Blackwolf @ the Oscars, Part Two
After 9 minutes of having thrown down with the Kodak Theatre audience, Chris introduced the night's first presenter, Halle Berry, who'd just come off of winning the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress in a Leading Role, for her oh, so horryifing take on Catwoman! Halle was introducing the night's first award, that of Art Direction/Set Decoration, and with it, the first of Gilly boy's innovations for a quicker telecast --- that of having all the nominees in certain categories assemble on the same stage together, as opposed to having to call forth the single victor. The chosen ones: Dante Ferretti and Francesco LoSchiavo for The Aviator. Ferretti's speech was rather broken (for English, anyway!), but he at least thanked Scorsese and the entire Art Department, "which, without them, it was impossible for me to do this for us." Then Renee Zellwegger presented Morgan Freeman with his award as Best Supporting Actor for his work in the evening's overall big winner, Million Dollar Baby. Morgan then thanked his eventual co-winners, Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank, along with the entire MDB team. Cue the next round of commercials.
Pepsi's "I am Spartacus" riff, which asked the musical question "What if Pepsi ruled the Roman Empire?", really sucked, but at least, it was followed by Ellen DeGeneres (one of my fellow Grammy Award losers, I might add!) boogying for American Express! Next, Robin Williams came on stage to imagine himself doing Brando as Elmer Fudd and Jack Nicholson as Bugs Bunny before finally calling up Brad Bird to receive the Best Animated Feature Oscar for Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles. Brad wondered which was scarier: being watched by the whole Planet or having to face the wrath of those who would be "annoyed with me tomorrow for not mentioning them tonight." Well, hey, Brad: you were nice enough to mention your family, which is good news.
Cate Blanchett stood in the audience for the second of the show's main innovations, this one involving having the winners step up to the mike immediately, so that they would not need to be on stage. In this case, the category was Makeup; and accordingly Cate summoned the fortunate duo of Valli O'Reilly and Bill Corso, who had so wickedly transformed Jim Carrey into Count Olaf, nasty person-in-residence of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events! While Valli was quick to apologize to Jim and the cast for making them all look so unfortunate, Corso was not as forgiving of Mr. Snicket: "Mr. Lemony Snicket, don't write any more of these books. They're corrupting our youth," said he. "Brad Silberling, why did you have to do such a good job?" Because, you booby, he was the director! How silly a Mortal can ye be, by Merlin's beard?!
Drew Barrymore took the stage next; she was to introduce the first of the evening's nominees for Best Original Song, Look to Your Past (Vois Sur Ton Chemin), from The Chorus. Pop diva Beyonce was accompanied by members of Princeton, NJ's beloved American Boychoir; the segment, however, lost points with yours truly, as the performers sang the song in its original French. Worse, there were no English subtitles for non-French speaking viewers to follow along. Way to go, Gil! Next year, could the Academy at least be decent enough to nominate a foreign language song --- and then, put the English translation on the screen? Then came a taped piece in which Chris did his own man-on-the-street interview, wherein, in his words, he "left the Kodak Theatre and went to the Magic Johnson Theatre (presumably, the one at Universal CityWalk at Universal Studios Hollywood)." Then Louis J. Horvitz cut to Scarlett Johansen, stationed in one of the Kodak's balconies, and joined by four of the Sci-Tech Oscar winners; that segment was, quite mercifully, a brief one.
A raspy-voiced Pierce Brosnan then took to the stage for the Costume Design segment, wherein the former 007 was joined by none other than the Incredibles' superheroic costume designer, Edna Mode (voiced by her very creator, Brad Bird! Now how cool was this, I ask ye: winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar AND voicing a character from that same flick --- LIVE [or so one can assume!]. Anyway, Sandy Powell landed the Costume Design Oscar for The Aviator; then, Tim Robbins presented a returning Cate Blanchett with the Supporting Actress Oscar, again for The Aviator. In thanking Marty, she hoped her son would marry Scorsese's daughter. Yeah, sure. This led us into the next round of spots, and a tearjerking salute to GM's OnStar, with testimonials from OnStar users mingled with the Beatles' The Long and Winding Road. A so-so spot, but I guess it served its purpose. Afterwards, the next production piece appeared on the screen: A salute to Johnny Carson's years as Oscar host, with observations from Whoopi Goldberg (whose presence, of course, your Dragonmaster clearly missed!).
