Big Night
The Oscars are tonight and I know what that means: time to throw a low-cut gown over my push-up bra and those underpants with the padded fanny, prop my slippered feet up and catch all the action. (With no red carpet in your life it’s like being in your casket: footwear optional.)
Time was, I always got ready for the Oscars by dressing up. Back in the 80s I used to go in for suspenders rising out of high-waisted black slacks with a stripe down the side, and this cute red bow tie. I did it as a kind of homage to all the tuxedoed gents up there on the stage. That worked great when I was still young and sassy-looking with my giant winged hairdo. I tried it a few years back though and I looked like Mork from Ork.
But the real best way to get ready for the Oscars is by trying to catch all the nominated films ahead of time. I had the most fun doing back in '97 when I asked my then 8th grader if he’d like to spend school vacation week going on a business trip with me that we would make 60% business and 40% fun.
“Let’s go to Hershey Park!” I sang as I pictured it. It’s just a 14-hour drive!”
“Sure!” he sang back and it wasn’t 'til we were halfway across Pennsylvania that he asked to look at the brochure and saw that the place WASN’T EVEN OPEN FOR THE SEASON YET. I made it up to him by saying “OK here’s what: we’ll go to three of the year’s best movies all over the state as we make our way home.” And we did just that: caught “As Good as it Gets,” “Titanic,” and “Good Will Hunting” all within the space of 24 hours and boy was that fun.
This year though? Well I did see "Juno" but as for most of the other movies I got cold feet; I just couldn’t bring myself to watch them.
I mean "Sweeney Todd" with some crazy guy singing and slitting people’s throats and what, getting his ladyfriend to cook them? I don’t think so.
And "No Country For Old Men" with its title yanked by the neck from sweet old William Butler Yeats? It’s from a poem about how he can’t believe how old he's getting, a very big subject with these guys; Shakespeare couldn’t stop talking about it in his sonnets. "That is no country for old men" Yeats says, "the young in one another's arms” etc. and while it’s true he doesn’t go ON and on the way Shakespeare does with the dying fires and the limp sad leaves and all, he does make it sound pretty bleak. He also says that an elderly man is like a coat on a stick and that age is like some nasty thing that gets tied to you the way mean boys will tie stuff to a dog’s tail just to confuse and disrespect him - all of which give you EXACTLY NO CLUE about what No Country really focuses on, which is this big droopy-looking guy with a Prince Valiant haircut and a Fred-Gwynne-as-Herman-Munster face who’s a cold-eyed relentless killer. A killing machine. Such an earnest snuffer-out of life that some viewers and critics are hiding under their seats by saying, “Oh it's OK! Because the guy is allegorical, see! No REAL people could ever be that robotically murderous.” (Hel-lo! Can you say “The Twentieth Century?")
So I was going to go see that?
And as for “There Will Be Blood” if that isn't the most nakedly obvious thing you can say about human life I don't know what it. Honey, there will be blood and there will be cramps. There will be cuts and their will be throw-up. And not only is it all completely obvious to say so, it's dreary and boring. And it’s the night of the Academy Awards! How about “THERE WILL BE DRINKING"? It’s true my padded underpants make my spouse laugh so hard the veins stand out in his forehead; also true that I look like James and the Giant Peach in the push-up bras and the low-cut dresses. But I do still have the bow tie and the suspenders, though with these new hinge-marks appearing in my aging face I look less like Mork than Pinocchio. So the hell what though? Just for tonight I’ll be a real boy, Daddy, I will! So cut my strings, Papa Gepetto, and pour me some o’ that bubbly. It’s time to turn on the Oscars!
