Marty's Big Night

Augurrriiii! After 40 years of filmmaking, Martin Scorcese finally gets his due. The Departed is the highest grossing film of his career, yet I don't need to see it to know it's not the film he should be most rewarded for. Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas are all intrenched in the CANON of American cinema, made the AFI's Top 100 films in the last 100 years, and ALL went away empty handed at Oscartime.

The marathon began at 3pm with the E! Countdown to the Oscars. Lamo commentary by C-listers marking their turf in front of La Cantina and Republik. E! host Debbie Matenopoulos needed a sandwich and someone should have put Jennifer Holliday out of her 80s has-been misery! OHMIGOD! Despite her Tony win for the birthing of Effie in the Broadway run of Dreamgirls, Holliday was a sorry sight of backfat warbling painfully to the street from the rooftop of the Roosevelt hotel.

All in all a very adequate Academy Awards. Lack of umph due in large part to host Ellen DeGeneres. TV might be her medium but she is intimidated by the big F film crowd and it shows. Although she did manage to recover from a couple of hits with the dummy stick (ie. Penelope Cruz from Mexico?) give me Billy Crystal or Jon Stewart any day.

Gotta admit I prefer it this way but there was no Big Sweep that marched in and took over. If I had to call it I'd say Pan's Labyrinth was the big winner. I was sorry to see Babel walk away empty handed and the unchallenged star of the show was Big Al Gore for his genius in
An Inconvenient Truth. Wish I gave him more credit when he was in power....

2007 trends:

Pick your blue: Midnight (Maggie Gyl) Electric (Emily Blunt). Periwinkle (Jody Foster) Plum (Reese Witherspoon).

Strapless gowns sans bling: Diamonds were relegated to ears and wrists for Rinko Kikuchi, Penelope Cruz, Reese Witherspoon, Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt.

Tarzan dress with over the shoulder drapes (Kidman's red cobra, Winslet and Beyonce's green crystals, Gyllehall's black and blue feathers, Blanchett in shimmering smoky grey sequins)

Highlights:

My Pe. Here she is totalement gorge in Chopard diamonds and Versace. Icicle's chance in hell of winning but scores huge points for the fluffy feather dress. She always looks so much better when unattached. She and Reese should go for tapas.

Helen Mirren (always fab in Christian LaCroix). Glad to see an Oscar go to an older woman for a change. Hope I look this good 60+.

Reese Witherspoon in plum and bangs had the best look of the night. That'll show that Phillipe for messing with minors.

Rinko Kikuchi is Stage 1 ESL and charming, graceful, and elegant in black lace and crystals.

Abigail Breslin in perfect pink trimmings for the 10 year-old set.

George Clooney: Even my husband was drooling over his Danny Ocean perfection.

Celine Dion: Quelle surprise! Madame Angelil never looked so good in Vintage Galanos green with matching claw belt and bracelet.

What were they thinking?

Jennifer Hudson is 2007's IT girl. She was supposedly THE woman to dress this year. Shame shame shame on Oscar de La Renta for the hideous Michael Jackson metallic bolero and brown H&M pocket dress! Also, knowing a bit about what to do with big boobs, and maybe it was hell coordinating the wardrobe change but, Jen was gushing out of it while belting it out with her fellow Dreamgirls. Tuck those girls in nice and tight for Pete's sake!

Sally Kirkland always shows up loaded and mauls the interviewers. Her vampire cape almost knocked sexy NewBond Daniel Craig senseless. WTF?

Meryl Streep: I suppose when you win 100 times you're allowed to show up in your pyjamas even if they are Prada...

Kelly Preston: Porcheria. The leopard print is better fit for the House of Lancaster than the red carpet.

Cameron Diaz and Rachel Weisz all could have used with a blow out or an up do. The JBF hair is sooooo 1990s. Sheez!

Gael Garcia Bernal. What happened to the QT TT from Motorcycle Diaries? He's dating Natalie Portman (whom I love) so amigo should try parting his hair another way.

Nonna Anne Hathway could have lost the (circa 1986) double bows.

I'd like to slay the anaconda on Nicole Kidman's back. In addition to the Botox looks like she's had cheek implants...

