Oscars 2014 Live BLOG!!!!!!!!!!.

Screw it.

I start work at 5am but I figure I can't miss a live blog for those sorts of technical reasons (although if I miss Best Picture that would be hilarious).

23.39 - Red Carpet E! hyperactivity soon.  This is what E! lives for right?
23.43 - I've seen 8 of the 9 'Best Picture' nominees this year.  The one I haven't will be pretty evident in      around 60 minutes time.
23.48 - Anyway so it's Lupita Nyong'o happy hour (over 2 hours maybe 4) so first a little collage of this year's Q.U.E.E.N rocking her now patented one-colour-block-rock.

23.59 - Alex Zane.  Claudia Winkleman.  Alex Zane.  Claudia Winkleman.  Steve Martin.  We soldier on. P.S. No one (of note) is on the red carpet yet apart from a Sky News representitive/ Kristen Wiig impersonator who seems to have lost the top half of one half of her dress.  Actually it looks quite sexy.  I will now eat some Digestives (R). Fuelin'.
00.09 - Sidney Poitier is the first to arrive on my live feed.  They're going for golden oldies first (golden baldies later, that was too easy).  Poitier is living on the edge of calm/forgetting where he is.
00.20 - Obligatory home city culture spot plug.

00.25 - Sally Hawkins. feeling 'insane', looking spangly.

00.28 - Lupita.

block of colour

00.31 - Naomi's hair looks like it has been sculpted for hours.  You could lift it up and place it on a plinth.  McConaughey is hanging around.  This is his night right? Especially as he'll be on two shows at the same time.  Time travelling. Sky now talking about Lupita, 5 minutes too late boys and girls.  Apparently wearing your hait up is the "in thing".  Also Olivia Wilde is "very pregnant".  Insight.  Ooh Delpy. Delpy is HAWT because she doesn't give a shit.

on a plith

salmon shoe in

jlaw's rule of idiosyncracy

1.07 -  Now blogging in my suit. This is news.
1.14 - Slightly flagging here.  As you can see I'm not quite the man of many words yet.  Introspective moments going on.  Also let's start already!  Cate was just interviewed, no one better out there ladies and gents.  
1.17 - Bradley Cooper is now an Oscar Nominee. Weirdness but he's hilarious in American Hustle.  GET IN THERE! First on screen bantz, Jonah coming in and hijacking his interview and now his mum is on the act.

first bantz

1.22 - Amy Adams is usually a highlight, bit safe today.  Kate Hudson looks fab but she hasn't been in anything great since Almost Famous so she's walking DOWN THE WRONG AISLE.
1.26 - Red Carpet done. A slog this year.  Time to predict Ellen's jokes.  Jordan Belfort/ Wolf of Wall Street/ Hollywood. George Clooney in space. American Hustle and hair.  Basically safe but will charm your woolies off until the break o' dawn.
1.30 - It's GOLDEN!
1.32 - Why the hell did the camera just pan to Joseph Gordon Levitt there mid June Squibb shot?!
1.34 - Get in there DeGeneres, pretty dark Liza Minelli joke right off the bat!
1.35 - "Between you you've been in 1400 films and 6 years of college".
1.40 - "Possibility No 1 - 12 Years A Slave wins Best Picture.  Possibility No. 2 - You are all racists."

First award of the night...




1.41 - Best Supporting Actor - Jared Leto - A tremendous performance, especially so considering the number of films Leto has acted in the last few years i.e. close to zero.




1.47 - Everyone loves Jim Carrey. Everyone. Introducing random as hell 'animated heroes' segment.  Is this for the kiddies before they go to bed?! Oscar pushing the 'lets-snag-all-demographics-above-and-below-the-sea-line' approach.
1.48 - Pharrell doing his thing.  Let this go on for 24 hours.  I want to see what Sandra Bullock looks like when her hair has been fooked by the humidifier.  Pharrell has come out to dance with Lupita, Meryl and Amy (yes, i'm on working a first name basis).
This filter shows that I clearly believe this is an insta-classic moment:

1.57 - Best Costume Design - The Great Gatsby - Catherine Martin
2.01 - Best Hair & Make Up - The Dallas Buyers Club - Adruitha Lee, Robin Mathews. Still a bit bizarre that American Hustle wasn't nominated here.  TDBC worthy winner though.
2.12 - Best Animated Short - Mr Hublot.  I think i'm 4 for 4. Either i'm a genius or it's predictable as hell.
2.14 - Best Animated Film...really hope 'The Wind Rises' wins. I predicted it but it won't though.  That'll be Frozen but as Miyazaki has retired and is one of the GREATEST LIVING DIRECTORS IN THE WORLD it would be lovely and all. Frozen takes it.
2.20 - Best Visual Effects - The most obvious winner of the night, Gravity.
2.24 - Karen O time! She's with Mr Koenig! This is the Vampire Weekend lead singer, Oscars.  Ya think you could've mentioned that fact?!
2.30 - Best Live Action Short - One day i'll watch all the shorts before an Oscar ceremony. You know as preparation. Helium wins.
2.33 - Best Documentary Short - The Lady in Number 6. Cute documentary short, worth checking out if the chance arises and the exact opposie to what I feel the winner in 'Best Documentary' will be.
2.37 - Best Documentary - 'The Act of Killing' may just be the best film nominated tonight full stop.  It's that innovative. Of course a bit of Weinstein star dust and '20 Feet From Stardom' wins. 'The Act of Killing' maybe just way too intense for the Academy's aromatic tendencies...
2.49 - Best Foreign Language Film - The best film of 2013, 'Blue Is The Warmest Colour' isn't nominated but 'The Great Beauty' wins and it was pretty terrific!
2.54 - Sorrentino to Tyler Perry. Now that is magnificence. On to Bono and his Merry Ants.
3.05 - Here are 4 versions of the same photo (well...)

