Oh, Oscar...

I used to love the Oscars. I used to live for the Oscars. The year the ABC tower in Decatur fell over right before the Oscars, my college friends and I drove to Kankakee (the closest place to Champaign-Urbana we could think of that got the Chicago TV stations) and rented hotel rooms to watch the awards we would otherwise have been closed out of. When my friend Melanie and I were stuck in the back of the room during a really boring history class, we used to entertain ourselves by listing, in order, all the Best Pictures from Wings on up.

And now... When Meryl Streep showed up to give out the Best Actor trophy, I had to head to Google to remember what she won for last year. Oh, dear.

This year's annoyance factor started on the Red Carpet. Just when you thought there could be no more annoying human being on the planet than Ryan Seacrest, along came Kristen Chenoweth, whose idea of interviews was to compare her diminutive stature to everyone who came along. Hugh Jackman, Queen Latifah, Adele, Bradley Cooper's mother... Yep. Kristen Chenoweth is smaller than each of them.

And just when it seemed Cheno had the annoying thing all wrapped up, Seth MacFarlane entered the building and blew all other contenders out of the water in perpetuity throughout the universe. Instead of Bob Hope or Billy Crystal, we're now stuck with the likes of MacFarlane, the unfunny plastic man with the perpetual smirk of self-satisfaction, the one who used his hosting gig to push his TV show, his movie, his album... He started out with a song about boobs. Keepin' it classy, Academy.

The highlight for me was the salute to movie musicals, and I thought all three of the featured numbers -- Catherine Zeta Jones doing "All That Jazz" from Chicago, J-Hud belting out "And I Am Telling You" from Dream Girls, and all the major players from Les Miz plus members of the current touring company (including IWU's Casey Erin Clark) going big with a rousing "One Day More" -- came off very nicely. I wondered if we might get to see some of Oscar's earlier musicals, however. Like Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey popping up for Cabaret. You know they can do it. Or even something from Mamma Mia, Moulin Rouge, Oliver!, Gigi... Notice no one said a word about Nine, either, even though Daniel Day-Lewis was right there.

I love Adele, the winner for Best Song, and she sounded fine on "Skyfall," the winning song from the James Bond movie of the same name. But the song itself? Kind of blah. In comparison, Shirley Bassey brought down the house with her rendition of "Goldfinger," a 50-year-old Bond song. Wowza. More Shirley Bassey, please!

In terms of the awards, I don't have any real quibbles. Argo was a welcome winner for me, as was Best Director Ang Lee. Life of Pi was a hugely difficult movie to make, Lee is lovely, and he's a U of I alum. Oddly, Argo also has a University of Illinois connection, since Christopher Denham, who played one of the Americans stuck in Iran, earned his undergraduate degree in Urbana, too.

It was a foregone conclusion that D D-L would win for Lincoln, that the omnipresent Anne Hathaway would take home the award for Best Supporting Actress for Les Miz, and that Jennifer Lawrence (at left) would win Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. She looked lovely even if she did take a tumble. She can console herself that Barbra Streisand did the same thing back in 1969. And Barbra had see-through panels on her pantsuit, so... Somewhere Seth MacFarlane is cracking himself up writing a song about seeing Barbra's butt.

The only acting award that seemed up for grabs was Best Supporting Actor. Tommy Lee Jones was the early favorite for his role in Lincoln, although Oscar prognosticators have been opining that his cranky attitude at the Golden Globes was pushing voters away, helping Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained) pick up his second Academy Award in that category in four years.

I'm down with Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio winning in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, but Quentin Tarrentino for Best Original Screeplay for Django Unchained over Tony Kushner and Lincoln? Well, it was expected, but it's still stupid.

On the fashion front, almost everyone looked great. I'd pick the three Jennifers as standouts. Whether she fell or not, Lawrence looked beautiful in her pale pink princess gown from Dior Couture, Garner (right) looked better than she has in ages in a purple Gucci gown with an insane number of ruffles down the back, and Aniston (below) eschewed her normal glittery beige towel look for a beautiful scarlet Valentino number.

Oh, and Quvenzhané Wallis was cute as a button in a bright blue dress with one of her trademark puppy purses as an accessory.