Countdown to Oscar!

I remember television that I watched 28 years ago.

I thank my mother for her many virtues among them her dedication, rock solid work ethic, and for passing on her love of the Awards of Merit for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Been doing the Oscar marathon since I was a wee 6 year-old. My earliest Oscar memory remains watching my mom applaud Dustin Hoffman's win for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Kramer vs. Kramer in 1979! (It won 3 more times that year for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep) and Direction (Robert Benton). The legacy of the single-parent-divorce-tear jerker is long. Hoffman remains her favourite celebrity of all time and Kramer is the only film to date that she can tolerate seeing more than once and she wails every single time! She nearly lost her sh*t when I shook his hand and he complimented me on my hair at last year's TIFF.

This Sunday my kin and I will recreate the scene from my 1970's childhood with a few small alterations. We'll get our jammies on later and swap the take-out Chinese for spicy tuna rolls. We'll ditch Barbara Walters' Oscar Night Special in favour of the gowns of the garish on the red carpet. Confirmed presenters include Hugh Jackman, Cameron Diaz, Reese Witherspoon, and be-still-my-beating-heart George Clooney. (Can't WAIT for Ocean's 13. George doesn't know this yet but he's lending us his digs on Lago di Como this summer).

Tensions will be high as newly minted studio head Tom Cruise attends with Robo-bride Katie Holmes with not one, but TWO exes in tow. Kidman is presenting and Penelope Cruz is nominated and although I'm holding out for a miracle, I doubt my Italo evil-eye hex will reach Helen Mirren in time. We'll praise the stunning and normal-bodied (my Penelope) in the California sun and boo the emaciated and over the top (read Celine Dion's garish diamond and backwards Galliano tux). We'll don our maple leaves and cheer on Torril Kove for The Danish Poet and Deepa Mehta for Water and Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson but will graciously accede defeat when Forrest Whitaker takes it all for The Last King of Scotland.

We'll covet the live via satellite dis' that comes every year,(looks like Bush is a likely candidate) and we'll consume the tabloid trash the next day only to forget within 48 hours what 2 days earlier had moved us so much.

God Save The Queen...from herself!

Saw The Queen on Saturday night. Haikugirl and I had to bite the bullet and see it before the Oscars. We started with groovy jazz and delectable bouffe at the newly shwank Pilot in Yorkville--one of our favourite haunts. Although Mirren's performance was commendable the film left me lukewarm. It confirmed what most of us in the colonies have known for decades, that the monarchy is choking on its own crumpets and cucumber sandwiches and no number of hot water bottles or furry pink housecoats can instill humanity into an institution as archaic as the stone castles we dole out trillions of pounds to maintain. Be it "God's" will or shameless nerve, the film triggered a larger debate for me, namely the purpose served by a ruling monarch in an age of liberal and democratic values purported to have been exported by the U.K. in the first place!

The world's remaining monarchs (sauf the houses of Saud, Brunei, Oman, Qatar, UAE, The Vatican and other absolutes) serve a symbolic purpose. Spain's Juan Carlos I never sits on his thrown or wears a crown. As does Elizabeth Windsor he supports whatever governing party wins an election, but does not invite the president elect to requesting royal patronage on bended knee. He is a reigning yet non-ruling monarch and acts as an essential symbol of the country's unity. He and his family draw a salary ( a generous one) and all the royal palaces are national heritage sites not personal-tax-exempt-behemoths-of-stone.

I'm all for a royal family, just sick of paying for them!

Me and Ralph Klein.

Amazing how nothing changes (apart from a pile of phone messages, tracking and assessment, and planning Winter Fun Day. Yipee!). It's day 2 back at work and twas as if I had never departed. Kinda like the Alberta legislature after Ralph Klein's retirement, non?

After a week of hunkerdown hibernation it was time to carry the slovenly carcass that was threatening to take over my form out to the curb. Not that I was carousing the streets of the T.dot reeking bourbon and insulting the homeless but me and King Ralph are back on the wagon and back at life. It's a new day.

Words of wisdom from my novice years: "Nobody will ever remember that you came in sick". Amen Irma.