Winter and The Oscars

Montreal has been lucky this winter - again. Very little snow, and very mild temperatures, relatively speaking. Wilderton Willie, who is the Canadian groundhog counterpart to the US' Punxsutawney Phil, said we'd all have an early spring. (Phil pooh-poohed the idea.) And, so, many Montrealers put their boots away, and began to dream about sipping Starbucks on a terrasse with plenty of UV protection.

Mother Nature had other ideas. As I write this, we are in the midst of a major snow storm, expecting well over a foot of the fluffy stuff and some gusty winds just to kick things up a notch. And when this little show of bravura is done, and we're still shovelling out, another storm looms on the Wednesday and Thursday horizon.

People, thus far, aren't complaining.

As for me, I turn into my mother at times like this. I go into bunker mode, lay in enough supplies for a nuclear winter, and plan to cozy up around the fireplace. You'd think I live in a remote part of town, but I'm downtown, steps away from whatever I need. Heh. What's bred in the bone, right?

So, this weekend is looking very good. Lots of warmth, plenty of good comfort food -- beef stew and dumplings, and, if my craving continues, a warm batch of chocolate chip cookies. All homemade, of course.

And what could be better than writing for a few hours in this quiet world? Nothing.

Except the Oscars on Sunday. 

I watched my very first Oscars the year Elizabeth Taylor won for Butterfield 8. Her tracheotomy scar was evident that night; she was breathless in her thank you, fragile looking, stunning, and still very much Mrs. Eddie Fisher, who escorted her to the stage. Shirley MacLaine, who lost, and who really should have won for her role as Fran Kubelik in The Apartment, went on to scoff decades later that she lost it to that damn tracheotomy. Which is probably true -- if you've ever seen Butterfield 8, you'd know that.
(See, Liz was very, very ill in London, with acute pneumonia, and doctors had to perform emergency surgery and cut into her windpipe to help her breathe. Liz was always battling one respiratory illness after another.)

I fell in love with the Oscars and never missed a show from that year on. Only once did I have to skip -- I was working the late shift at a television station in Toronto. It was a Monday night. The Oscars were always on Monday night, and in late March, early April. I can't tell you how upset missing the show made me feel. It was not right, not right at all.

Bob Hope was the emcee I grew up with, and then, Johnny Carson. In those days, when the studio system was still in place, stars really were stars with the kind of mystique they don't have today. One rarely saw them outside the movies; one had to buy movie magazines and read Hedda Hopper or Sheila Graham's newspaper columns, or Dorothy Kilgallen's.

I remember how serious they all were, way before streakers and hippies and politics invaded the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion.

I remember how dashing Yul Brynner looked wearing tails. And, I remember an incident with Tony Curtis and his then-wife, Janet Leigh. She came out with an upswept hairdo that decided at the crucial moment it didn't want to behave. A few locks fell forward over her eyes, and her degree of mortification was matched only by the degree of perfection she thought she had to present in addition to saying, "And the winner is..."
Yes, at one time, before political correctness bit Oscar's backside, people said "and the winner is..." and now they have to say, and the "Oscar goes to..." or words to that effect. See...you can win an Oscar, but no one can say you've won the Oscar while you're winning it. Jack Nicholson just might punch you out. If he isn't too high. Double heh.

This year, I am not particularly overwhelmed. I think The Artist is going to win for Best Picture. I still haven't seen it, but can't wait. It looks Oscar worthy.
So, I'll be enjoying the show if only to see Colin Firth again. And Billy Crystal.
I really hope Billy has a great time. 

It's glitz and glam night. It's all good.

A few years ago my niece went to the Oscars and then on to Spago's for the Governor's Ball hosted by Wolfgang Puck. By now, those edible, gold-dusted mini chocolate statuettes are world famous. Lovely niece that I have, she brought me back my very own. No, I didn't save it. I ate it.

End of story -- enjoy your Oscar weekend, rain, snow, sleet, hail, or sunny day!
 

COLIN FIRTH -- Please Talk Dirty To Me Again

I just reviewed THE KING'S SPEECH -- my money is on this film to take most of the Oscars.

You can read it at Rover Arts - (roverarts.com) -- the link is on this page, below. Let me know what you think -- have you seen this film, yet? You must!

Things I did not say in that review:

I LOVE COLIN FIRTH. What I find so remarkable about this man (apart from the obvious, I-want-to-run-my-hands-through-his-hair-and-commit-unspeakable-acts of-savage-love-on-his-person) is his ability to rise in the acting firmament as a romantic lead and then veer in any direction as a character actor. 

From Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and Mark Darcy (ha-ha--we all got it) in Bridget Jones's Diary, to my strong favourite, the character in Love Actually who falls in love with a Portuguese woman and learns the language well enough to finesse his way into her heart and her family's, to a complete about face in last year's Oscar-worthy performance in A Single Man, as a grieving homosexual, replete with stylish Charles Nelson Reilly eyeglasses à la director Tom Ford's artful take on the 1960s.

Did I mention I loved him as the brooding, enigmatic Vermeer in Girl With A Pearl Earring? Did I mention I love whatever he does and that he probably knows it? Did I mention that I'm onto him...he prefers not to smile (but what dimples!) and more often than not presents the promise of something yet to come; a dark, mysterious personality who speaks in smooth modulated tones, stingy with his smiles, as though they represent a naked, caught-off-guard facet of his personality. Or, maybe, he just doesn't think much of his smile. Ah, yes, the wonders of thespian applications.


I didn't mention in my review that if you want to hear Firth's take on unutterably dirty swear words, you'll get a thorough review of them, in TKS -- mind you, as George VI, but, hey, you close your eyes and imagine what you want, right?

I didn't mention that Colin Firth not only tackled the painful stammer of George VI in a masterful way, but actually raised his voice timbre to match the king's. I noted his manner of walking, as well.
Firth really became that monarch and that's the difference between play acting at something, and actually inhabiting a character.
I drank in every pulse at his temple, every throb along the jaw, and I always sink comfortably into all that passionate expression simmering beneath the surface of his eyes.

I didn't mention how much I love Marcelle waves in hair -- Helena Bonham Carter's hair, to be exact. Nor did I point out how very much Claire Bloom submerged her own persona into that of Queen Mary's.
I scarcely recognized Anthony Andrews -- remember him as Sebastian in Brideshead Revisited?
Geoffrey Rush is brilliant as Lionel Logue.

There is rich detail in this film. A veritable feast. One ironic twist comes at the end. As King George delivers the momentous speech to rally his subjects toward vanquishing Germany, the swell of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, second movement, surges upward with great poignancy.

But enough. Let's just say, I saw the film twice and had a bollocksy good time.