Oscars 2019

My friend came over yesterday evening to stay up all night with me to watch the Oscars, as we do together every year (and we always take the Monday off work afterwards). We watched and I needed to blog about it, which also incidentally ties in perfectly to Herba’s and Pö’s next ‘Mach Was’ challenge that was announced yesterday: do something with awards! So, here goes: with my own fake Oscar that I have owned for many years and something to nibble and drinks, we were ready to watch the Oscars show…

First the red carpet, of course, which we were able to see through Eonline on my TV. The kids have the week off school this week and were going to watch with us but gave up during the red carpet before the awards show even started (for us it starts at 2 am). There were some nice and not so nice outfits on the red carpet, my friend and I tended to not like the overfluffed dresses. There’s a whole overview HERE if you want to take a gander. My friend’s heart stopped dead for a moment when she spotted Jason Momoa on the red carpet. She has always liked him, I think now she’s in love. He did look wonderful with wife Lisa Bonet by his side…

The show itself was alright but a bit boring for most of it. Queen opening the Oscars was pretty cool, though:

… and the 3 ladies (Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler) opening the show were quite fun. Maybe they should headline the Oscars show next year!

Regina King quickly won Best Supporting Actress and then a load of other awards, more technical and costume and such, followed. The speeches and most of the show were a little dull, though. Lots of tears too. Anyway, my friend took a few pictures off the TV screen of some of the presenters during the evening…

We both like James McAvoy and Paul Rudd; Melissa McCarthy very much amused us in that over the top outfit she wore to present costume awards. A big highlight for us was seeing Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga perform “Shallow” together. When this moment happened (another picture taken off my TV screen), our hearts completely melted:

Here is that performance in full on YouTube, we found it mesmerizing. I know Lady Gaga has a good voice, but boy, does Bradley sound good too!

Also, I highly anticipated seeing Richard E. Grant reacting to seeing Barbra Streisand live in the flesh on stage (she was introducing Spike Lee’s BlacKKKlansman).

Richard E. Grant has been gleefully joyful about his Oscar nomination. Watching his Twitter feed in recent weeks has been an absolute delight. He has been gushing about being a Streisand fan since the age of 14 and when he finally saw her live on stage, the camera showed his ‘Wow’ and it was just endearing!

In the past two hours, as I type this, he has also chronicled meeting Streisand after the show for real:

Being Oscar nominated was pretty amazing, but meeting with @barbrastreisand and having a proper conversation was an absolute astonishment. 40 carat Gold 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 pic.twitter.com/7ahBzdjg9j

— Richard E. Grant (@RichardEGrant) February 25, 2019

There’s even a selfie, albeit a little blurry:

Suitably blurry-eyed selfie with @BarbraStreisand who was EVERYTHING I’d hoped,expected & dreamt she’d be.🎶QUEEN BEE🎶 pic.twitter.com/8hBmvo1h4W

— Richard E. Grant (@RichardEGrant) February 25, 2019

The true highlight for me came at the end, when Olivia Colman won Best Actress. I was rooting for her or Melissa McCarthy, I would also have liked to see Glenn Close win, but when Olivia won in the end, I was extremely happy!

Also, I just knew the speech would be fun…

… and how cool was it that she blew that raspberry!

I have also just watched her press room appearance after the show, and there too she is just as adorable:

It’s cute that even my fave, Richard Armitage, loved to see Olivia Colman win!

Career defining raspberry 🤣!!! Congratulations Olivia ❤️ https://t.co/FxOE47GYhx

— Richard Armitage (@RCArmitage) February 25, 2019

So, what do I think of the winners? I like that there was not one movie sweeping up all the Oscars. Also, I’m fine with most of the acting awards. I would have preferred a Richard E. Grant win for Supporting Actor but I also really like Mahershala Ali, so was fine with him winning. I was happy with Regina King also, only Rami Malek was a bit of a disappointment to me. I would have preferred to see Bradley Cooper win, I thought he gave a phenomenal performance in A Star is Born.

Also, one day I truly want to see Amy Adams win that Oscar! After 6 nominations, it’s time. I didn’t think Vice was the one she should win it for, but it’s time. I would have given her the Oscar for Arrival. She wasn’t nominated for it that year but she should have been and would have been a much more worthy winner than Emma Stone for La La Land (such an overrated film!), in my humble opinion.

