Oscarvations

Before we get to the show, and that slap, let me pause at one Laverne Cox who handled the Red Carpet for E! I love Laverne, but every single person she spoke to she asked this question:

What story are you telling with your look tonight?

I know it’s the new Who are you wearing, but goddess it was ridiculous. As was Laverne use, and overuse, and endless overuse of the word ‘iconic.’ Not everyone or every film or every song or every designer is iconic, Laverne.

Choose news words.

That said, let’s dig in … Beyonce’s performance of her Oscar nominated song from King Richard was mostly about Beyoncé and the ever-present wind machine and less about the film. 

Oh wait, she limo’d her ass to Compton and filmed it on a tennis court painted to match her outfit, so there’s that. And then she showed up in the audience. Why not perform live, Bey? Huh?

Anyhoo … there were actual hosts for the first time in years and , for the first time in history three women hosted: Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall: And it should not be the last because these women killed it.

We needed some laughs after these last couple years and these women did not disappoint.

This year the Academy hired three women to host because it’s cheaper than hiring one man.

I’m proud to be representing Black women standing proud.

And living out loud.

And I’m representing unbearable white woman who call the cops when you get a little too loud.

There were a lot of snubs this year. Rachel Zegler for ‘West Side Story.’ Jennifer Hudson for ‘Respect.’ And Lady Gaga and Jared Leto for ‘House of Random Accents.’

Samuel L. Jackson got the Governor’s Award for his Lifetime Body of Work …

Meh.

Did you just ‘meh’ Samuel L. Jackson?

I love him, he’s my guy, but there are a few holes in his resume. Like where’s the Sam Jackson rom-com  … like Sam Jackson and Jenifer Lewis in ‘When This MoFo Met That MoFo’ or the sequel ‘Bitch! I Said I Love You.’ And where’s his musical? ‘Rent? Ho, I said Where’s My Rent?”

We’re gonna have a good night tonight and for you people in Florida, we’re gonna have a Gay Night. Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay Gay

And Amy Schumer scored …

I’m Amy Schumer, or as they know me in Hollywood, Melissa, McCarthy said, ‘No.’

Inspirational isn’t it? After years of Hollywood ignoring women’s stories, we finally got a film about the incredible William’s sister’s … dad.

‘Don’t Look Up’ is nominated,. I guess academy voters don’t look up … reviews.

Leonardo DiCaprio has done so much for climate change … leaving behind a cleaner, greener, planet for his girlfriends … because he’s older and they’re younger.

Aaron Sorkin is here,. A genius. I mean the innovation to make a movie about Lucille Ball without even a moment that’s funny. It’s like making a biopic about Michael Jordan and just showing the bus trip between games.

Loved that Amy signed about much she loved Coda.

Daniel Kaluuya and H.E.R. … OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS Ariana DeBose West Side Story

… l loved her speech about being an out Afro-Latina.

Regina Hall killed me by rounding up the Hot Guys for COVID testing … Bradley Cooper, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry, Simu Liu.

 Javier Bardem? Oh you’re still with Penelope? Your test is fine, it says that you’re married … negative! Will Smith, you’re married and you’re on the list but it looks like Jada approved you, so get on up here … I’ll take you all backstage, take your masks off, and your clothes and I’m gonna swab the back of your mouths with my tongue, and I will record for academy protocol.

Jason Momoa and Josh Bolin present ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND to Dune … followed by Wesley Snipes, Rosie Perez, and Woody Harrelson, after another tired pot joke for Woody, present ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY to Dune … and then DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT for The Queen of Basketball

Jacob Elordi, and he is kinda hot and tall and Aussie, and Rachel Zegler are up to present. He jokes about growing up in Australia and never thinking he’d be on the Oscar stage and Zegler says she didn’t believe it even six days ago … yes, she’s still that thirsty girl present ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS to Dune …

Tony Hawk, Kelly Slater—oh, I love a hot bald man—and Shawn White present a tribute to James Bond …  and yet there was not one shot of Daniel Craig shirtless or coming out of the surf … I protest!  You can have your Connery, Moore, Brosnan, whomever, but give me Craig  in the squarecut!

Is that too much to ask?

But then Stephanie Beatriz presented nominee for Best Song, Dos Oruguitas, and it was performed by that hot little Latino nugget Sebastián Yatra.

Lily James, Halle Baily and Naomi Scott present BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM to Encanto … BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM for The Windshield Wiper… after which Wanda Sykes tours the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures … spots the Ruby Slippers and says they’re from Kinky Boots, back when it was Kinky Kitten Heel … and when shown an empty spot where Hattie McDaniels’  Oscar should have been had it not gone missing after she donated it a university said:

The empty case honors all the Oscars won by Black Directors.

And then she is shown that dress worn by Cher the year she was snubbed by Oscar and thinks it was a dress worn by Little Richard.

Youn Yuh-jung presents OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR to Troy Kotsur for Coda, only the second deaf actor to win an Oscar. In his speech he tells a heartbreaking story about his father, whom he said was the best signer, until an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down and he never signed again.

Tiffany Haddish and Simu Liu … he’s totes adorbs … present BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM for Drive My Car … after which Mila Kunis presents Reba McIntyre singing ‘Somehow You Do’ from Four Good Days … meh … I left the room for more wine.

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM forThe Long Goodbye .. ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN for Cruella .. John Leguizamo presents a live performance of ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ from Éncanto. This was fun with a huge cast performing the tune.

Out comes Wanda Sykes as King Richard, joined by Regina Hall, who was supposed to be Venus, but switched it up to be Tammy Faye, ‘a crazy white lady,’  with Amy Schumer, who should have been Serena, but dropped from the roof as Spiderman.

