For 17 years (it began as a way of keeping the kids entertained when we first moved to Ottawa and had to live in the smallish hotel/apartment for nine months), our family, and eventually our family and friends, have been having a bit of an Oscar night where everyone comes with their sealed envelopes, ten dollars and filled-in ballots enclosed, prepared for a long night of hooting, hollering, and oil-enhanced carbohydrates, and where the sound of my daughter every ten minutes or so bursts forth, "How many have I got right, Mom?"
I know that I would be asking the same question -- probably every five minutes -- except that I am the Mrs. Hitler of the Fifth Form (see The Browning Version with Albert Finney version, although both versions are splendid) who sits in the chair, a bowl of Doritos in my lap and a leaky red pen making check marks and slash lines on everyone's papers. So busy am I etching my exes and ticks, in fact, I barely see any of the action on television, which might be a good thing when I think back to the year that Liza with a z Minnelli won for Cabaret and I jumped up and down so hard in Paula Ouimet's wooden chair that I broke it. (What was I thinking? Mind you, I had just fallen in love with that indescribable Mr. Ackerman and was already half out of my mind) (or as I said...what was I thinking?)
This year I am happy to report that I have seen almost all the big name movies. Mind you, does it really matter who any of us think is going to win, should win, shouldn't win, needs to win, or has a winning turn coming to them? A movie can be nominated for 11 Oscars, have won all the SAG and Golden Globe Awards, break everybody's heart, and still not win. Or it can be a maudlin pretentious cloying over-acted over-directed over-produced mess and still pick up seventeen prizes.
Frankly, I think a lot of it has to do with politics and who's in power and who's about to be, or has been recently, elected and who has just died and who hates who and who loves who (objective case, and objectivity, cast aside). I don't think much of it has to do with deserving because, after all, isn't almost everyone who is nominated deserving of an Oscar, either this time or for another time when they were not nominated? I can't think of a seasoned performer (or even a relatively unseasoned performer: see previous nominees Marion Cotillard and Saoirse Ryan, to name just two) who shouldn't at some point have won, or win, a best-in-category prize. Which leads me to ask...why weren't David Cross or Dev Patel or Madur Mittal nominated?
All I do know it that I am going to over-talk, over-eat, over-mark; cry at least twice (but only for the kids and maybe again for Joanne Woodward); laugh myself half-sick (but only half); have a thousand non-conflicted but conflicting opinions about dress-up or dress-down designer threads and duds; deride Jack Nicholson's sunglasses; wish there were no politically-motivated thank you speeches; enjoy everyone who is here in our home; drink a little bit of wine and enjoy them even more; lament the length of the program, and regret when it is over. And speaking of Oscar night, I hope that one of my last tipsy memories at bedtime will be the sound of my daughter's voice crying out over the telephone, "How many did I get right, Mom?"
In the meantime everyone, happy voting! At the very least, if I can't win, I hope one of my children does.
I voted for Seabiscuit. That's the most realistic horse costume I've ever seen. ~ Billy Crystal, 76th Academy Awards
