MOB RULES AT THE OSCARS!
Hello, everybody. At 3 hours, 47 minutes, the 79th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday were, to quote Jerry Garcia, "A long, strange trip it has been." But despite the length, it was worth it thanks to host Ellen DeGeneres and voiceover legend Don LaFontaine as one of the announcers.
For the night's big winners, the trip to Oscar gold was also a memorable one as Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren were honored Best Actor and Actress for their "royal" roles as King and Queen respectively, while Alan Arkin beat Eddie Murphy for Supporting Actor (thanks, "Norbit"!) with Jennifer Hudson easily claiming Supporting Actress.
Meanwhile, Al Gore finally won something as "An Inconvient Truth" picked up Documentary Feature and Best Song for Melissa Etheridge; the latter a first for a documentary. "Happy Feet" clogged the "Cars" for Animated Feature; "The Lives Of Others" trumped the heavily favored "Pan's Labyrinth" for Foreign Language Film (at least "Labyrinth" did pick up three Oscars); and in his 19th stab at that gold, Kevin O'Connell who helped with the sound for "Apocalypto"....lost again, this time to "Dreamgirls."
After everything was said and done, "The Departed" took the most bounty with five awards including Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture of 2006, and after five attempts, Martin Scorsese as Best Director; I'll get to him in a bit.
Now while the temperatures here in Fairbanks have been in the below zeros for at least a week, it was the red carpet that generated tons of heat. Mirren looked like a queen herself in her Christian Lacroix, while Jessica Biel looked more like hot in Oscar de la Renta pink than pretty. Other standouts included those from Jodie Foster (Vera Wang), Beyonce Knowles (Armani), last year's Best Actress and the still single Reese Witherspoon (Nina Ricci), and Jennifer Lopez (Marchesa).
So whose stood out the most? It has to be Penelope Cruz and Cate Blanchett. If this was a report card, I would've graded them both A's. But I'm going to have to give Anne Hathaway, Cameron Diaz, and Jennifer Hudson all F's, as they flunked in what they had on..
And now, to the stories behind the wins: Dame Helen Mirren came a long way from the "Prime Suspect" series while Forest Whitaker's road to gold started with "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (alongside future Oscar winner Nicolas Cage, whose "Ghost Rider" is still tops at the box office) and went all the way to...the recent revival of "The Twilight Zone"? Next up for him will be "The Air I Breathe" with three-time Sexiest Woman winner Sarah Michelle Gellar, who hit the Oscar party circuit on Sunday and still looks fabulous as she's hitting 30 this spring.
But in the end, it was all about the man behind "The Departed." After five losses in over two decades to Robert Redford, Barry Levinson, Kevin Costner, Roman Polanski, and Clint Eastwood while working alongside Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, Paul Newman, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, and Daniel Day-Lewis in his films, Martin Luciano Scorsese is finally sitting on top of the cinematic globe. A well-deserved victory for a well-honored director.
It may have long and dragged out as usual (in Alaska, the show aired on a (usual) delay till 11:20 pm), but for the night's big winners including Scorsese as the biggest of them all, the 79th Annual Academy Awards was a one-night only affair. And with my usual take on entertainment's biggest night...good night!
(Oh, by the way...as for my picks, it was back to the old standard (after last year's clean sweep) as I got four out of six.)
Hello, everybody. At 3 hours, 47 minutes, the 79th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday were, to quote Jerry Garcia, "A long, strange trip it has been." But despite the length, it was worth it thanks to host Ellen DeGeneres and voiceover legend Don LaFontaine as one of the announcers.
For the night's big winners, the trip to Oscar gold was also a memorable one as Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren were honored Best Actor and Actress for their "royal" roles as King and Queen respectively, while Alan Arkin beat Eddie Murphy for Supporting Actor (thanks, "Norbit"!) with Jennifer Hudson easily claiming Supporting Actress.
Meanwhile, Al Gore finally won something as "An Inconvient Truth" picked up Documentary Feature and Best Song for Melissa Etheridge; the latter a first for a documentary. "Happy Feet" clogged the "Cars" for Animated Feature; "The Lives Of Others" trumped the heavily favored "Pan's Labyrinth" for Foreign Language Film (at least "Labyrinth" did pick up three Oscars); and in his 19th stab at that gold, Kevin O'Connell who helped with the sound for "Apocalypto"....lost again, this time to "Dreamgirls."
After everything was said and done, "The Departed" took the most bounty with five awards including Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture of 2006, and after five attempts, Martin Scorsese as Best Director; I'll get to him in a bit.
Now while the temperatures here in Fairbanks have been in the below zeros for at least a week, it was the red carpet that generated tons of heat. Mirren looked like a queen herself in her Christian Lacroix, while Jessica Biel looked more like hot in Oscar de la Renta pink than pretty. Other standouts included those from Jodie Foster (Vera Wang), Beyonce Knowles (Armani), last year's Best Actress and the still single Reese Witherspoon (Nina Ricci), and Jennifer Lopez (Marchesa).
So whose stood out the most? It has to be Penelope Cruz and Cate Blanchett. If this was a report card, I would've graded them both A's. But I'm going to have to give Anne Hathaway, Cameron Diaz, and Jennifer Hudson all F's, as they flunked in what they had on..
And now, to the stories behind the wins: Dame Helen Mirren came a long way from the "Prime Suspect" series while Forest Whitaker's road to gold started with "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" (alongside future Oscar winner Nicolas Cage, whose "Ghost Rider" is still tops at the box office) and went all the way to...the recent revival of "The Twilight Zone"? Next up for him will be "The Air I Breathe" with three-time Sexiest Woman winner Sarah Michelle Gellar, who hit the Oscar party circuit on Sunday and still looks fabulous as she's hitting 30 this spring.
But in the end, it was all about the man behind "The Departed." After five losses in over two decades to Robert Redford, Barry Levinson, Kevin Costner, Roman Polanski, and Clint Eastwood while working alongside Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Cruise, Paul Newman, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, and Daniel Day-Lewis in his films, Martin Luciano Scorsese is finally sitting on top of the cinematic globe. A well-deserved victory for a well-honored director.
It may have long and dragged out as usual (in Alaska, the show aired on a (usual) delay till 11:20 pm), but for the night's big winners including Scorsese as the biggest of them all, the 79th Annual Academy Awards was a one-night only affair. And with my usual take on entertainment's biggest night...good night!
(Oh, by the way...as for my picks, it was back to the old standard (after last year's clean sweep) as I got four out of six.)
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