Oscars! The dresses, the speeches, the comic retribution borne of ill-made bets...

I’m going to start my very late review of the Oscars by saying this: Sweeping, hyperbolic statements made in the heat of the moment are bound to get you in trouble. More on that later. First, the dresses.

Loving:


Michelle Williams

Just lovely, great color, and the sparkly little bow is my favorite.


Natalie Portman


Vintage!

Penelope Cruz

She made this look beautiful, but I suspect it might just be because she’s Penelope Cruz.

Meryl Streep

Age appropriate and classy.


Gwyneth Paltrow


She pulled off a cape. A cape, people. (And I also like the Bollywood thing going on with the woman on the left.)

Octavia Spencer

Love the fit, love the style, love everything.

Jessica Chastain

I’m not sure if I really like the dress or if it’s just so much better than everything else (awful) that she’s worn this season or if I’m simply jealous of her hair.

Not Loving:

Jennifer Lopez

Even without the Super Bowl halftime flashbacks, it’s awful.

Berenice Bejo

It’s such a shame. She’s so lovely and has looked really gorgeous at other awards shows, but this is so matronly.

Angelina Jolie

I don’t really have an opinion on the dress one way or another, but she was doing this stance all night and I think she looked like an ass.

Shailene Woodley

This was made for a 48 year old woman. In 1973.

And now for the Awards. In short: The Artist won and all was right with the world...

Things I Loved:

The Cirque du Soleil presentation. It was especially fun watching this with Jules who squealed in delight as the acrobats flew through the air.

The focus group for The Wizard of Oz. Most of it was so-so, but I loved Fred Willard’s, “Am I crazy or was one of them green?”

Once again, no tacky clapping for the In Memoriam segment, and beautiful backing vocals by Esperanza Spalding.

Lovely acceptance speeches from Christopher Plummer, Meryl Streep (but more on her later), and Jean Dujardin (“I love your country!”) We love you too, Jean.

Emma Stone’s presentation with Ben Stiller. She is hilarious and an utter delight. Maybe she should host some time. Also fabulous: Chris Rock talking about how he is ridiculously overpaid for voice acting, Rose Byrne and Melissa McCarthy playing their Scorsese drinking game, and Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell playing (and dropping) the cymbals.

Things I did not love:

Most of the other presentations:

Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr’s clunky documentary bit = awkward.

J Lo and Cameron Diaz attempting to be funny = even more awkward.

Bad writing + celebrities with no comic timing = let’s just have Emma Stone present everything.

It pains me to say this, but Billy was a disappointment. Maybe my expectations were too high, having built him up in my memory as the ultimate Oscar host, or maybe he’s just older and off his game, but there were lots of attempts at humor and far less actual humor. One noted exception: the “what the stars are actually thinking” bit.

Okay, so the sweeping, hyperbolic statement that got me in trouble:

I mentioned in my review of The Iron Lady that my friend Eric from Trivia is in love with Meryl Streep (first lady, Reagan glory days, etc, etc) and that I didn’t care for the film at all. Naturally we got into it one night at Trivia re: Meryl vs. Viola, and a heated debate ensued. Viola was riding high on Globe and SAG awards and I really felt she’d win the Oscar. She deserved that Oscar. She was the heart and soul of The Help and her performance was magnificent. Eric was certain Meryl had it in the bag.

Needing to shut him up once and for all, I held aloft my water glass, made of hard, red plastic, and declared, “If she wins Best Actress I will eat this cup! I will break it into pieces, crunch it down, and digest it!”

So you can see where this is going. Let it never be said that Aunt Linda has cornered the market on hyperbole.

Later, when Eric reminded me that the Academy is overwhelmingly made up of old, white men (i.e. just the sort of people who would vote for an impression of a British prime minister from a mediocre film), I started to get slightly nervous. But, I carried on with a show of confidence that I was right, which is the only thing to do in such a situation.

Eric and Lex both came over to watch the Oscars with the family. You can imagine how it went down. Meryl’s name was called, I gasped in pearl-clutching horror, the room erupted into a cacophony of yelps and laughter and Schadenfreude. And one week later, I was doing this:

I will say Meryl’s speech was lovely. But so was Cuba Gooding Jr.’s when he got Edward Norton’s Oscar.