Goodbye Glamour! Until Next Season. *Sniffle*
We'll wrap up the Oscar coverage this afternoon with the final podcast in a bit, but for now, please to enjoy some more beautiful dresses that I'll remember forever... (aka until the next awards show several months from now).
Did you notice the gold, silver, black & white theme this year. A huge batch of former Oscar winning goddesses and the new Best Actress looked like they'd coordinated their outfits.
Yikes with that slit Naomie Harris. Carefully of your stride. Who invited Fan Bingbing? (No offense but she is at every high fashion movie event and isn't it hard to get tickets to the Oscars?). Is it too much to ask that Marcia Gay Harden and Jane Fonda get another Oscar caliber role soon? It feels like forever since...
Fresh! Olivia Munn is my prediction for next year's Sci-Tech awards (Nick always makes me guess. I called this one first!). Zoe Saldana wass the only actress who was battling it out with Jessica Chastain for Best Dressed of the night in my head. And I included Rachel Mwanza because she was so colorful and also as apology for not mentioning foreign film nominee War Witch on my CNNi spot -- it was not an intentional slight. We just ran out of time.
I would have loved to have discussed these with special guests but after the nominees with Courtney and the men with Guy we were red carpet convo'ed out. The season has finally ground me down into a powdery nothingness. I drift away...
It's your final chance to sound off on this year's Oscar fashions. Go!
Reader Comments (24)
Jane reminds me more and more of Carol Burnett. A sign that perhaps they share the same plastic surgeon? I thought fellow septuagenarian and Oscar-winner Streisand looked more natural. Barbra's Donna Karan outfit proves she too received the memo mandating the black and gold color scheme. Streep's dress looked like a darker version of what she wore last year. Neither was flattering, but any dress responsible for the indelible image of Meryl picking at her wedgie still counts as wonderful and should be held in high regard.
I loved Jane Fonda's dress so much. I thought it was the best of the night. (Or tied with the always impeccably-dressed Reese.)
I don't know if costume changes count, but the only look that made me gasp and left me totally stunned to speechlessness was Samantha Barks's gown during the One Day More performance. Just...wow. Absolutely breathtakingly gorgeous.
My best dressed votes go to Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Gardner, and Zoe Saldana minus the belt (the belt by it self is great, but the ensemble has one detail too many).
I don't know why Fan BingBing was invited (if you know powerful people, you know powerful people). But back in China, it actually was a news item that both BingBings (the other being Li BingBing) were gonna crash the red carpet together. But as it turned out that Li BingBing was just travel/studying in LA.
I disliked Samantha's dress because it was cut to emphasize her very thin waist. In doing so, it highlighted the fact that her head is dispropotionately large. When your head is bigger than your waistline, something seems off and the resulting look is distracting.
Speaking of the black and gold theme: what about the Salma Chained look? Still unsure whether I liked it. At times, it made me imagine she had been decapitated and the head had ended up skewered to an African termite colony. At other times, I was impressed by the boldness of her choice (especially when juxtaposed against the crass intro Seth reserved for her).
Olivia Munn's dress looks so similar to Jacki Weaver's that it's very distracting (plus why was she at The Oscars to start with?). Jane Fonda looked SPECTACULAR, she got my vote.
Fonda and Theron looked stunning, but I have issues with the color and the bodice respectively, so I voted for Olivia Munn. The other options are just awful. Very weak year.
I've seen mixed reactions to Nicole's dress, but I love the fact that it makes me think of a Klimt painting.
Kudos to Kidman for making a full red carpet dress of a syncronized swimming bathsuit. Not joking. It's so sparkly you can't take your eyes off her. Really appropriate to swim out of the muddy waters that's awards season.
My worst goes to Munn. There's this movie where the lead in one of those screwball moments, accidentally tears her dress completely and makes a new skirt out of some hotel curtains. It looked exactly like that, but in a different color. I wonder how Munn lost the original skirt ;) and decided to wear that.
The real question is... how did Olivia Munn get an invite?!
Iggy -- If you mean Ana Belén that is also a beautiful dress.
Fonda looked truly incredible. Charlize's hair was miles better than the dress. For better or worse, I thought Stacy Keibler was unquestionably the best dressed.
Four women come to mind as best dressed:
Charlize Theron: I don't usually care for super short hair on women but she is blessed with the bone structure that can carry off anything. Her dress was crisp and clean, modern without being too out there but still glamorous.
Jessica Chastain: Old style movie star glamour, very evocative of Veronica Lake. She's wise about what suits her and leans towards simple lines.
Reese Witherspoon: Again simple design and a flattering color but one that not everyone else was wearing. Incredible that she gave birth only a few months ago!
Jane Fonda: A bold color that requires a megawatt personality to not be swamped by it, which Jane possesses in spades. She works hard to look that good and is canny enough to know how to highlight it. Everything she did right Barbra Streisand did wrong. Her hairstyle was flattering and age appropriate most importantly her dress fit!
Babs as much as I love her needs to step back at this point and reevaluate her look. Her dress, which I'm sure cost a fortune, looked like a sack with pebbles glued on. That super straight dead looking hair only highlights that she has recently has had an unfortunate facelift. She needs to soften up and go back to one of those 60's 'dos that worked so well.
Okay rant over. What I liked best about them all was that they wore the dress the dress didn't wear them like Salma Hayek or Rachel Mwanza's did. Since I prefer when someone takes the risk of color over pastel it's between Reese and Jane for best. I'm going with Jane-for sheer audacity with that color and star power. Now somebody give her a part worthy of her talent dammit!
Catherine Zeta Jones, goddess (of the red carpet, anyway).
Streisand lifted what's the world coming too.
Petrie Dish, we are twins. I'm a gay man, but that dress during "One Day More" left me questioning all my life choices. It was a stunner. It makes her red carpet dress, which is simple and beautiful on its own, look like second... no... fourth banana.
And for the previous Oscar winners, choosing between Charlize and Jane Fonda is like pulling teeth.
I don't know if it was intentional or not, but i did have a laugh at Zeeeee being (formerly "she who must not be named") shown from only the back.
Peggy Sue. Yes, that's the one. I love Ana Belén, and I love El amor perjudica seriamente la salud. I suppose that's a beautiful dress as far as curtain made dresses go, but even that one looked better tailored than Munn's. It's just that I don't understand why movie stars and wear unflattering clothes with those great bodies.
Jane Fonda...now that's a movie star.
I am not sure if anyone noticed, Catherine zeta jones didnt seem like a nice person.. She smiles and she is friendly on camera, but once camera is not focused on her, u could see her aloofness, she had that "I am more beautiful than u, don't block my way" kind of look. She looked so bitchy and plastic
Am I the only one who thinks that Olivia Munn is basically wearing the younger, much sexier version of Jacki Weaver's dress?!
I thought the same too Carlos, see my comment above :)
naomi watts