The Academy gathered once again Sunday night for its annual fete honoring the best in cinema in a marathon-length awards ceremony known as The Oscars. For over five hours, I took in the glitz, glam, tears and cringe-worthy jokes that Hollywood’s best had to offer, both during the ceremony itself and during the Red Carpet Coverage on E!. (Little know fact: E! stands for “Excruciating!”)
For a night of so much preparation, pomp and circumstance, I thought it was high time the awards themselves were recognized. That, and I figure since I wasted an entire evening of my life watching this stuff, we might as well make it count for something. And so, the Óscars were born.
The first annual Oscars honor the best moments and biggest blunders of the 2013 Oscars pre-show red carpet and awards ceremony (in completely arbitrary categories). I don’t have any songs about boobs to open our awards with like host Seth McFarlane, so I’ll just cut to the chase.
And the Óscar goes to…
Most Likely To Be Fired After The Telecast: Person on E! responsible for labeling Octavia Spencer as Viola Davis as she entered the red carpet. It didn’t just flash up on the screen and come down. It followed her as she walked down the carpet. Dude, she won Best Supporting Actress just last year. Get it together.
Best Horror Film: E!’s Mani Cam. A miniature red carpet showcasing manicures and jewelry sounds adorable in theory, but in reality it is the stuff of nightmares. As actress after actress took lumbering finger-steps down the carpet (there is nothing graceful and something viscerally disturbing about a tight shot of fingers mimicking walking), I noticed there was no time for anyone to Purell the mini mani red carpet between interviews. I literally witnessed the flu spread through Los Angeles, one actress at a time. Ew.
Best Accessory
This year, no red carpet look was complete without a beard. Affleck and Clooney had one, and Bradley Cooper also shared the unshorn look. Beards FTW!
Best Performance By A Puppet
Because this year’s telecast was devoid of any Muppets, host Seth McFarlane’s sock puppet remake of Flight takes this prize. The young brown dress sock playing Denzel Washington’s character really conveyed the desperation of the booze and cocaine fueled pilot. Plus,a puppet doing coke! Hehe.
Nominee Most Likely To Start A Product Line
Quvenzhané Wallis, who is never seen on a red carpet without a puppy purse on her arm. I smell a Hushpuppy Purse line coming soon to a Kohl’s near you. And I will buy them all because she is too damn adorable.
Biggest Tearjerker
Inocente wins Best Documentary Short Subject, bringing the movie’s star and subject, Inocente to the stage. She’s shaking and crying, the filmmakers are crying and thanking her, and someone has suddenly cut an onion in my living room.
WTF
No B.S, a (triple) tie! (Thanks for that line, Markie Mark.) Sharing this year’s WTF award are:
The tie for Best Sound Editing: I let out an audible “Whaaa? They can do that?” when Mark Wahlberg announced this pair of winners (Paul N.J. Ottosson for Zero Dark Thirty and Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers for Skyfall. After a quick trip to the Google engines, I learned this isn’t the first tie in Oscar history. There have actually been quite a few. Shows what I know.
Kristen Stewart: What is your deal? You’re hobbling around stage with some supposed foot injury, awkwardly tousling your greasy mane of hair and sighing as loudly as if the world has inconvenienced you by merely existing. We get it, you’re awkward and edgy or whatever. Just knock it off already.
Renee Zellweger: Was she drunk? Having trouble reading the teleprompter/envelope? Case of stage fright? I couldn’t tell if something was awry with Zellweger, or if Richard Gere was just a pushy co-presenter. He bumped her as they walked to the mike and cut her off mid-reading of the winner’s name. Girl, wtf was going on?
Most Disappointing Loss
Maggie Simpson losing to Paperman in the Animated Short Film category. Poor Maggie Simpson has devoted over 20 years to perfecting the craft of conveying emotions without words, only to be overlooked for her turn in The Longest Daycare. We hope her pacifier can soothe her tonight.
The Quentin Tarantino Lifetime Weirdness Award
Quentin Tarantino narrowly beat out other nominees and real life couple Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter. The loose, disheveled tie, awkward yet passionate speech and super lame “peace out” at the end of his acceptance speech are what solidified his win. I can never decide if he’s a complete dork, or just too cool for me to wrap my head around. He’s just so.. Tarantino. (Side note on the other nominees: I am super curious to see what their hair looks like when they wake up in the morning.)
Pride of Illinois
University of Illinois’ Ang Lee just edges out posthumous Pride of Illinois nominee Abraham Lincoln by winning Best Director for the beautiful Life of Pi. I-L-L! I-N-I!
Gracious Lack of Grace
Jennifer Lawrence. She looks genuinely shocked and excited to win Best Actress (unlike Alligator Tears Hathaway, whose reactions always lend an air of insincerity), and then bites it on her way up the stairs to accept the award. She justs seems so down-to-earth and self-deprecating. God, I want to have a beer with her.
“Duh” Award For Most Obvious Win
Daniel Day Lewis for Best Actor. DDL in a period piece over Bradley Cooper wearing a garbage bag and Joaquin Phoenix basically acting like himself? Um, duh. We all saw this coming from a mile away.
And the award for most Surprising Cameo goes to
Michelle Obama, for her role in a “Why did Jack Nicholson just throw to the White House?” video segment presenting the Oscar for Best Picture to Argo. It was nice to see the FLOTUS dressed to the nines once again, but I’m still not sure why the involvement with this awards show.