3.07 - Best Sound Mixing - Gravity. Evertime I hear the words 'Inside Llewyn Davis' I think of how the Academy managed to shaft the Coens and that brilliant film.  Gravity's sound mix and edit was fantastic though.  It should win the editing prize also.
3.09 - Best Sound Editing - Gravity. And it does.

The next biggie!





3.13 - Best Supporting Actress - JLaw vs Lupita.  Wow if JLaw wins, but really this is Lupita's.  Best performance in the best 'Best Picture' nominee. Yay Lupita! Wonderful wonderful speech. Wonderful wonderful Oscar moment.





3.25 - While Ellen hands out pizza to Kerry Washington (et al), I put on a tie.
3.27 - http://www.ranker.com/list/the-7-greatest-_real_-bill-murray-stories-ever-told/kristin-wong
        - Shout out to Harold Ramis!
3.28 - Best Cinematography - Gravity - Emmanuel Lubezki. Gorgeous.  Also glad Roger Deakins work in Prisoners was recognised, always a class act.
3.30 - Best Editing - Gravity - Easy to call this a Gravity steam train but all these techies are expected so far.
3.43 - Don't put Cumberbatch on 'Best Production Design' he's the future don't you know.  The Great Gatsby which now has more wins than Inside Llewyn Davis, Captain Phillips, Philomena, Nebraska, Her and American Hustle put together. That's not an opinion, just the fact of the matter.
3.47 - Ooh look more heroes. What is with this? I'm not sure what the end game here is.  Will Philip Seymour Hoffman be remembered at the end as some sort of superhero in disguise? Because he was.

3.49 - I'm leaving for work, so no pictures for a little while.  It should be interesting trying to blog and travel at the same time.

So interesting in fact it is now...

20.47.  This is unofficially the longest Oscar blog in the history of Oscar blogs.

By now anyone who cares about such things knows that Cate Blanchett won the award for Best Cate Blanchett.  The Screenplay awards went as expected although it was a toss up in the 'Original Screenplay' category with 'Her' edging out 'American Hustle'.

Also at this stage most will know of Matthew McConaughey's night stealing acceptance speech. It has to be checked out.  It's a fine philosphical, narcisstic, child like mess.  Ruddy wonderful.  I now know that apparently this was the highest rated Oscars in a decade (up 10% on last year) so clearly loads of folks out there were loving the chilled out vibe (mainly Ellen causation).

I'll probably look back at the winners/losers in more depth over the next few days. For now zzz. 21 hours and out.

QUICK! FIRE! REVIEWS! (Dec/Jan 2014 so far)

Here's a selection of reviews of films i've seen in the last few weeks that I can't possibly write full reviews on (does not include 12 Years A Slave which will have it's own review, it's spesh).

The Hobbit - The Desolation of Smaug

These films are fairly enjoyable in their own right.  It's a shame that even though you can feel the love poured onto the screen everything just feels slight and a little pointless. Seeing goblins/orcs being killed for the 5th time naturally feels repetitive and the fluff at Laketown could have been taken out altogether.  Still though, we aren't talking Star Wars prequels here.  A qualified success.

Rating: 6/10 (C+)

Saving Mr Banks

Saving Mr Banks is a charming enterprise with professional performances around topped by an ever entertaining turn by queen of the world, Emma Thompson.  You'll enjoy it while its up there on the screen but ultimately it lacks a certain menace and bite to really leave a dent.  Competent comford food that at times dives deeper between the persistent Disney and the stoic P.L. Travers. Well worth streaming when it is released.

Rating: 7/10 (B-)

Captain Phillips

The pick of the Hanks' releases this year.  Mainly memorable for it's claustrophobic final third with a riveting final reel that rivals much of the celebrated actor's best work.  The real find here though are the actors playing the Somalian pirates, most notably Barkhad Abdi as the anti-captain.  Greengrass' shaky cam is on show here but is understandable considering the choppy sea environment.  Life changing? Hardly.  Life affirming? You bet.

Rating: 8.5/10 (B+/A-)

Philomena

I've seen this twice now and although I enjoyed it the first time round, it's impact was greater on second viewing.  This is essentially a grown up buddy road movie with heavy sociological themes mixed with light comedic flourishes.  My issue if anything first time around was I felt the religious angle wasn't barbaric enough, but then I realised that the film wasn't trying to open up philosophical quandaries of its leads, but instead show the subtleties of understanding and spirituality.  It's an evergreen hymn rather than stomping religious blaxpoitation and all the better for it.

Rating: 8.5/10 (B+/A-)

American Hustle

Fresh of JLaw's Golden Globe win, I have to say straight off the bat she is FANTASTIC in this.  To be fair as are all of four leads.  This is a black comedy, with great costumes, cinematography full of flair also.  It absolutely romped by for me but at the same time I can understand how some viewers would come out taking very little from the picture.  Having allowed a few days to let the film to sink in I'm still not too sure whether this is a great film that tells me more underneath the sparkly undeniable surface.  Still though, its not to be missed.

Rating: 8/10 (B+)