A lot of fashion pundits were picking Jessica Chastain and Charlize Theron as their top choices, but the former's dress blended in too closely with her hair and skin tone to appeal to me, while the latter was stunning, but the stiffness of her white gown, as well as the preponderance of white on the red carpet, meant she didn't make my personal, uninformed, non-fashionista list.

To see Theron, Chastain, and a whole bunch of other gowns and the glitter, and a few guys, too, head over to the Tom and Lorenzo blog, where you can see it all and voice your opinion.

So that's the Oscars. On to another year. Who will we be talking about in February 2014? Daniel Day-Lewis going for his fourth? Meryl back at the podium? More Spielberg and less Tarantino? Seth MacFarlane not even invited to attend? A girl can dream.

Awards Round-Up (Golden Globes, Critics Choice, etc.)

Don't you love awards season? There are plenty of golden statuettes to go around, whether you're talking movies, TV, pop stars, directors, writers, whatever.

Probably the biggest party among the recent shows were the Golden Globes, given out on Sunday. And that was a pretty awesome party all around. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were fabulous. Also funny and fresh and cool, but mostly fabulous.

So what happened? Jodie Foster got the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her contributions to cinema, offering an acceptance speech that some found infuriating, some found inspiring, and others found confusing. Oh well. She got her award and she looked great, so I guess we're clear on that much.

In more surprising news, Argo and director Ben Affleck upset the Lincoln applecart, with Affleck taking Best Director and the movie being named Best Drama. It was a good week for Affleck, who also won the Critics Choice Award for Best Director, with Argo named their Best Picture, too. Was it a little payback for Affleck's direction not even getting a nomination from the Academy? Who knows? But it was fun!

Lincoln's Daniel Day-Lewis won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama, while Jessica Chastain took the Drama Best Actress honors for her role as a CIA agent on the trail of Bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty. Those two also won with the Critics. Are they frontrunners for Oscar? Yeah, probably.

They were matched on the Golden Globes' Comedy/Musical side by Hugh Jackman, who won for playing brave and virtuous Jean Valjean in Les Misérables (which is certainly no comedy) and Jennifer Lawrence, half of of the off-kilter dancing duo in Silver Linings Playbook (which certainly is a comedy).

Aside from the overall Best Pic, which was Argo, the Critics Choice awards divide their favorite film choices into Comedies, Action Movies and Sci-Fi/Horror, and they singled out Silver Linings Playbook, Skyfall and Looper. Jennifer Lawrence was their winner for both Action (The Hunger Games) and Comedy (Silver Linings Playbook), while Daniel Craig (Skyfall) and Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings) took honors among Action and Comedy actors. Science Fiction/Horror actors get no love at all.

Supporting actors honored by the HFPA were Anne Hathaway, who played Fantine in Les Miz, and Christoph Waltz, as the dentist/bounty hunter/magic wizard in Django, while the Critics went with Hathaway and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who played the cult leader in The Master.

Along with the awards for Jackman and Hathaway, Les Misérables also took the Golden Globe as Best Motion Picture (Comedy or Musical). Oddly, the Foreign Press Association honored neither Les Miz nor Argo, not even Lincoln and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner, for its screenplay. That award went to the always annoying Quentin Tarantino for Bloody Bloody Django Unchained. (The "Bloody Bloody" and the "always annoying" are my contributions and not part of anything to do with the Golden Globes.) And yes, Tarantino was also the Critics Choice for Best Original Screenplay, while Kushner got Best Adapted Screenplay to go with all those Tonys, the Emmy, the Olivier and the Pulitzer.

Other films taking home the hardware were Brave, named Best Animated Feature Film by the Hollywood Foreign Press -- the Critics chose Wreck-It Ralph -- and France's Amour, which won as Best Foreign Language Film from both the HFPA and the Critics.

On the TV side at the Golden Globes, Showtime's Homeland was the big winner, taking Best Drama, Best Actor for Damian Lewis, and Best Actress for Claire Danes. HBO's Girls won Best Comedy, with star/creator/writer/Ms. Everything Lena Dunham named Best Actress in a Comedy. Don Cheadle, the lead in the Showtime series House of Lies, won as Best Actor.

