oscars, belatedly

thanks to youtube, i finally caught the live telecast of the two thousand and fourteen oscars hosted by ellen de generes last night. belatedly, here are my thoughts on the two-hour extravaganza.

- all the major acting winners deserve their awards: cate blanchett, best actress for her quiet but poignant turn in blue jasmine, matthew mcconaughey, best actor for dallas buyers club, the adorable lupita nyong'o best supporting actress for twelve years a slave, and jared letto, best supporting actor for dallas buyers club. i correctly predicted their wins (please click here for my pre-oscar post).

- the best acceptance speech belongs to lupita. she spoke and moved with elegance, with the poise of a princess and, despite her goddess-like outfit, couldn't help but show everyone watching that she is still a child, after all.

the best part of her speech are as follows:

"thank you to the academy for this incredible recognition. it doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s. and so i want to salute the spirit of patsey for her guidance. and for solomon, thank you for telling her story and your own.

steve mcqueen, you charge everything you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. thank you so much for putting me in this position, it’s been the joy of my life. i’m certain that the dead are standing about you and watching and they are grateful and so am i."

to understand what i am talking about, please watch this short clip of her acceptance speech here.

- i love cate blanchett. the way she walked to the stage, very queenly, how she kissed the gorgeous daniel day-lewis before taking the trophy from him. daniel, by the way, looked as regal as ever, and was the best-looking actor in the whole ceremony, brad pitt notwithstanding. i just so loved the way he spoke and announced the nominees, then the winner.

it was a joy seeing cate and daniel together, even briefly. it was one of the highlights of the night. they should do a movie together, a historical one, a costume drama, where they will play queen and king. or something royal. with meryl streep, if possible.

while she wasn't as composed and as poised as lupita in her acceptance speech, it was nevertheless a meaty one: fighting for more meaty roles for women in the male-dominated hollywood!

but she looked stunning in her gown, as always.

- the best dressed is, of course, lupita. while some fashionistas didn't like the hairpiece she was wearing, i loved it. it added to her still-a-girl demeanor.

she was a vision in pale blue, the colour complementing perfectly her dark chocolate skin.

runner up would be cate blanchett, then charlize theron in a revealing black dress.

- karen o's the moon song, the theme from the oscar best picture nominated "her" should have won the best song. it was soulful, melancholic, and just struck the right note to make you feel nostalgic at those happy moments spent with a love one, alone, drinking wine, staring at the full moon from a tall, thin french window, the white lace curtains drawn aside to let the summer breeze in.

(sorry to the fans of frozen, but that movie is overrated. and the song sucks. i don't know why it won. even worse was the singer who performed on stage. gosh!)

the moon song, by the way, was co-written by the very talented spike jonze, who wrote and directed that heart-wrenching movie about loneliness and solitude.

(that pharrel guy who sang the ost for despicable me, based on his performance that night, was overrated, talentless, and boring. i don't understand all the buzz about him! hmp! why is the world so enamoured with mediocrity?!)

- spike jonze is cute, in a dorky (college professor, anyone?) way. aside from being a great movie writer, song writer, and director, he is also a good actor, with a brief cameo in martin scorsese's super fun "the wolf of wall street." he deserves his best screenplay oscar trophy. and he should have been nominated for best director, don't you think?

- too bad the anti-oscar but worthy actor joaquin phoenix was not nominated for his performance in "her." following into the footsteps of marlon brando, joaquin had been very vocal before of his stand against the academy and its pompous ceremonies. 

anyway, the academy is not known to appreciate non-conformists, artists with minds of their own. so no matter how good he is, joaquin, whose range and deep as an actor reminds me of the late and lamented philip seymour hoffman, has kissed his oscar hopes goodbye. forever. unless of course, he will have a change of heart and begin kissing oscar's golden ass. 

- some parts of the ceremony were too boring, like the awards for best documentary, animation, shorts, make-up, sound, and other technicals. the academy should just hold a separate ceremony for these awards and just show a short clip during oscar nigth. di va? sayang kasi ang precious airtime.

- why did bette midler's rendition of her soul inspiring "wind beneath my wings" so boring and theatrical. walang feelings masyado. a pity since it was supposed to honor members, including paul walker (can't still believe he's gone) and philip seymour hoffman, who went into the great but unknown beyond last year. 

- last but not the least, the academy should have not asked those old actors and actresses to be presenters. they looked sad. they could hardly walk, read the idiot board, or even talk. it was too bad seeing the once lovely kim novac reduced into a wax. i prefer to remember her always as the glamourous femme fatale in vertigo.

the same with sir sidney poitier. angelina jolie had to hold him all the time to keep him from falling. she even had to read the winner from the envelope after noticing how he had a hard time reading and reciting his spiels.

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that's all fairies, princesses, queens, pa-queens and wannabes. have a great weekend.

(ps: all the photos were taken from different web sites. no copyright infringements intended.)