And the Oscar goes to . . .

Have you ever noticed how grammatically incorrect the Oscars' verbage is?

I'm serious. I'm an English teacher, you know, and I spend semester after semester trying to break students' bad habits. A huge bad habit shared by most American college kids is begining sentences with coordinating conjunctions like "and."

It bugs me.

Last night, millions of viewers tuned in to repeatedly hear Hollywood's finest begin sentences with coordinating conjunctions over and over and over again.

Do you see what I'm up against here, people?

I can't forget the other grammatical no-no highlighted incessantly:

The nominees are:

A colon can't introduce a list (of nominees or anything else for that matter) from behind a dependent clause! Zut alors!

Now, I know that there are those who would argue that the list of nominees is not preceded by a colon, and because the absence of any punctuation between the predicate and its object is correct, the Oscars are in the right on this one.

To those who argue this, I say, "Booey on you."

I can hear the colon. Remember that gigantic, climatic pause between "are" and the list of nominees? Well, that's exactly how a colon sounds, folks. If you want to argue differently, get your own blog.

But I digress. (Did anyone get the joke I made in this last sentence? If so, post a comment and receive an extra credit point.)

My real agenda today is to discuss the Oscars, seen from my bedroom in Gritty Portland, city of not-so-much glamour.

We were invited to an Oscar party at a friend's house, but we declined because I have SO MUCH grading to do that I'm considering a career change.

Our upstairs neighbors, E and G, dropped by with a tray of shrimp and a bowl of popcorn. R cracked out the Friexenet, I whipped together a 7 layer dip, and voila! A party is born.

Joan Rivers was just finishing up her gush-fest, donned in what I can only describe as the My Pretty Pony look.

The comments from my place about the fashion? Catty at best.

We did love Hillary Swank's dress and Cate Blanchett's whole 1940s movie star glamour look, but we unanimously agreed that Renee Zellweger's dark hair and bleached-face made her look like Snow White with cancer.
Naked Mole Rat
"What's wrong with her face?" yelled R. "She looks like a naked mole rat," quipped E. I disagreed with the mole rat comparison, but I do think her hair-do was reminiscent of Peanut Gang's own Violet.


I thought Scarlett Johansson looked like a princess, but E, a New York City transplant artist, thought her dress was boring. It must be added at this time that E is with child, and her hormones are raging, causing her to blurt irreverencies by the barrelful. G (baby's daddy) thinks baby must be soaking up all available love, forcing venom to spew from E's mouth, as it did when Robin Williams took the stage for a moment, only for E to scream, "Sellout!"

We wondered how much someone made for the opening montage, and finally decided it was done by a production team for millions of dollars. All secretly wondered why we weren't part of said production team.

Chris Rock was a nice change, we all agreed. That was a good Oscar change.

What was not as good was the change to the format for the behind-the-scenes nominees.
E called it when she said that the show doesn't want to "waste time" letting unknowns walk up the stage.


The first such category was for Art Director. None of these individuals are famous to those outside of the industry, but without them, movies would suck, right. SO LET THEM WALK UP THE FRIGGIN' STAGE! The show ended at 11:38 anyway. Was any time really saved?

We did think Francesca lo Schiavo, the winner for Art Direction, wore the dazed and blissful look commonly seen on a camel.
She is much prettier than a camel (we're not being catty, here), as I would love to show you, but since she's an "unknown," unworthy of walking up to the stage on her own, I can't find a single, solitary picture of her on the web, people. It must suffice to say that she's a pretty blonde Italian chic who looked a bit stoned/drunk/camel-like upon winning.


Park it, people!

BUSTED! Was it just me, or did y'all notice the plethora of gum-smacking celebs, caught chomping away like cows with their cud on camera. This list includes Clint Eastwood, Carlos Santana, and one whom we know only as Curly-haired Cunnilingus Master (some guy who was part of the team who won for Sound Mixing). We named him that because at first it looked like his tongue was doing gymnastics, but we soon realized he was just chewing.

E believes everyone was chewing Nicorette.

I don't care what it was. It was rude. Manners, anyone?

Where are all the Asians?

Chris Rock joked that there were so many black nominees this year that it was sort of like Def Oscar Jam. Uh-huh. But where are all the Asians? We went on high Asian Alert when someone in the room pointed out that there were no Asian on stage, and few Asians to be seen at all on the red carpet.

Here's the list we came up with:

Sandra Oh

Zhao Xiaoding (cinematographer nominee from "Flying Daggers")

Ziyi Yang (The "Crouching Tiger"/ "Flying Daggers"/Hero" hottie was a presenter)

Kid from American Boychoir

Takuo Miyagishima (winner The Gordon E. Sawyer Award for his lifetime of technological contributions)

Yo Yo Ma

Tell me if I'm wrong, but isn't it true that more than half of the earth's population is Asian? Why aren't they winning or at least nominated for more than half of the awards at the Oscars?

This is the dog's bollocks!

Just wanted to say that. Someone said it while accepting or presenting, and I'm making it my own.

Enough of the 80s already!

Did you see Laura Linney's hair? Poll to readers: On purpose, or just greasy?
Linney
Or Scarlett J's hair when presenting the techie awards?
Johansson
The grease-backed mullet look is making a comeback? Say it isn't so!


While we're on hair, we all hated Annette Bening's coif. I would like to see her wear something a little softer.

"Laurie Anderson redux," says E.
Anderson

Nice call, E!

I have to point out one dress that I thought was gorgeous - it was Penelope Cruz's yellow Oscar de la Renta gown.


With that big bow on the bustle, it reminded me of Marilyn Monroe's pink dress in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.


Penolpe looked gorgeous. Did anyone catch Chris Rock's joke about "our next 4 presenters," when introducing Cruz and Selma Hayak. It was a bad booby joke. Ha ha.

Let's talk about Beyonce's Bling!

When she sang "Learn to be Lonely," she wore this crazy huge diamond or maybe crystal necklace with a long black Versace dress. "It's hard to wear jewelry like that unless you're a drag queen," commented R. Beyonce isn't a drag queen, but I think she pulled it off.

I've spent far too much time on this.
Must work now!