HBO's Game Change, all about Sarah Palin and her Vice Presidential run, emerged as the winner in the Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television category, with Julianne Moore, the one who played Ms. Palin herself, named Best Actress. Kevin Costner took Best Actor honors for Hatfields & McCoys, a mini-series that aired on the History Channel.

Best Supporting actors in All of Television were Downton Abbey's Grande Dame Maggie Smith and Game Change's Ed Harris, who played presidential aspirant John McCain.

And now the important stuff! Who looked the best?

Among the ladies, I liked Amy Poehler's fun faux-tuxedo, which fit her personality perfectly, I thought Claire Danes looked terrific in red, and I also liked Naomi Watts' garnet gown. But Lucy Liu (above) was amazing in a flowered Carolina Herrera gown that didn't look like anybody else's.

 Unlike Connie Britton and Isla Fisher, who looked like the same person. Same color, same hair... Which is which? Can you tell?

And now it's on to more awards and more gorgeous gowns, as we wind our way through SAG, BAFTA and Oscar season. It feels like it lasts forever, but it's really just two months. Okay, maybe three.

ARGO Really Is as Good as They Say

If you're already bored by eating and shopping, and you're looking to do something else with what's left of your Thanksgiving break, the movie Argo may just be the answer. Who doesn't need to fight those tryptophans and keep the ol' brain working?

Argo is a Ben Affleck project, with Mr. Affleck directing and starring in this "based on true events" trip back to the late 70s. No, he doesn't look like Tony Mendez, the real CIA master-of-disguise/"extraction" expert he portrays, the hero behind a secret, dangerous and very creative mission to get six U.S. embassy employees out of Iran. Those six had managed to slip out of the embassy as Iranian militants seized the place and took everybody still there hostage. Once out, the six found sanctuary in the basement of the Canadian embassy, but that wasn't safe, either, and the CIA knew they had to find a way to sneak them out of Iran completely. But how?

Poster for the fake Argo movie.

Mendez's plan was to pretend that a campy science fiction movie was being made, complete with storyboards and posters and ads in the trades, and then get to Iran to pretend to scout for locations for the fake movie. He came up with identities (and Canadian passports) for the six Americans, so that they could pose as his fake Canadian film crew and leave Iran when he did. It sounds crazy and impossible. And yet that's exactly what happened in 1979. The true story of the CIA's involvement was classified for years after the operation, and a cover story, that the escape had all been the work of friendly Canadians, was promoted. There was even a Canadian TV movie telling that tale in 1981.

If Affleck doesn't look like Mendez, he has the untidy hair and beard to look decidedly 70s-ish, and it's clear that somebody made a concerted effort to find actors who resembled the other historical personages in the story. We get to see all the real people at the end, with their photos compared to the actors who've played them. Those actors include Christopher Denham, a U of I grad who played a lot of roles onstage at Krannert Center, including Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, as Mark Lijek, one of the American diplomatic personnel shepherded out by Mendez.

Seeing this kind of movie is weird if you lived through those times. And, yes, I was there in the 70s. Yes, I remember the Iranian hostage crisis that Argo centers on. I remember going to the courthouse with a friend to finalize her divorce in January, 1981, and seeing a sign that said "Free at last!" outside the courthouse, as the people at the mall next door celebrated the end of the long hostage ordeal by putting letters up on their marquee. I remember that my friend started to laugh at that "Free at last!" sign and how appropriate it was for her own situation.

Hamilton Jordan

Kyle Chandler

I also remember Hamilton Jordan, adviser to Jimmy Carter, although I've certainly never considered whether he resembled Kyle Chandler, who plays Jordan in the movie. There are so many good actors peppered through Argo that you have to work hard not to call out, "Oooh, John Goodman! Alan Arkin! Bryan Cranston! Victor Garber! Zeljko Ivanek! Richard Kind! Richard Dillane! Titus Welliver! Phillip Baker Hall!" as they roll past.

Better to fall into the movie's world and forget you recognize all those faces. Because the story is plenty gripping and suspenseful without Hey, It's That Guy! games.

