(Above: Emma Stone photographed by Aliah Anderson/Getty)
I originally posted this on Facebook and an edited version on Instagram but I’m never sure how much crossover there is with Substack and those two social media platforms. So in case you didn’t happen by these comments as you scrolled along this morning, here they are.
I wrote:
Back-in-the-day, after Oscar night and the Vanity Fair party, I'd call my former boyfriend and dear friend, Peter Staley, the next morning and give him a play-by-play because back-in-the-day, as well, nothing was real until I told Peter. So thanks for standing in for him this morning - although this is more about the ceremony since I only party in my dreams these days - or, more precisely, don't.
Last night I watched the telecast lying in bed here in London, where I now live for half of each year, with my MacBook propped on my stomach. The ceremony was streamed live on ITVx with a panel discussion during the commercial breaks on ABC which was hosted by Jonathan Ross. That kind of seemed fitting since so many Brits were winning awards. I would have liked some acknowledgment of Saltburn somewhere in the evening however with a sexy presenter or two. And thought it odd that the producers weren't aware of Wonka which made so much money although I wasn't a fan of that film as I was Saltburn - and All of Us Strangers, which was also ignored. Or maybe I missed fleeting glimpses of them in the opening montage since I shut my eyes momentarily lying there before opening them to see all the shutting of eyes as a a trope in the montage's finale.
I thought it was overall a really good sort of old-fashioned Oscars show because Kimmel is kind of the old-fashioned, newfangled child that Bob Hope and Johnny Carson could have incongruously had - self-aware, just smarmy enough, pointed when need be, but careful not to feel the need too often. He's part of the fold out there which is what the audience in the room needs to be shepherded through the evening. I liked his digs at Whatshername Britt and especially the reading of Trump's assessment of him and the night and the mean, bullying cruel mocking - Trump's vulgarian trademark which his followers find so thrilling since it gives fascistic agency to their darkness - of George Stephanopoulos because I presume George did something earlier in the day on his own ABC show that the Mussolini with a Moue - kinda like Kitten with a Whip - didn't like. And the cutaway to the audience saw a delighted Annette Bening at his going after Trump with the best line of the night - "Isn't it past your jail time?" - and the woman sitting next to One of The Brothers Hemsworth giving him a concerned little glance and his looking not pleased at all by the comment. That was a little Hmmmsworthy catch.
Billie Eilish and her own brother always move me. And that song has been playing in my iPods repeatedly since the summer - especially when I'm cooking or baking. I think it is already a classic. The other number from Barbie performed by the other star who was not Barbie was a kind of Rob Lowe and Snow White redemptive moment and deservedly brought the house down and captured the film's irreverence and relevance and its ability to make political points while embedding us with a knowing joy that is no less joyous for its knowingness. The film - and that number and Ryan Gosling's good-sport brilliance in its performance - acknowledged how Barbie and Ken and their nipple-less-ness and nothing-noticeable-about-their-crotches-except-there-is-nothing-to-notice (kind of like the Oscar statuette) manifested in little girls and us little boys who played with them a knowledge that innocence can be knowing as it left its manipulation in our own hands.
I am always moved by Scorsese's love and commitment to his wife, legendary book editor Helen Morris. Deeply so.
And not moved exactly nor manipulated by Ryan Gosling bringing his sister and Bradley Cooper bringing his mother as their dates. I was a bit worried about where Kimmel was going with singling out Bradley over Ryan regarding this but then he detoured to an incest joke since that is still more acceptable in Hollywood, I guess, to be part of a movie star's narrative than his not bringing a male date in his mother's stead. Or whatever. And as for Maestro and its detractors - it seems to have become cool to hate it and allow that to spill over onto Cooper - I loved the film. Loved it. Have seen it twice. And I think Cooper is one of the good guys who does lots of service in his sobriety and is a true artist and great actor and director and maybe even writer. So there.
"I don't know how to feel/But I wanna try/I don't know how to feel/But someday I might/Someday I might,” Billie sang last night. "Think I forgot how to be happy/Something I'm not, but something I can be/Something I wait for/Something I'm made for/Something I'm made for ..."
Here's to feeling happy - or even feeling sad - which is what the movies knowingly do for us. But feeling happy is not the same thing as happiness and sadness felt is not the same thing as sadness. Feelings are the expression of something deeper going on that we humanly need to describe, assess, assign. Movies are the manipulative palliative that visually give pulse through a performative art to our need to be emotionally performative ourselves in that need. We are their human dolls.
I like Emma Stone who won an award for being just that.
Everything connects.
Onward.
I love this. Thank-you Kevin.
Thank you so much Kevin. I am a dinosaur with no social media presence. I am so glad you published this here. At least so I could enjoy and concur with your feeling about “Maestro.” I loved it. And also have seen it and “About A Fall” twice.