As for Green Book winning Best Picture? I quite liked the movie, but to me it wasn’t Best Picture worthy. From the list of nominees I only haven’t seen Roma and BlacKKKlansman yet, and I have a sneaking suspicion that one of those two (especially BlacKKKlansman) would have been a better choice. That or Can You Ever Forgive Me, if it had been nominated, would have been a better win for me.

So, all in all, this was not the most exciting Oscars in the books. Due to there not being any host for the evening, it all felt a little rushed. That was good (made the show seem less endless) and bad at the same time. Part of the fun of watching the Oscars is enjoying, or taking the mickey out of, the main host. Usually, my friend and I get to bed after the Oscars at around 6 am, this time we went to bed at around 5.15 am. Even if I was a little underwhelmed with the whole show, there were some little gem highlights that I think I will remember very fondly for a while (Olivia, Bradley & Gaga, and Richard & Barbra) So, even though I’m tired now, being up all night for this wasn’t a waste. 🙂

Falling in love with Hugh again…

I have always liked Hugh Jackman, ever since I saw him in Kate and Leopold and in that first X-men movie back in 2000. He’s very much my ‘tall, dark, handsome’ type but while I always really liked him a lot, something held me back a little from absolutely loving him. Maybe it was the Wolverine thing. I really like the X-men movies, I think I’ve seen all of them, including the Wolverine ones, but Jackman was mostly an action star from my perspective and that’s not usually what I go for.

Then I remember seeing him presenting the Oscars in 2009, doing the opening number. I can tell you, I was blown away by that. Up until that point I had no idea he could even do that (silly me, if I had cared to look, I could have found out that he’s won Tonys on Broadway!).

I fell a little bit in love with him that evening. I have rewatched that opening sequence countless times since and I still love it! I started paying a little more attention to Hugh after that but still didn’t watch everything (there were more X-men). Then he did Les Miserables and he blew me away in that too!

He got nominated for an Oscar for the role of Jean Valjean, but alas lost out to Daniel Day Lews in Lincoln. My admiration has been growing for him since then. Then last week, I went to see The Greatest Showman.

Reviews for it have been so-so, I didn’t expect that much. There had been such a hype about La La Land last year and, though alright, I didn’t really like that movie that much. So, with the so-so reviews, I thought this would be in the ‘just OK’ category as well. The movie has Hugh Jackman, however, so my friend and I decided to give it a shot and we were not disappointed! It’s not a true portrayal of P.T. Barnum’s life, it’s rather a fairytale interpretation, but I have to say I loved every second of it! The acting and singing and dancing was great, the music was totally awesome, it was upbeat, happy, had a message of tolerance and inclusion, I left the cinema with a huge smile on my face and Hugh Jackman finally, totally won me over! I am so going to go see this one again… Here’s a video of the final song of Hugh’s in the movie, taped during a private performance to get the filming greenlit…

In a later interview I saw, he said he had popped a few stitches in his nose after doing this performance (he had just had cancerous tissue removed from his nose). Here is another clip from that same session, of the song This Is Me from the movie, which garnered an Oscar nomination yesterday!

Alas, that’s the only nomination this movie got, which I think is a shame (especially compared to La La Land last year!).

After seeing that, I remembered that I hadn’t watched Logan yet, which was released early in 2017 and which is the absolute last movie in which Jackman plays Wolverine. I had heard good things about it, that it was grittier and different from other Wolverine movies, and so I finally watched it last weekend.

OK, so this remains a superhero movie, but my goodness, it really was different! It was more real than any of the other movies ever felt, and yes, gritty. Wolverine is weary and battled and scarred and very touchingly cares for a very old and fragile Professor X (Patrick Stewart being brilliant again) and the young girl that comes into Wolverine’s reluctant care (played by Dafne Keen) is also excellently played! Wow, this really was a great, gritty end to the Wolverine saga, with the message that a life of killing really has it’s price… The screenplay for Logan was nominated for an Oscar yesterday as well, and I think that’s the only Logan nomination, which is really a huge shame! To me, Hugh Jackman should have received his second Oscar nomination for this!

