Red Carpet Lineup: Oscar Beauties, 86th Edition

We're almost done! Only 35 more Oscar posts before w--- No for reals though we have to talk about fashion at least briefly. There sure was a lot of granny froufrou beading fussy texture on trend this year, huh? Which works on some people but not everyone. And weirdly it doesn't work at first and then totally works by the end of the evenin on some people. By some people I mean the happy Blue Jasmine twosome, whose gowns worked really well once you saw them all snuggly together in their seats. 

SUPPORTING LADIES FIRST

America's Sweetheart 90s Edition, Sally, America's Sweetheart 10s Edition, Sensation, Squibb

I think Julia Roberts should've gone younger/sexier to combat the visual drabness of the Barbara role in August and because Jennifer Lawrence, red hot, has already stolen her Sweetheart crown (in fairness Julia abdicated the throne after her Oscar win so no one really took it from her). Sally Hawkins! (Why do I feel like her bohemian signature characters Ginger & Poppy both would not approve of what their creator is wearing?) I was going to do a poll of best dressed but I figured Lupita Nyong'o would get 100% of the votes making it the most boring poll of all time. I know this is June Squibb's favorite Christmas Party Dress getting a surprise airing in March. 

BEST ACTRESS - AKA FOUR OF THE MOST POWERFUL WOMEN IN THE BIZ

5 Times, 18 Times, 6 Times, 2 Times

Judi Dench never shows. Do you think she watches overseas?

Amy Adams has never looked better and that dress was so tight that visual effects were employed to show her jumping up to dance with Pharrell in it. Because: impossible. Meryl Streep with a little off the shoulder glam. But white blouses are risky when you're eating pizza. Cate Blanchett looking like an ethereal elf quee... hey, wait a minute. And Sandra Bullock also looking sensational. The Best Actress shortlist did the red carpet proud.

But which among them wins your "best" votes. Tough call. right? 

Backstage at the 86th Oscars

The people who are lucky (or random as Cate Blanchett might say) to win an Academy Award get their moment on the stage and then dive headfirst into a throng of press backstage who proceed to ask them generally innocuous, occasionally offensive, usually bland, nationally-biased questions. This year was no different, but there's usually at least one tasty lil bon mot hidden amongst the winners' videos so while the Academy haven't released the full videos yet, we can still use what we've got to find those anecdotal morsels and quick quips.

All the acting winners, Frozen, Cuaron, Jonze and the make-up artists after the jump...

Cate Blanchett:

This is an auction! I'm for the highest bidder."

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An Open Letter, Some Linkage, Blurry Photos

The Dolby Theater was quick about getting 12 Years a Slave up in their awesome atrium of Best Picture winners in Hollywood. I stared at that so much while I was in LA, trust. But naturally it must prompt my annual outrage again.

Dear, Internet. If the Academy themselves understand that we just watched the 2013 Oscars, so can you! - Love, Nathaniel R

This is really all the IMDb's fault and then Google, too. Now virtually everyone except the Oscars and The Film Experience calls the Oscars by the wrong year, which will wreak so much havoc at future trivia nights and in every way of documenting film history. I have a friend who did really great work on several Wikipedia pages and people kept trying to change his dates to the wrong year so now it's a mess of conflicting pages. This madness must stop. Cate Blanchett is not the Best Actress of 2014... (at least not yet. Will Carol be ready in time?). She's the Best Actress of 2013. The Oscars aren't like a Beauty Pageant where you get a title andtour the country for the following year before you pass on the tiara. It's not like that. It's for a movie you did. Pretending that Cate is the Best Actress of 2014 puts you in People's Choice territory where people just win prizes even if they sat at home that year but are still popular. It's not really territory you want to be in. 

Five completely random links (more time to catch up what's happening elsewhere tomorrow)

• Vanity Fair on their Oscar Party 
• Daily Mail on that pizza guy and the tipping situation at the Oscars
• Buzz Feed if John Travolta had to pronounced other people's names at the Oscars
• Vulture Pharrell's Happy performance gifs of the stars joining in. This was SO smart to include so early in the show. The energy was perfect. 
• Vanity Fair [LONG READ] I bookmarked this story about trying to find out what happened to the real "Patsey" from 12 Years a Slave and I haven't had time to finish it yet but it's totally an interesting subject. I WILL carve out time to read it this week and so should you. 

After the jump my favorite blurry photos I took of my TV last night. But why blurry photos, you ask?

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The Winning Moment & The Loveable Losers

Oscar night is still rich with the thrill of victory but not, I'd argue, with the agony of defeat. At least not anymore. The Oscar race has never been as sports-analogous as some would like but the victory part in the modern awards season maybe. That requires true endurance... months of campaigning and appearance and interviews and people whisking you here and there. The agony of defeat is surely now lessened by way of expectations. There didn't use to be all these signposts along the way that you're never going to win which might account for how polite and calm the losers are in their little live-television grids. Nevertheless we still love to slow-mo the shit out of those moments.

We're doing three and a half categories (Supporting Actress, Director, Actress, and ?)  starting now...

Click to read more ...

The Beautiful People

The Class of 2013 via The 86th Academy Awards,  March 2nd, 2014!

Damn, that's a good looking bunch. It occurs to me that there was more than just a little bit more of a consensus this year behind "shoulds" when it came to acting winners, hence the repeats from ceremony to ceremony. That was true even here at The Film Experience. Though McConaughey didn't win his reader's poll here (he came in 3rd in a tight race for 2nd with Chiwetel, both behind Leo), the rest were your preferred winners as you can see on their percentage totals on the individual charts. And Cate and Lupita were also my gold medalists in the The Film Experience's long running Film Bitch Awards, too.

Group Tidbits & Trivia
• Cate and Matthew are the exact same age (44) and I wonder when or if that's ever happened before with the lead winners? It probably doesn't happen often given Oscar's double gender standards when it comes to what age its appropriate to honor male and female actors; generally speaking, women win most often when they're in their late 20s to mid 30s wherease men have much better luck in their 40s.
• The lead winners are both married and both have three children. The supporting winners are both single and keep publicly joking about the rumors that they're dating

Jennifer and Lupita reenact the last month of the internet backstage!

• another cute Lead/Supporting divide. The leads brought their spouses to the Oscars and both Lupita and Jared brought a sibling!
• Interesting gender divide in terms of origins. The women are international (Australia and Kenyan/Mexican) while the men are both from the Southern US (Texas and Louisiana)
• All four went to college --  so since Ellen went there with a joke: stay in school, kids

Jared Leto photobombing Anne Hathaway

• Cate is the old pro (6 noms / 2 wins) but the other three are all 'first time's the charm' winners
• I interviewed 75% of this group, alas not a perfect fab four: ICYMI my chats with Matthew, Jared, & Lupita
• Four different zodiac signs but we have two waters (Matthew & Lupita) and two earths (Cate & Jared) and yes, I have insomnia, or else why else would I be looking this up?!