Sunday, 12 March was the date of the 95th Academy Awards.
While people gathered in February to watch those two NFL teams fighting for Super Bowl rings the size of a Buick, I was already working out my Oscars party plan. Would I make some appetisers myself, or order in? Should we have Champagne near the entrance of the house? What about dress code – did we all need to be red-carpet ready, or would anything north of pyjamas do? As the night approached, we arranged the couch and chairs in the living room and I labelled them with each guest’s name and assigned them a category. For example, Julie was up for Best Casting, Gabrielle had the Best Art Design category, and Lynne was a favourite for Best Director. Yes, I am a nerdy film person.
Trying to keep the cats from grabbing the nomination papers and shredding them was a full-time job. I bet that wasn’t a concern at the Dolby Theatre.
From a young age, I’ve always loved films, so it was terribly exciting when Dad brought home our first VCR and television in the 1980s. This was back in the day when there was TV in the US, but not in Cayman. You had to get a membership to a tape club, which operated like a sort of black market Blockbusters. Enterprising owners had multiple satellite dishes and racks of VCRs, recorded all the programmes, and rented the tapes for $1 per day. Hey, if it hadn’t been for them, we would never have seen ‘Schoolhouse Rock!’, ‘Love Boat’, ‘Laverne & Shirley’, ‘Taxi’ and other favourites, until much later in life. They also had a good selection of films, so between those and Cinema 1 & 2 (which used to be in the Marquee Plaza), we got to see a lot of the iconic movies of the time.
My friendship with BFF Lynne actually started when we realised we had a love of Hollywood productions in common, and ever since we’ve been able to watch the Oscars, it’s become an important annual tradition. I’m sure I’ve written about this previously, but there was one year when our cable box suddenly went out, just as the programme was beginning. I called our TV provider in a panic, who said there was nothing they could do. As I tried to explain, with ever-elevating volume, that the world was subsequently coming to an end, Lynne sprinted down the road to the neighbours’ house and managed to borrow their box, since they weren’t using it. Some smelling salts and breathing into a paper bag later, we were back in business.
I realise there are a lot of people out there who think the Oscars are a waste of time. The fakeness of it all, why do any of us care what the celebrities are wearing, the banal banter… I get that it isn’t curing cancer, but I know that for me – now, more than ever – I’m happy to be swept away with the glamour of it all for a few hours. I watch my beloved David Muir on ‘World News Tonight’ each evening, and it’s one depressing story after the next. Since when did ‘news’ come to mean ‘only bad news’? I mean, he always has that segment at the end – ‘America Strong’ or ‘Person of the Week’ – but by then I’m exhausted from watching everything else falling apart for 28 minutes.
Of course, part of the fun of watching the Oscars is when something unexpected happens. Last year, it was the slap heard around the world when Will Smith took umbrage with Chris Rock’s remarks. It wasn’t quite that gobsmacking this time around, but there were some interesting moments. Hugh Grant being a sarky, dry Brit on the red carpet with Ashley Graham certainly ruffled some feathers. And speaking of feathers, did anyone see Hunter Schafer’s outfit for the Vanity Fair after-party? One large single feather strategically placed across the breasts. It seems that material is become more and more so-very-last-season with every passing year. I’d need a whole ostrich across my chest to ensure I was decent. And there’s also this trend of wearing transparent garments with underwear on full view. Why spend the extra money on Saran wrap, is what I ask. Or is an almost-invisible sheath classy, but a bra and panties flying solo are scandalous?
There was a bit of an uproar about Nigerian singer/songwriter Tems’ gown, which looked stunning when she was walking the carpet, but blocked the view of at least two people behind her when she was sitting. It also had the man on her left leaning at an angle for most of the night. This is why I stopped brushing my hair out to attend the theatre – human tumbleweed.
Sometimes the Oscars can be boring, with ghastly, scripted interactions between presenters and a dragged-out ceremony, but we really enjoyed this year’s event. Jimmy Kimmel did a fabulous job, apart from when he asked Malala Yousafzai a ridiculous question about Harry Styles and Chris Pine. I mean, why not just ask Volodymyr Zelenskyy who his favourite fashion designer is?
I don’t care how much experience you have on stage, or interviewing celebrities – hosting something of this magnitude can be downright intimidating. But no matter how forgiving we all feel we should be, it’s hard not to groan and poke fun at missteps. It’s all part of the entertainment.
That being said, some of the highlights for me included the wonderful, energetic performance of ‘Naatu Naatu’ from the ‘RRR’ film; Ke Huy Quan’s emotional acceptance speech; and Jamie Lee Curtis winning an Oscar. You may not know this, but I got to interview her on stage for the Alternative Investment Summit here in Cayman a few years ago. She was as down-to-earth then as she is now, and I could barely get a word in at the time – she did all the talking. For that reason alone, she deserves an award.
Oh yes, and I loved the moment when Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell presented together and he praised her for her youthful looks, while he referred to himself as a ‘scrotum’.
Yeah… he might have been a bit of a git with Ashley Graham, but how can you not love such self-deprecating humour?
I’m just a girl, standing in front of a scrotum…
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