Glitz! Glamour! Tedious Montages! My Recap of the 2007 Oscars

I could not be bothered to blog live while watching the Oscars. I had three good reasons. One; no one reads my blog. Two; my computer is in a different room from the TV. Three; I had moderately priced champagne to drink and therefore could not reliably make my sarcastic remarks to the TV and type them out at the same time. So here we are, two days after the Oscars, and this is what I remember from the show.

-- People wear nice clothes and walk the red carpet. The editor from Vogue (Andre something) stays at least three feet away from all the pretty ladies and hilariously reaches across the chasm, robot-like, with his microphone. Perhaps he learned his lesson from Isaac Mizrahi and the unfortunate Scarlett Johansson boob-grab of 2005.
-- I’m watching the Oscars. My cat's name is Oscar. Discuss.
-- First item of the night - a short introducing all the nominees. Made by Errol Morris! I like Errol Morris. I’ve watched his films. I’ve heard him discuss his work but this particular Errol Morris production is not very good. It’s too disjointed and choppy to understand. It bogarts the Mac ads to spectacularly bland and confusing effect.
-- If you’re Ellen Degeneres and you are naturally a funny person, please do not use a full gospel choir to underscore your punch lines. It’s not funny. It’s not even tasteful when you think about it.

Ellen's red velour suit is by Maison Pee-Wee

-- For some reason all the boring awards are at the beginning of the show. Seriously, I am an editor. I know technical stuff and even I don’t care.
-- Children of Men, the best movie of 2006, doesn’t win for cinematography. I emphatically give the TV the finger while shouting “NO YOU DIDN’T! You did not just do that!”. Anson ignores me and eats more popcorn.
-- What do you get if you cross Mr. Clean and a pudgy grandmotherly lady? Strangely, you get Jack Nicholson.
-- The announcer calls Internal Affairs a Japanese film. Anson freaks out and calls the Oscars racist... It's a Chinese film by the way. Do not make this mistake around Anson.
-- Hey! They make movies in other countries! It’s true, and to prove it, here’s a montage. Very little dialogue is spoken in this montage - even after a clear warning not to be alarmed when the footage is “not in chronological order” and “in other languages”.

Canada's Lone Oscar Win (Sorry Deepa): Torill Kove wins Best Animated Short for the film The Danish Poet

-- Best Costume is presented with live models in little groups on the stage. The Dreamgirls ensemble features a man performing, what I believe kids call, the “robot dance”. We laugh and laugh and laugh. Three seconds of a guy in gold lame doing the robot makes up for an hour of relative boredom.
-- Interpretative shadow dancers make shadow pictures from such hits as Snakes on a Plane. That was a very good use of three minutes. God knows the Oscars need more padding so by all means, use shadow pictures. Next year, why not introduce some clowns cart wheeling down the aisles or little dogs trained to jump through hoops of fire?
-- Yadda, yadda, yadda, Jennifer Hudson wins. Forest Whitaker wins. I’m happy for him but by this time I am out of the room on a much needed pee break. Helen Mirren wins (happy for that) but for some reason concludes her speech by holding aloft her Oscar and saying “I give you The Queen!”. I’m a little too tipsy to fully understand what she means. Now, fully sober, I still don’t understand.

Helen Mirren confuses all

-- Another montage! Oh good. I was still on the edge of my seat from that last one. This time the montage is all about the good old USA. I’d like to think the Academy didn’t include this just as a counterbalance to the montage about those “other countries”. I’d like to think they’re not so insecure they needed to give us more clips of flags waving in the air to remind us that America is number one. I’d like to think many nice things.
-- Some other stuff happens, I don’t know. The cat is asleep on my leg and Anson’s eyes are glazing over. We’re not used to being up past 10:30 and we’re feeling the negative effects of so much Al Gore appreciation.
-- Dead people on parade! Please go ahead and clap for the people you recognise and ignore the rest. I’m disappointed by the short nod they give to Robert Altman. I’ll miss him and I could have used a few more clips of his amazing films instead of, I don’t know, another episode of shadow puppet theatre.

Leonardo DiCaprio gives Al Gore his 467th appreciative look of the night, accompanied (as always) with earnest, earnest applause.

-- Yay! Marty Scorsese wins for director! After all those years, and all those disappointments, he finally brings home an Oscar. He’s happy and he says a bunch of stuff in a short period of time. Everyone cheers. Huzzah!
-- Best picture - CHILDREN OF MEN. Oh wait, that’s in my head. The Departed wins best picture and the Oscars end approximately fourteen and a half hours after they began. I get to go to bed.

The Oscars AV Club Presents an Award
Alternate caption: Bow Ties for Everyone!

Thank you Oscars, for not sucking as much as you could. This year was bland but thankfully more relaxed than in years past. Ellen Degeneres was a decent host. Cut down some of the montages and artsy shadow people and you’ll have a better show. I still don’t forgive you for giving best picture to Crash last year (or as I call it, the "racism is BAD movie”), but for all my griping I’ll probably be watching again in 2008.

