Me getting some much-needed kip
Note: I am a weekend presenter on www.radiox.eu in Belgium and last night I was tweeting live from the Oscars!!!
At the time of writing this, to be honest I couldn’t tell
you what time it is as I haven’t slept since Saturday night, so in a way the
power cut that took Radio X off air on Sunday was a bit of a blessing as I
could cat nap during what should have been my show!
If the show had gone ahead – you would have listened to my
Oscar predictions and I’m proud to say, apart from one, I was spot on with all
my predictions. The only one I got wrong was saying that Steven Spielberg would
get best director, when in fact; it went to Ang Lee for ‘Life of Pi’
I have always been a fan of the Oscars – I love movies. I
love going to the movies, I get obsessed by some movies and I love to read
about the movie stars, so being Radio X’s ‘reporter on the spot’ for the night
and tweeting the goings-on made me feel even more of a part of it.
OK, I wasn’t on the red carpet (ours is a sort of mucky
brown) but sharing the action with you all was a thrill for me. I even had a
tweet after the show from a Radio X listener in LA who said that they hadn’t
got a TV and couldn’t watch what was going on, so was thrilled with my updates!
If I had to sum up the 85th Academy Awards in one
word, it would be ‘slick’ – everything seemed to go according to plan (apart from
poor Jennifer Lawrence who went splat as she climbed the stairs to collect her
best actress Oscar) but that aside, I thought the night was a jolly good show.
Seth McFarlane as host was a bit of an unknown quantity for
me. I know he’s the man behind ‘Family Guy’ and the film ‘Ted’ but that was it.
He was a good-ish host, some of his jokes got a few groans of disbelief from
the audience, but his interaction with Captain Kirk from the future and a song
about ‘boobs’ seemed to go down well with the star-studded crowd.
It was a night to feel proud to be British as well. Some
Brits who took an active role in the show included Daniel Radcliffe doing a
song and dance number, Samantha Barks (the lass from the Isle of Man who played
Eponine in Les Mis) who took part in the Les Mis number, Adele, who won the
Oscar for best original song for ‘Skyfall’ or ‘Skeeeefaaaawl’ as I sing it and
the best Brit proud moment of the night was seeing Dame Shirley Bassey getting
a standing ovation for singing ‘Goldfinger’ as part of the tribute to the Bond
films.
Before the show, I was tweeting about the various outfits
that the ladies were wearing and it was the long gown worn by Jennifer Lawrence
that resulted in her tripping up the stairs. As an eagle-eyed viewer, I spotted
the lovely and extremely talented Hugh Jackman, run from his seat to offer her
assistance, but she managed to get to her feet before he got to her (what a
guy).
The main Oscar winners went the way I predicted: Best Film
was Argo, Best original screenplay was for Tarantino’s Django Unchained,
Actress in a supporting role went to Anne Hathaway for Les Mis (I was really
thrilled as she was superb and I’ve seen the film 4 times now) Christoph Waltz
picked up his second Oscar for actor in a supporting role in Django Unchained,
Ang Lee won Best Director, Jennifer Lawrence was best actress for ‘Silver
Linings Playbook’ and of course, the one that definitely was the most predicted
Oscar win of all time, was for Daniel Day-Lewis for his excellent portrayal as
President Lincoln in the Spielberg film ‘Lincoln’ – it was for a pop at Lincoln
that Seth McFarlane got a bit of a jeer from the crowd when he said Daniel
Day-Lewis wasn’t the first person to get inside the head of President Lincoln –
John Wilkes Booth got there first !!
There were treats galore when it came to musical numbers,
Adele gave a live performance of Skyfall, Catherine Zeta-Jones recreated her
role from Chicago and did the song ‘All That Jazz’, there was, of course, the
Les Mis cast doing a mash-up of Les Mis songs (I thought it was a tad ropey in
places) but none the less an excellent show of talent – even Russell Crowe
stepped up to the mark and held his notes!! – Charlize Theron amazed everyone
with her dance routine, Jennifer Hudson sang a song from Dreamgirls (it was ok,
but she wailed a bit too much and scared my cats away with the high notes) but
apart from Dame Shirley, the other musical high spot of the night was seeing
Barbra Streisand sing ‘The Way We Were’ as a tribute to composer Marvin
Hamlisch who has died and was featured in the ‘In Memorium’ bit, which always
brings a tear to my eye.
On the whole, I thought the night was excellent and what
made it even better was that there was not one film that dominated – there was
a good spread of Oscar love on the night with all the main films getting at
least one award – the biggest winner was Life of Pi with four Oscars.
I really enjoyed ‘being there for you’ last night and am
flagging a little bit so I definitely think I’ll sleep tonight.
Oscar didn’t disappoint and now I really feel I should catch
the films I didn’t get the chance to see before the big night, like best
picture in a foreign language, ‘Amour’ and I haven’t yet seen ‘Lincoln’ as I
have heard mixed reviews and at three and a half hours (including the
ridiculous amount of ads before the film) it’s a tad too long for me without a
tune to hum or a barricade to cling to.
Thanks for your company if you did follow my Tweets last
night. I think I should at least try and get a bit of shut eye and I will no
doubt mention the Oscars on my shows at the weekend (that’s if I don’t get my
power cut off again!)
Oh, by the way. If you’re wondering why I didn’t include
Daniel Day-Lewis in the line-up of successful Brits, it is because he prefers
to be known as an ‘Irish’ actor – but we’re still proud of you, Daniel!
Bye for now.
Ali B
