A Night at the Oscars

Did you watch the Academy Awards last night? I don't always, but I was interested to see how Ellen DeGeneres did as the host, and I'd actually seen a couple of the movies that were up for awards this year -- which always makes the awards ceremony more interesting :) The Departed. . . best picture? Yeah, I guess. It was interesting and intriguing and fast-paced, and bloody and gory and filled with rough language, so I guess it's no surprise that it won. I do wish that Nicholson had remembered that he was supposed to have a Boston accent all the way through the movie, and I occasionally had trouble telling Damon and DiCaprio apart. (Yes, I'm probably the only one in the world, but I do predict that in time, Damon and DiCaprio will be just as confusing as DeNiro and Pacino are to some people now.) I haven't seen The Last King of Scotland, but everyone seemed so excited about Forrest Whitaker's performance, I found myself pulling for him, too. On the other hand, for purely sentimental reasons, I also wanted Peter O'Toole to win, but again I haven't seen the movie, so I can't judge the performance. I just realize how old he's getting and I wonder how many more times he'll be in that position. Helen Mirren had my vote from the beginning, so I was glad when she won the Oscar for Best Actress. The whole world seemed to be pulling for Jennifer Hudson to win Best Supporting Actress, but I'll confess I wasn't one of them. I'm not saying she doesn't have an incredible voice, or that she didn't turn in a great performance, but I'm a little peeved by the "Dumped by American Idol" story, and everyone wondering if this will teach Simon a lesson. I don't think Simon ever said that Ms. Hudson had no talent or that she wasn't a good singer -- just that she was out of her league in that competition. At the risk of having you all throw rotten tomatoes at me, I have to agree with him. She is not an American pop idol, but she will probably be a spectacular stage and screen actress. She reminds me of my cat, Vincent (or P. Vinnie, short for Piss & Vinegar, as he was named by my late-ex-husband) Vincent was raised with two dogs, and for the first 8 years of his life, Vincent thought he was a dog. When my ex-husband passed away, Vinnie came to live with us and met other cats for the first time. We watched in amazement (and amusement) as the weeks went by and he learned to do cat things -- like leaping onto windowsills and flopping onto the floor to lie in the sun, twitching his tail. To this day, Vinnie doesn't meow, he barks -- he just doesn't bark well. Because Vinnie isn't a dog, he's a cat. These days, he's quite a fabulous cat, but he makes a very small and ineffectual dog. Holding my breath until I turn blue and insisting that people admit he's a dog won't change that fact. I was pleased when Jennifer Hudson mentioned Jennifer Holliday in her acceptance speech, even if it was only at the last. To hear the Hollywood hype, you'd think Dream Girls was a brand new idea and that Jennifer Hudson created the roll. They've completely left out the fact that Jennifer Holliday has been playing the role for something like twenty-five years and that, in fact, she was responsible for getting the script changed for the character's return at the end. Little Miss Sunshine was a surprisingly good movie - although I generally like Greg Kinear, Steve Correl, and Toni Colette. Alan Arkin is another actor I usually like, so on a purely sentimental level I was glad he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Valerie (my oldest daughter) and I printed off a list of nominees and trie to pick the winers. I only guessed 4 right, which shows you how much I know! Anyway, all in all I enjoyed the awards ceremony last night, although it did get a little long and I was fighting sleep long before the "big" awards were announced. If you ask me, three hours is long enough for anything on TV, and for some things it's way too long! - - - - - - - - - - I found a cute new graph to keep track of my progress with. Just ignore the part that says it's an exercise ticker :)