It doesn't matter if you remember how the real plot turned out or even if you're aware in what respects the movie veers away from the facts. You'll still be biting your nails, desperate to know if these six regular joes can get to the airport and out of Iran before anybody figures out who they are and where they are.

Affleck has crafted a jittery, nervy film, fast enough and skillful enough to pull you along, set up the dominoes and knock them all down, with just enough humor on the Hollywood side of the equation to make sure the story never lags. Goodman and Arkin are great as the makeup artist and producer who collaborate on the fictional movie, and I won't be surprised if Arkin nabs another Oscar for his role.

I also liked Denham, Clea DuVall, who plays his wife, and an up-and-comer named Scoot McNairy as the least obliging of the captives.

Argo is based on a real story, of course, as told by Joshua Bearman in Wired magazine. Some of the details were modified by screenwriter Chris Terrio to make a better script, but the real deal is pretty entertaining. If you want to read more about it after seeing the movie, just click on the link earlier in this paragraph. Bearman's piece is terrific.

My Clandestine Affair with "Shakespeare in Love"

I intended to write a proper review of "Shakespeare in Love," which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1999, as a way of celebrating this Academy Award week.

But then a funny thing happened. I watched it again. And I found myself falling in love with "Shakespeare in Love" all over again, to the point where I was dreading writing about it, because I didn't want to share it. I just wanted to luxuriate in this affair for awhile, private and secret and special, and keep the rest of the world outside.

So I'm not going to write a proper review. I'm going to luxuriate instead.

On paper, "Shakespeare in Love" was perfect for me from the beginning. It's got Shakespeare, of course, which definitely pulls me in, and even better, he's shown as a young, impetuous, passionate playwright, spilling over with words even as he's blocked. He's also shown, you know, writing his own plays, so that's a bonus.

Plus Tom Stoppard, another brilliant writer, worked on the script. Stoppard and Marc Norman, the guy who had the idea in the first place, have never said who wrote what, but I choose to believe that everything I love the most in this clever, giddy, achingly romantic movie is Stoppard's work. So sue me. When you're in love, you get to be crazy like that.

And then there's Joseph Fiennes, who is pretty clever and achingly romantic himself. I hope Will Shakespeare was really like Joseph Fiennes. Wouldn't that be lovely? Millions of people have fallen in love with Shakespeare's words, as his characters came alive on the page or on the stage. But Joseph Fiennes and his ink-stained fingers bring it to a whole different level. Okay, fine. It's down a few levels, away from lofty ideas and right down to the earthy, the real, the sexual. I don't care. It works for me. Joseph Fiennes works for me.

I'm not a big fan of Gwyneth Paltrow in general, but she looks beautiful (her hair alone deserved the Oscar) and she has good chemistry with Mr. Fiennes. (Plus, you know, she's way better than Julia Roberts, who was apparently the go-to girl when the script first surfaced ten years earlier. Let us take a moment to give thanks that Julia Roberts and Daniel Day Lewis didn't work out. Because that would've broken my heart.)

And there are tons of other lovely actors to enjoy as they breeze by, with Geoffrey Rush, Tom Wilkinson, Simon Callow, Martin Clunes, Antony Sher, Rupert Everett and even Ben Affleck, of all people, each playing a pivotal role. One of my favorite performances comes from an actor named Mark Williams, who plays a stuttering tailor who wants his turn on the stage, showing us (as does Tom Wilkinson) just how each of the players is smitten by the magic and mystery of the theater.

Don't forget Colin Firth as the wrong man, practically twirling his mustache. Or Imelda Staunton and her real-life husband, Jim Clark, playing the real and stage versions of Juliet's nurse. (Clever touch, that one.) And, of course, Dame Judi Dench as what may be the best Queen Elizabeth ever.

So here I am, wishing once again I could time travel. This time I'd choose Shakespeare's world, just for a few hours. Long enough to see "Hamlet," maybe. Or the "Twelfth Night" we see Will starting to write at the end of the movie. I suspect the real one wouldn't be as much like Joseph Fiennes as I'd hoped. So it's probably better to watch the movie again, instead. It's just so hard to leave that world when the movie ends. Can't I stay awhile longer?