The epic of Blackwolf at the 77th Annual Academy Awards continues anon, hither in me Diary of Magecraft!
Pepsi's "I am Spartacus" riff, which asked the musical question "What if Pepsi ruled the Roman Empire?", really sucked, but at least, it was followed by Ellen DeGeneres (one of my fellow Grammy Award losers, I might add!) boogying for American Express! Next, Robin Williams came on stage to imagine himself doing Brando as Elmer Fudd and Jack Nicholson as Bugs Bunny before finally calling up Brad Bird to receive the Best Animated Feature Oscar for Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles. Brad wondered which was scarier: being watched by the whole Planet or having to face the wrath of those who would be "annoyed with me tomorrow for not mentioning them tonight." Well, hey, Brad: you were nice enough to mention your family, which is good news.
Cate Blanchett stood in the audience for the second of the show's main innovations, this one involving having the winners step up to the mike immediately, so that they would not need to be on stage. In this case, the category was Makeup; and accordingly Cate summoned the fortunate duo of Valli O'Reilly and Bill Corso, who had so wickedly transformed Jim Carrey into Count Olaf, nasty person-in-residence of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events! While Valli was quick to apologize to Jim and the cast for making them all look so unfortunate, Corso was not as forgiving of Mr. Snicket: "Mr. Lemony Snicket, don't write any more of these books. They're corrupting our youth," said he. "Brad Silberling, why did you have to do such a good job?" Because, you booby, he was the director! How silly a Mortal can ye be, by Merlin's beard?!
Drew Barrymore took the stage next; she was to introduce the first of the evening's nominees for Best Original Song, Look to Your Past (Vois Sur Ton Chemin), from The Chorus. Pop diva Beyonce was accompanied by members of Princeton, NJ's beloved American Boychoir; the segment, however, lost points with yours truly, as the performers sang the song in its original French. Worse, there were no English subtitles for non-French speaking viewers to follow along. Way to go, Gil! Next year, could the Academy at least be decent enough to nominate a foreign language song --- and then, put the English translation on the screen? Then came a taped piece in which Chris did his own man-on-the-street interview, wherein, in his words, he "left the Kodak Theatre and went to the Magic Johnson Theatre (presumably, the one at Universal CityWalk at Universal Studios Hollywood)." Then Louis J. Horvitz cut to Scarlett Johansen, stationed in one of the Kodak's balconies, and joined by four of the Sci-Tech Oscar winners; that segment was, quite mercifully, a brief one.
A raspy-voiced Pierce Brosnan then took to the stage for the Costume Design segment, wherein the former 007 was joined by none other than the Incredibles' superheroic costume designer, Edna Mode (voiced by her very creator, Brad Bird! Now how cool was this, I ask ye: winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar AND voicing a character from that same flick --- LIVE [or so one can assume!]. Anyway, Sandy Powell landed the Costume Design Oscar for The Aviator; then, Tim Robbins presented a returning Cate Blanchett with the Supporting Actress Oscar, again for The Aviator. In thanking Marty, she hoped her son would marry Scorsese's daughter. Yeah, sure. This led us into the next round of spots, and a tearjerking salute to GM's OnStar, with testimonials from OnStar users mingled with the Beatles' The Long and Winding Road. A so-so spot, but I guess it served its purpose. Afterwards, the next production piece appeared on the screen: A salute to Johnny Carson's years as Oscar host, with observations from Whoopi Goldberg (whose presence, of course, your Dragonmaster clearly missed!).
The epic of Blackwolf at the 77th Annual Academy Awards continues anon, hither in me Diary of Magecraft!
posted by Master Blackwolf | 12:07 PM
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