Post-Oscar 2010 Recap

So, as I noted before, this was rather an off-year for us as far as Oscar Season went. Thus, we didn't Live Blog the ceremony as in past years. Fear not, however, faithful readers, we most certainly did settle in for one of our favorite evenings of the year! A bottle of Coppola Rossi accompanied some delicious ravioli during the E! Live from the Red Carpet pre-show and many M&M's were consumed during the Oscar ceremony itself!

Fashion-wise, I hated Zoe Saldana's dress - the one that looked like several french poodles had been dyed purple and stuck to the train - and also wasn't too fond of the supporting actress nominee who looked like she had been wrapped in one giant red ruffle from head to toe. A runner-up for displeasing dress was Sarah Jessica Parker's odd butter-cream number - if it had either had the halter-neck or was just strapless, it might have been okay, but having both was weird and the dress seemed to change color depending on the light, which often looked worse than it should have. Oh yes, speaking of lousy color choices, Charlize Theron's "look at my boobs" fuschia dress with the big pink circles around her individual bosoms was another clunker. The good looks of the night were Kate Winslet and Sandra Bullock - both of whom wore stunning, classy gowns with just the right hairstyles and jewelry.

I have to mention that I thought that both Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe looked fabulous. They had just the right gowns for full-figured women, in good colors for them. Gabourey was hilarious, too - if you caught her on E's show, by the time she reached the ABC booth, she was pretty much repeating rehearsed lines, but on E she was fresh and personal and just a delight. And, of course, I can't leave out our girlfriend, the always-stunning, Queen Latifah, who once again looked fabulous.

The men were pretty much all wearing tuxes. The worst tux of the night was on the fashion critic guy from E, who looked like he had made his (well-fitted!) suit coat out of a grey paisley upholstery fabric. George Clooney - hot, Keanu Reeves - still my cool breeze over the mountain. Best tux of the night? Robin Williams, just plain classy.

As far as the awards went, I was shocked that The Hurt Locker won the biggies. I was rooting against Avatar just because I didn't think it had everything it needed to be the big winner, but I wasn't all that into Hurt Locker either. I was surprised and thrilled when Sandra Bullock won for Best Actress, I really thought the award would go to Meryl, but I liked Sandra in The Blind Side (and have liked her for a long time, actually) so that was cool. What we were happiest about was that both the short films (animated and live-action) that we liked actually won!

Speaking of short films, dang the lady who interrupted the documentary short winner was annoying! Bad blood, much? Also annoying, the multiple audio problems and the lousy presentation of the In Memoriam reel (shots too wide to read the names of the deceased, montage left out important people), and the consistent playing off of any co-winner unfortunate enough to have to give their acceptance speech second.

Overall, I thought the ceremony was only so-so. The opening number with Neil Patrick Harris was awesome. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are very funny, although their opening shtick seemed redundant after the opening musical number - sort of like, "oh, we're obliged to make fun of the nominees now." The show started out strong nonetheless, and was running at a really good clip for about the first hour. Suddenly, despite shortening a lot of the traditional elements (like presenting the lifetime achievement awards separately and just acknowledging them during the show, or eliminating the performances of the Original Song nominees), despite cutting off any winner not the first in their group to speak, with fewer montages, and a much-shorter Memorial reel, the show still managed to slow to a crawl and drag itself well past midnight, and then end abruptly with an impromptu wrap from Martin and Baldwin.

Okay, so it wasn't Rob Lowe serenading Snow White and Bjork didn't show up wearing a swan-dress, but it still wasn't Oscar's best year ceremony-wise. And we weren't all that thrilled with the selection of nominees, despite the expanded Best Picture category, but it was a fun night overall.

Now it's on to prepping for next year!