When I think of these two polar opposite roles Hugh plays so extremely well, one right after the other, I have to say that I am blown away by this man’s talent! The man really is being robbed by not being recognized with at least an Oscar nomination for one of these two movies…

While I was catching up on Hugh Jackman movies, I also watched the movie he did in 2016 called Eddie the Eagle where he plays a down on his luck ex-Olympian ski jumper who coaches a hopeful Olympian (based on a true story). In that movie he was excellent as well, in a more supporting role!

In this movie he also reminded me of Richard Armitage more than ever before. Here he is in the movie with sunglasses…

… and here’s Richard with sunglasses…

I can understand how people mix them up!

Oh, and Hugh Jackman has another huge thing going for him: a very happy marriage for over 20 years to his wife Deb, who is 13 years his senior.  He still seems head over heels in love with her (he mentions her constantly, lovingly, in interviews)…

… and adores the two children they adopted together…

This man is maturing so very nicely and doing such great things with his career right now! I’ll be following his projects more closely now and have just started dreaming about seeing him live on Broadway one day… 🙂

Oh what an Oscars night!

Yep, stayed up for the yearly Oscar night marathon again! My friend came over, my son also stayed up and we had a great time watching it. The food wasn’t bad either…

Frankly, my brain is a little too fuzzy today to go into a long analysis of the night. Suffice it to say that I went in hoping the 14 La La Land nominations wouldn’t all be won… I mean, I liked La La Land well enough but I really really don’t get what the fuss is all about for that movie. Heck, I even felt Amy Adams should have been nominated over Emma Stone. Emma Stone was fine but Amy Adams in Arrival was just top-notch for me!

Jimmy Kimmel was a great host. Loved the Trump and Meryl Streep jibes, especially loved the ‘feud’ with Matt Damon, loved the tourists he brought on…

… and him lifting up kid actor Sunny Pawar from Lion in a The Lion King imitation…

… and he was even gracious over the Best Picture snafu at the end, taking responsibility, joking that this would end his Oscar hosting career.

The Oscars for acting… I was very pleased with Mahershala Ali winning Supporting Actor for Moonlight! He was also the most dashing looking man on the red carpet, I felt.

For me it was a tie between him winning and Dev Patel for Lion (he came to the Oscars with his mum).

Oh, how I loved the movie Lion! I still plan to blog about that. Not only was the movie and the acting great, adoption is a theme close to my heart as well, as I have adopted brothers and sisters myself. I also loved Moonlight, however, and Mahershala Ali winning was a definite highlight!

I was also very pleased for Viola Davis winning Supporting Actress (she looked stunning in her red dress, by the way). I haven’t seen Fences yet but I think she is a phenomenal actor and deserves any win!

Emma Stone winning the Best Actress award was… OK. With no Amy Adams in the running I was rooting for Meryl Streep or Ruth Negga, but in my heart I knew Emma Stone would win and I am able to reluctantly accept that. Casey Affleck I know is a good actor but I haven’t seen Manchester by the Sea and so far he doesn’t really do it for me. I was really rooting for Viggo Mortensen, who I know was an outsider choice, but still… Viggo was at the Oscars with his son.

One day I really want to see him win one!

And then there was the whole already infamous Best Picture thing! When Best Director went to La La Land I thought I knew what Best Picture would be and my heart was sinking. There was some hesitation by Warren Beatty before Faye Dunaway then announced La La Land as winner…

… and I was ready to throw leftover popcorn at my TV screen. I just really don’t get the La La Land fuss (and I really do enjoy a Hollywood musical, it’s not that). The La La people were doing their thank you speeches when soon it started getting chaotic on stage and before we knew it the producer was saying that Moonlight had won! We were looking at the TV screen, wondering  what the f-word was going on! Then the proof was held up, Moonlight had won!

The Moonlight people came on stage and the La La Land people graciously handed over their Oscars to the rightful winners…

It was chaos, some sort of speech thing happened and before we knew it, it was all over! My friend, my son and I were left a little stunned, although at 6.15 am my son was admittedly more exhausted than stunned and he high-tailed it to bed instantly while my friend and I still looked at each other in amazement at this turn of events. It’s sad the win happened this way but I have got to say I was elated over the outcome in the end! I was rooting for Lion, Survival or Moonlight to win Best Picture and in the end Moonlight triumphed. Yay!