*** First bit of Oscars gossip just came on the morning news. After Alan Arkin won Best Supporting Actor, fellow nominee Eddie Murphy stormed out of his seat and left the building. He didn’t even stay to see Jennifer Hudson win. Tsk tsk. They dragged Peter O’Toole to the event, and he’s a hundred years old! He didn’t win his category - hell, Peter O’Toole has never won an Oscar but he still took the loss better than Eddie “I played a cartoon donkey” Murphy. ***

Screaming at Briefcases - The Exciting Conclusion

Although I have a few things to do before I GO TO PARIS (jealous yet? Sure you are. Let it out), I did make time to watch the first instalment of Deal or No Deal Canada. Let me just say, the show did not disappoint. It had the music, the lights, the hysterical contestants, the OCD host - everything. It had all the excitement of American Deal or No Deal yet is was better. It was Canadian.

You might ask how did DOND Canada differ from the American version. Well, let me put it into easy-to-write point form because I’m tired and I want to go to bed soon.

- Those Americans get boring “one dollar” and “two dollar” amounts on their board. What did we get? “Loonies” and “toonies” baby. Ah ha ha. We have such a good sense of humour. Let’s give all our currency wacky nicknames!
- When the banker phones, he doesn’t use any old line, he uses a Rogers phone line. Product placement has never been this obvious or this boring.
- The Canuck banker eschews sitting like his American counterpart in favour of pacing around his fenced off banker zone. He frequently puts his hand on top of the divide in a show of force, or perhaps a desire to escape his glowing red prison.
- How can we make that floor more Canadian? Big ass maple leaf!
- Canadian audiences are way rowdier than American audiences. Not necessarily more happy, or more excited, but the Canadians act like they got drunk and wandered into a free circus featuring the most excellent and entertaining of clowns.

Finally, the best part of DONDC is the contestants. Opening night had a fire fighter who went home with over $100,000, and a crazy Filipino Mountie lady (hereto known as CFML) who literally went bat shit insane within two seconds of taking the stage. CFML was this little screaming, kicking, punching whirlwind of excitement. She could not stop yelling and when the banker called you could hear her literally hyperventilating off camera. She was awesome. Unfortunately, I won’t be here on Thursday to see if she goes home with $500,000, but I hope she gets big money. She deserves it. Hell, I’d watch her for an hour just screaming and kicking at the camera.

So there you go. I went on YouTube to try to find a clip of the crazy Mountie lady but strangely no one has posted it yet. For now I did find a photo (above) that shows one tenth of the insanity this woman displayed. Research has also opened my eyes to other versions of the show from around the world. I encourage you to check them out for yourself. Did you know Quebec DOND has six male models? British DOND looks like it’s taped in someone’s rec room with home made props, and India’s DOND has the hottest host ever.

Deal or No Deal - something we can all agree on. If I were a Politics phD student I think I would have just found my thesis topic.

Well, I’m off to Paris! I am really looking forward to seeing Stephanie, and of course my husband Anson who’s working hard to pay for my trip. Ta ta mes amies! A bientot!

For those of you who cannot be in Paris right now, I offer this image of a cat, on a rooftop, in the City of Lights. Le sigh. I can practically smell the diesel fumes and taste the baguette already.

An Unreasonable Man

Today An Unreasonable Man is out in limited release. I saw this doc about three months ago and wrote a review that was posted on the FilmCAN website (an excellent site by the way - it concentrates on independent Canadian film - bookmark it. Bookmark it now!). Anyway, the review is a bit stiff, but in general I hope you get a sense that this documentary on Ralph Nader is really eye-opening. I walked into the film with only limited knowledge of Nader but walked out with a whole new understanding and appreciation for who he is and what he is trying to do. I question some of his methods but I'm inspired that there are people like Nader trying to change American politics. I would definitely recommend this film, even for the poli-sci majors out there who already have their Nader arguments firmly in place. With a run time of three hours, the film is interesting (and sometimes funny) enough to keep your attention.

So read the review below, if you want, and try to see the movie now that it's in theatres. I'm going to write again soon, but I'm busy right now with a totally unexpected trip to Paris that I'll be taking next week. Yeah, you read that right. PARIS. Way to go IBM and their policy of sending engineers "on site". Also, bravo to the mooching wives who get a free hotel room in one of the most beautiful cities on Earth. It's almost enough to make me want to throw out my Mac and get a PC. Almost.

An Unreasonable Man
(Directed by Henriette Mantel & Stephan Skrovan)

Who is Ralph Nader? If you were like me, you thought of him as that slightly wacky but naïve U.S. presidential candidate who meant well but stole votes from the Democratic Party and ultimately helped pave the way for two terms of George W. Bush. Of course, no recent American election is that easy to explain, and Ralph Nader’s political ambitions have been largely misunderstood. This film aims to reintroduce Nader to the public and impress upon us that he has always been a tireless crusader for democracy and public safety. From Nader’s early days going up against General Motors, to the young "Nader's Raiders” who fought unregulated corporations, the scope and importance of Nader’s work make him a fascinating historical subject.

There is, of course, some pro Nader bias in parts of the film (swelling music is cued to give the needed oomph to some of his speeches), but An Unreasonable Man thankfully never submits to full-out Michael Moore-style leftist propaganda. Instead the film maintains a general detachment with plenty of historical context , and follows the democratic advice Nader gave to filmmakers Mantel and Skrovan to make sure they talked to his critics. By and large, the film offers a respectable amount of time to those who consider Nader more of a trouble maker than a patriot. Although we can thank Nader for seat belts and airbags, his obsession to make a “sick” democracy healthy again has alienated some of his biggest supporters.

An Unreasonable Man is thought provoking and cohesive, even with its three hour running time. 4 out of 5.