Lisa's Oscar Commentary: The 85th Annual Academy Awards

Lisa’s Oscar Commentary:
The 85th Annual Academy Awards

Seth who? If anyone tuned in to the broadcast a few minutes late, they probably thought “Why are Peter Brady and Captain Kirk hosting the Oscars?” Kirk predicted the show would bomb. Kirk (aka William Shatner) was right. Nine of the best films ever nominated for Best Picture and one of the worst productions of the Oscars ever… sadly mediocre and uneventful. The show promised to have lots of surprises. The only surprise was how unsurprising it was. Perhaps Seth should have hosted the entire show as the Teddy Bear? Or maybe Seth should have really run off with Sally Field during the third commercial break. Would anyone have even noticed?

The only saving grace was that the women looked spectacular and between the live musical performances and the gracious presenters and winners, there was some amazing talent on the stage. Jennifer Hudson stole the show… until Barbra Streisand showed up and ran away with it. Babs looked gorgeous, sounded amazing, delivered a sincere and real performance and was as current as ever.

Adele’s rendition of Skyfall, Catherine Zeta-Jones’ Chicago performance and the Les Miserable live cast performance were highlights of the night, but proved once again that Russell Crowe basically ruined the film. He can’t sing. He can’t emote through song. And there’s no hiding it in a live performance. Every other actor on that stage delivered and Russell Crowe fell flat (pun intended).

At least the show celebrated a lot of great talent. This year’s films were so rich in creative expression, there was true joy in watching so many of them receive awards – Daniel Day Lewis, Ang Lee, Christophe Waltz, Quentin Tarantino, and Ben Affleck, just to name some of the highlights.

The real thrills of the night were on the red carpet. For one of the worst awards shows, this was one of the best nights for fashion. There were so many beauties and so few failures.

Trend of the night: sparkle sparkle sparkle. If your dress didn’t have beads, sequins, jewels, or something that danced and sparkled in the light, you might have well have worn jeans, because the sparkle dresses won the night. So many fabulous sparkling starlets: Jessica Chastain in flesh toned beaded Armani Prive, Amanda Seyfreid in a bejeweled Alexander McQueen halter couture gown, Kerry Washington in coral silk and encrusted sparkle bodice Miu Miu, Jennifer Hudson in a long sleeve gun-metal grey Roberto Cavali, Naomi Watts in a one shouldered cut out granite Armani Prive sheath, Nicole Kidman in liquid black sequin tank with gold embellishments, Sandra Bullock in sheer and embroidered sparkling Elie Saab, Rene Zellweger in gold Carolina Herrera, Adele in Jenny Packham, Stacy Kiebler in Naeem Kahn, and Halle Berry in black and silver Versace. Not a dull dress in the bunch. Some used the stitching and placement of the jewels and sequins to create attractive lines and flattering structure. They were a feast for the eyes.

Not sparkly but nonetheless stunning were Amy Adams in pale grey-blue Oscar de la Renta Chiffon (reminiscent of a Sarah Jessica Parker Oscar de la Renta dress of several years ago), Zoe Saldana in an architectural unique gown from Alexis Mabille Couture, Jennifer Lawrence in a pale damask voluminous gown from Dior Haute Couture, Jane Fonda in sunny yellow Versace, and Anne Hathaway in pale pink Prada (very Audrey Hepburn).

Choosing a Best Dressed from the group was difficult. My first thought was Halle Berry was perfection, Zoe Saldano was avante guard and fashion forward, Sandra Bullock was sleek and stunning, Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts had the dresses everyone will want to copy, Charlize Theron was statuesque and stunning, and Amanda Seyfried was a work of art. Nonetheless, I have to give them all Honorary Mention Awards. The award for Best Dressed has to go to the two women who were completely on trend and sparkled so brightly they lit up the night in every way – and they didn’t even walk the red carpet: Barbra Streisand and Michelle Obama proved that beauty and fashion are ageless. They won the night.

Even though there were so many fabulous dresses on the red carpet there were some goofs and blunders. Amy Adams looked truly beautiful in her gown, but she looked a little dated compared to the others, and her hair looked like she walked a few blocks down a windy street. Reese Witherspoon had the most beautiful, smooth and glamorous Hollywood hair but her look was boring – something we’ve seen from her a thousand times. She needed to reinvent her look on the red carpet and maybe re-boot her career. Sally Field needed to take notes from Shirley Bassey, Jane Fonda and Barbra Streisand on how to look fabulous at any age. Valentino’s red gown just swallowed up little Sally, did not flatter her figure, and that color was too harsh on her aging skin. Sally looks incredibly young and that dress aged her twenty years. Anne Hathaway should not have worn that big diamond necklace with the high neckline on the gown – she messed up the perfect (did Rachel Zoe let her do that? I doubt it).

Jennifer Aniston tried a new silhouette with a strapless red gown with a fitted bodice and a lot of volume in the skirt. Unfortunately, this was not a good look for Jen. She has one of the best bodies in the biz and the top smashed her bust and the bottom hid her great shape. Her hair was straight and down as usual. She always reminds me of one of those teenage girls at prom who will only wear her hair down because she’s too juvenile to do anything different. An evening gown with daytime hair just doesn’t work. Salma Hayak also tried a new silhouette. She usually shows us her assets and why not, she has great assets. The black velvet gown was body hugging which was flattering and the gold jewels at the neck elongated her short little torso, and I understand that she thought she needed some height in her hair to balance the dress, but that big fat bun with the tiara just made the whole Baroque look of the dress look costumey rather than chic. And Catherine Zeta-Jones was the most sparkly in a gold Zuhair Murad mermaid gown but she was the only one that was over the top. The gold was so bright and the embellishments were so large and the silhouette was so shapely – it was just too much. Though no one was too hard to look at, Sally Field was truly the worst of the lot. She looked so much better at every previous award show this season, she just peaked too soon.

I’m issuing a new award this year. The Green Award. Though she may be the only nominee in this category, she did it so well, it’s worth giving her an award. Helen Hunt wore a navy gown from H&M’s Global Green collection. Of course she dressed it up in $700,000 worth of jewels, but she looked fabulous. She reminded me of the time Sharon Stone wore a Gap T-Shirt and no t-shirt ever looked so good.

Usually the guys stand out more as fabulous or awful but there weren’t too many standouts this year. Sometimes when the actors are in the midst of shooting another film, they can’t change their hair and facial hair and as a result, their total look is somewhat lacking. It’s hard to say that George Clooney, Ben Affleck and Bradley Cooper have looked better, but they have. But they’re still the hottest guys in town. Best Dressed men were Cristophe Waltz and Daniel Day Lewis who both looked very Euro cool in very tailored tuxedos. Kudos to Jamie Foxx for jumping on the sparkle trend, sporting a sequin bow tie – if anyone can pull that off, he can. And Quentin Tarantino looked like a mess like he always does – Worst Dressed. He still made a great film. If Tarantino could learn to stop casting himself in his films and hire a stylist to dress him for award season, he might win a few more awards.

If there is one thing to take away from this awards show season is that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler should host everything. Seth McFarland even said they will host next year’s Oscars. Here’s hoping….