Yes, this was a memorable Oscars night.

An Oscar for Viggo please!

The Oscar nominations have been announced today and there is good news! Well, there is for me anyway….

Some years I have no single actor or movie that I root for but this year is different. This year there is Viggo Mortensen!! He was nominated for best actor for his role in Captain Fantastic (a movie I am very curious about but which I have yet to see).

He is being nominated for all the big awards for this role (he didn’t get the Golden Globe, maybe he will get a Bafta in a few weeks?). He was nominated once before, about a decade ago, for Eastern Promises, a cruel but very good movie. He should have been nominated for his breakthrough role as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings too. I adored him as Aragorn. I even have a little Aragorn figurine (next to my Thorin Oakenshield one)…

And I have an Aragorn magnet a friend once sent me many years ago (a little weathered but still there)…

Here’s a clip of him at the end of The Lord of the Rings, and yes, that really is him singing at around 1:37 minutes into the video…

Even though I don’t follow Viggo as closely as I did for a while there, I still check in with him once in a while and I am thrilled now that he is nominated for this Oscar! He is up against 4 other good actors (Casey Afleck, Andrew Garfield, Ryan Gosling and Denzel Washington) but I am really rooting for him! He deserves one!

He is not only a good actor but he also comes across as a softspoken, lovely, intelligent and warm person. He is an artist through and through (actor, photographer, painter, poet). I really hope he wins this. Go Viggo!

London & the Colin Firth connection

So, I recently was in London for a week and if I had really tried I possibly could have met Colin Firth! Theoretically… I maybe could have caught a glimpse…

Just before I went to London I read that Prince Charles would be hosting a reception for Britain’s Oscar winners at St. James’s Palace in London and that Colin Firth would be there! I would love meet Colin Firth one day, if only for a few brief moments… I’ve met Richard Armitage, I’ve seen Pierce Brosnan up close and personal, and I sat just a few rows away from Michael Palin when he came for a talk to The Netherlands, but I have never once seen Colin Firth in real life. And Emma Thompson was also going to be at this reception. And Judi Dench. And Maggie Smith. And.. and… and…

I was going to be in London and I would actually know where Colin Firth would be on a certain day (May 4th) when I was also there! So, I was thinking of staking out St. James’s Palace to try and catch a glimpse of the man. However, I was in London with the family… and I had no idea when exactly on May 4th this reception would be… and I had no idea what entrance Colin Firth would use… I had no idea if I would even catch a glimpse should I even know these things, maybe his car with darkened windows would just whizz by and that would be it!

In the end, there just was no time! My guess was that the reception would be in the evening (a correct guess as it turned out later) and that evening my brother had, as a surprise, gotten us tickets to see the play The Railway Children! As much as I want to see Colin Firth, doing this with the family came first and what a wonderful time we had. So, I did not do my stake out at St. James’s Palace after all and I could not regret that either… But I did see a few pictures the next day:

Colin is behind Camilla with Mark Rylance and Michael Caine. Vanessa Redgrave beside Camilla and on the other side next to Prince Charles we have Maggie Smith and Judi Dench. Emma Thompson is cut off this picture, but she was somewhere more to the right.

Of course I really liked this picture below of Colin Firth looking very pleased shaking Prince Charles’s hand:

And to think that Colin won his Oscar for playing Prince Charles’s grandfather in The King’s Speech!

Apparently Emma Thompson was clowning around with Prince Charles (with Colin Firth in the background):

And I loved this shot of Judi Dench:

There is also a brief video summary of the event:

Then two days later my brother tells me that Emma Thompson doesn’t live too far away from where he lives! He’s never seen her around ‘in the wild’ but we figure out where her house exactly is. Basically we could just walk past her house if we wanted to! But we never do, that would be creepy… I also haven’t held on to the info about her house because what good would that do me anyhow?

I do leave London feeling like I could have almost met Colin Firth! And that I could have theoretically bumped into Emma Thompson at Waitrose supermarket! Just the idea that I could have seen them around makes me happy! Maybe when I come again next time I will? I’ll keep a lookout…