me out here – I’m missing the “Gosh Will Smith is so awesome and cool! I wanna be his BFF” gene. I’ve tried, really. I’ve tried to look deep within myself to find something, somewhere, that buys into the whole Will Smith hype. But I just can’t. Perhaps there’s a special tea I can drink or a Facebook group I can join to help to awaken whatever it is inside me that is dead to the Will Smith aura.
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Apparently, film editors aren’t special enough anymore to have their own, separate presentation like the Art Directors and Cinematographers do. And why should they? Editors only make everyone else in a film look good.
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9:42 P.M.: Eddie Murphy presenting the Jean Hersholt Award to Jerry HELLO LAAAAAADY Lewis. A good time to attack while France is distracted.
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9:50-something P.M.: I must have drifted off. Were those the nominated scores the Kodak Theater Orchestra was just playing? They all sounded the same, so they must have been.
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I’ve been waiting all night for the Bollywood Dance number because I’m planning on dancing along with the dancers. Yep. I am.
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10:12 P.M.: Queen Latifah singing ’bout all the folks who died in 2008. Yep. They’re dead.
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10:15 P.M.: Reese Witherspoon. What the heck is she wearing? I really hope Cecil B. DeMille wins this time!
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10:26 P.M.: Best Actress. I hope Kate Winslet thanks her manicurist and her dog groomer since she so selfishly omitted them from both of her Golden Globe speeches.
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Is Sophia Loren going to a Vegas after-party in 1975 or something?
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10:48 P.M.:Steven Spielberg presenting Best Picture. I wish that his Mexican Non-Union Equivalent were up there instead.
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Big surprise: Slumdog wins. It will play the Steelers in the Super Oscars next week.
Posted on February 23, 2009