The Academy Awards, 2014

March 3, 2014March 3, 2014 / Jared / Leave a comment

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD EVENINNNNNNNG VIETTTTTBLOGGGGGG!!1!!1!

In the immortal words of Staind, it’s been awhile! Three years, in fact. Time flies when you’re ~~working a lot and stressed out and busy with other stuff~~ having fun! But, hey, I’m here now, blogging the Oscars, just like you wanted. You can all stop stop begging and pleading and refreshing your browser over and over OK? I mean, I know the last thing I should be doing is complaining about the devotion of my legions of fans, but to be perfectly frank, it was starting to get a little desperate.

JKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJKJK you guyz! No one cares about this at all!

Of course, Johanna and I will be doing one of our winner-picking competitions. It’s been a long time since we’ve done one of these for the blog, and it’s been really confusing for us. How are we supposed to know who is winning in our relationship if we don’t have award show winner-picking competitions to tell us, you know???

Ellen’s hosting right? That’s all right, I guess. She’s affable and mildly charming. Ellen is to hosting as 2013 was to movies, I think. Good, not great. I liked a lot of what I saw this year, but didn’t really love anything. But who cares, right? It’s the Oscars! Glitz! Glamour! Gowns! Flubs! Snubs! Subs! This message brought to you by Subway. Eat Fresh! Eat Fresh is a registered trademark of the Subway Sandwich Conglomeration.

Johanna has made us both a Gin Fizz for the occasion. Seems very appropriate for this old timey Hollywood event. “I was thinking about calling it the ‘American Fizzle’.” she said sheepishly. Works for me! Stop being sheepish, Johanna! Own your puns!

OK, let’s get started, gang! While I go google how to spell McConaughey, you guys watch the 2013 version of one of my favorite internet time-wasters, Cinescape. Hats off to Matt Shapiro, the guy who puts these together every year.

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The Academy Awards, 2011

February 28, 2011March 22, 2011 / Jared / 2 Comments

OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG you guys it’s the Oscars! We can finally stop pretending to care about all these other shows, because the Oscars are here!

Seriously though, I’ve made a lot of jokes about award shows, but I clearly enjoy them. Over the past couple of years, however, I’ve realized that this is the only one that takes its job at all seriously. I mean, the only other award show that even seems like it is moderately trying is the Emmys, and even then approximately two nominees in every category are totally ridiculous. But nine out of the ten nominees for Best Picture here are really good movies. And the tenth isn’t really all that bad (Just so you know, the odd man out here is The Kids Are All Right, which was, at best, all right.). This is a show that respects itself! And for that, I respect it.

And yes, you did not misread me; I have opinions on all ten Best Picture nominees. Because I saw ALL TEN OF THEM. I did my homework! This is, I’m pretty sure, the first time I have seen all of the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars. And I am therefore full of opinions on ALL TEN OF THEM. This should be fun.

Detracting from the fun is the fact that a lot of these categories seem preordained. As always, my wife Johanna and I will be competing in a winner-picking competition here, and I’m worried that we’ll end up in a tie like we did with the Golden Globes. One can only hope that the costume/sound/editing categories will allow one of us to differentiate ourselves.

Johanna is, as ever, in charge of drinks. She’s got like a thousand things going on right now, so I’m not going to make her try to come up with something crazy. I think we’re just going to go with gin and tonics, because it’s a classy drink for a classy evening. We’ll be upping the classiness to astronomical levels by referring to them as “The Meryl Streep.” Also, it was 78 degrees outside today! Warm weather drink alert, whattttt!

How are we feeling about Anne Hathaway and James Franco as hosts? I think they could be fun. Or at least not boring. Anne Hathaway is musical and funny and super hot, right? And James Franco is also all of those things, except maybe musical. I’ve never heard him sing, I don’t think.

So are we ready for this? Remember, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Let’s ease in here, folks. As always, winners and categories and score and such in bold.

8:31 – Johanna is still agonizing over her picks as the obligatory “hosts romp through the movies of the year” montage begins. These are always enjoyable. I am not being sarcastic.

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The Academy Awards, 2010

March 8, 2010May 10, 2010 / Jared / 1 Comment

Johanna and I are sitting here in a nearly empty apartment. This is our last night in our current place, and all of our possessions, other than our larger pieces of furniture, are already over at the new digs. Even the dog is gone; we’re boarding him for the night so he won’t be underfoot tomorrow when we’re trying to load up the U-Haul. It’s the first night I’ve spent apart from him.

Moving is never fun, especially for a couple of worriers like Johanna and me. There are always a thousand things to stress about, and the worst always seems to happen for us. This time we’re particularly bothered by the fact that it seems like someone is planning on paving our dirt road tomorrow, which could make it difficult to get the truck in and out.

Anyway, because of all of this, I was particularly looking forward to the Oscars tonight. We’ve ordered a pizza, I’ve poured a scotch, and I’m just going to relax and fantasize about being settled in at the new place.

If you read my Grammy or Golden Globe entries, you know that Johanna and I like to fill out ballots beforehand and compete in a winner-picking contest. Johanna snuck out a victory in the last category of the night in the Golden Globes, and I pulled off an untelevised category win in the Grammys, so we’re currently tied, one to one. Nothing like the Academy Awards to settle things for us. Unfortunately, we both read the same predictions online, so we’re either going to tie, or one of us will win based on our short documentary pick. Let’s get this started. Categories and winners in bold. I’ll add some video later if I can find it.

8:00 – We have a weird opening here as all of the best actor and actress nominees stroll out together. That was odd and masturbatory, but those two words describe a lot about the Oscars.

8:02 – Now here comes Neil Patrick Harris to sing a song for no reason. God, Hollywood loves this guy. So do I, though, so it’s cool. But shouldn’t we be opening with the hosts?

8:04 – I’m a huge fan of both Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, and I’m sure they’ll be funny. I’m going to go out on a limb here, though, and say that at the end of the night I’m probably going to feel like it would have been better if the Academy had just picked one of them and ran with it.

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