oscars confession

this is a true confession. i watch the oscars on tv.

i know, i know, i tell people i never watch tv. and this is true. i have a set and only watch videos and DVDs on it. this year i made an exception and watched the oscars. i, mary, adjusted my antenna and watched tv for over two hours!

i was babysitting hannah sunday night. i turned the tv on when she was in the tub, and the show was already well underway. i missed the best supporting actor presentation and only learned on the internet the next day that javier bardem had won.

hannah joined me on the sofa after her bath, occasionally asking questions but mostly snuggling, falling asleep in my arms before the show ended. she liked the songs. she wants to be a singer with an art gallery when she grows up.

did i tell you i love being her grandmother?

i like movies. well, some movies. i had not seen many of the nominees this year. i read the reviews of "no country for old men" and "there will be blood," and because of the violence, i've shied away from seeing them in theaters.

recently, i came up with an NLP-based strategy to deal with the intensity of emotions at films like that: sit at the back of the theater and wear sunglasses. the better to dissociate with, my dear!

i also really want to see "the diving bell and the butterfly," "once," and "charlie wilson's war." i started reading "atonement" but couldn't get into it. the film might be better.

i did see "la vie en rose" on DVD and thought marion cotillard was wonderful. i saw "ratatouille" as well and liked it a lot.

last year i saw most of the nominated films, even the shorts, but this year was different. i spent a lot of time doing NLP training and then was in maui at a time when most of the nominated films are still playing. who wants to go to the movies on maui!? not me!

i have added the unseen greats to my netflix queue and may catch some that are still showing.

it can be hard to tell how different a character is from an actor's own personality if you've only seen one film and haven't seen them as themselves on award shows. that's one reason i like watching the oscars. who basically plays themselves? who gives themselves over to the character? i prefer the latter. i guess these folks are called "character actors" for that very reason, and it seems that the winners this year were all very talented character actors.

not to mention all being europeans playing american archetypes, except for cotillard.

i missed michael clayton--it's on my netflix list--but was thrilled when tilda swinton won best supporting actress. i saw her years ago in a wonderful film called "orlando". based on a novel by virginia woolf, it is a comic tale of an ageless person who at the beginning of the story centuries ago is an androgynous young nobleman. he has adventures--and then wakes up one day to discover he is now a she.

then she has adventures and wakes up one day to discover she is now a he. and so forth until present times.

tilda swinton was superb, believable as a man and as a woman. only a pretty great actress could have pulled this role off, and she did it wonderfully well at a young age.

she certainly doesn't fit the hollywood mold of actresses, wearing no makeup, with a simple haircut and a baggy dress covering her figure! you might think she is ascetic, like a buddhist nun or something. however, in her speech, she said that her oscar resembled her agent, even down to the buttocks, and mentioned george clooney's batman suit with nipples. wow, she managed to mention buttocks and nipples in her acceptance speech! go, tilda! you rock! if more people did that, maybe ratings wouldn't be so low. (yes, i read online newspapers for my news. even though i don't watch tv, i'm not totally out of it culturally.)

other highlights: daniel day-lewis playfully letting helen mirren knight him, jon stewart bringing back marketa irglova make her speech after she was cut off, jack nicholson reading his lines off a tele-prompter like everyone else but imbuing them with an air of spontaneity. i don't think i'd like him in person, but he is a fine actor.

so the 2007 oscars have been handed out, and the film industry is already working on the 2008 slate. will there be a blockbuster film, or will the winners be spread among many deserving films? stay tuned.