Jennifer Garner, Elliott Page and JK Simmons present BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY to Kenneth Branagh for Belfast … and then we have Tracee Ellis Ross and Shawn—could he look or act or sound or walk more stereotypically gay—Mendes present BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Coda … BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Dune … and then Rami Malek presents Billie Eilish and Finneas to sing ‘No Time to Die’ from No Time to Die. It’s your typical Bond song, interchangeable with the last three of four Bond songs … ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING for Dune … 

Joe Walker wins and says:

“So, you may not know, but the words ‘Oscar-nominated’ can be used, in the hands of a skilled seventeen-year-old, as an insult. My daughter once said to me in an argument, ‘It’s all very well for you, Oscar-nominated Joe Walker.”

The one, sort of, dull comedic moment, was Regina and Wanda handing out consolation prizes, except for the inspirational quote from Kim Kardastrophe that they gave to Dame Judy Dench who didn’t win last night:

“Work harder.”

And now … the slap. Chris Rock is up to present BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE … but first tells a few jokes. He tells one about Jada Pinkett Smith, who has shaved her head because she says she suffers from Alopecia, that she could star in the next GI Jane film, and the camera went in on the Smiths. Jada kinda smiled and then her face turned sour. Will,  on the other hand, laughed a bit, and then as the camera went back to the stage, Will Smith strides up  to Rock, and smacks him in the face; as he walked back, he was wearing that typical Smug Self-Serving Self-Satisfied  Smith Smile so I thought it was a joke until the show skipped and went mute. Luckily, I was on the laptop, and searched Twitter to find the footage, and Rock said:

“Wow, Will Smith just smacked the shit outta me.”

Will, back in the audience, screamed, twice:

“Keep my wife’s name out your fucking mouth.”

Chris said:

“Oh, I could … I …”

And I kinda wished he did. Will Smith is a pompous dick, who clearly smiled at the joke until, GI Jada told him she was upset and then he walked onstage in front of millions of people around the world and assaulted another man over a joke; a stupid joke, to be fair, but a joke. Now, the backstory goes that in 2016 Jada announced she was boycotting the Oscars after Will was snubbed and Chris Rock, hosting that year, made a joke about it, and clearly Will and Jada held onto that and this year, after a dumb joke, Will Smith chose to assault a man on live TV.

Twitter had a field day, with my favorite Tweet being about Will Smith asking Rock to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth even though he knows other men—including a friend of his son—have put Jada in their mouths. And another about how you can screw Will Smith’s wife, but you can’t joke about her hair.

Now, to again show what a smug self-self-self-satisfied prick Will Smith is, he stayed! If Jada was so offended and he was so irate, why not go home; why not take your wife’s hand and walk out, but he stayed because he wanted an Oscar more than he wanted to defend his wife’s honor over a joke.

Chris Rock, on the other hand, went on to present BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE to Summer of Soul [When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised], which Questlove accepted and gave a moving speech, before breaking down about his father’s passing, but it was darkened by little man, big ego.

Sean P. Diddy Puff Daddy Puffy Diddy Combs came out and said Will and Chris should settle it with love, and flash to Will and Jada laughing, Excuse me, but fuck them. Combs also paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of The Godfather after which Francis Ford Coppola, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino walked out onstage.

The In Memoriam, sung to a medley of I Will Remember You, Spirit In The Sky, Heaven [I’m Goin’ There], and a spoken word segment by Jill Scott, paid special tribute to several of those we lost this year, notably Betty White,  honored for her work with animals by Jamie Lee Curtis.

ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION DESIGN went to Dune ..  and then Zoë Kravitz and perpetually scorching Jake Gyllenhaal present BEST ORIGINAL SONG to ‘No Time To Die’ Billie Eilish and Finneas. Billie cannot stop laughing and I can’t help but imagine how pissed Beyoncé was since she made a special movie about her song. Oh well, Bey, there’s always the wind machine.

Kevin Costner came out and gave a speech about seeing a movie that was as long as the show itself … yawn … then presented ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING to Jane Campion for The Power of the Dog. 

After that we get another tired grouping from an older movie with Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta from Pulp Fiction who presented OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE  to The Batterer, who cried and tried to turn the story of Richard Williams into one about protecting his family, and how Will was protecting his family … against a lame joke. And then he segued into how God wants him to work as a protector. Seriously, if protecting people means bitch=slapping someone because you’re butt hurt, I think you need a new God.

Oh, and … Fuck. All. The . Way. Off.

ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING for The Eyes of Tammy Faye … and then Amy Schumer came out and said she’d been getting out of the Spiderman costume and what happened and Will, the Batterer, laughed. She then made a joke about seat-fillers and claimed Kirsten Dunst is a seat-filler. She plops down beside Jesse Plemons, who reminds her that it was his wife Amy just sent away:

“Wait, your wife is a seat filler.”

Anthony Hopkins presents OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye and she spoke eloquently to the LGBTQ+ community and how Tammy Faye stood up for us because, as she said, that’s what “Christians” do.

Lady Gaga is up last, with Liza Minelli, in a wheelchair, and clearly suffering some form of dementia, to present Best Picture. It makes me sad when the Oscars trot out these aging stars to present an award, and these people don’t seem to know where they are, or what they’re doing. The only sweet thing was Gaga looking at Liza and saying:

“I got you.”

I wish she’d gotten the academy not to use Liza like that.

Finally … BEST PICTURE Coda.

Interesting show, some surprises, some good jokes—Wanda, Amy and Regina—killed, and some lovely speeches, Troy Kotsur for one, and, you know, that assault by a little man. Thanks Will for making the show all about your ego and your wife’s ego, too.

Again, fuck off.