So the Oscars
have come and gone, but I have to say this year they’ve left a big impression
on me. It could have been because this was New England’s year with Connecticut
born Seth MacFarlane hosting, and Boston native Ben Affleck taking Best Picture
for Argo. But I think it had more to
do with living locally and witnessing all that goes into the preparations for
such an extravagant event.
Of course it’s all too easy to get caught up in the glitz and glamour, but a lot has to be
said of the weeks
of meticulous preparation,and the high security detail that
took over several blocks of Hollywood Boulevard, and all this for the sake of
honoring movies. And then what took nearly a month for the Academy and Dolby Theatre to set up had literally disappeared overnight.
Right down to the Oscar
billboards, which had been replaced with the old standard – Sofía Vergara
smooching up to a can of Diet Pepsi (she’s 40 and clearly fabulous by the way).
At first I
couldn’t quite wrap my head around how they pull this off. I tried to imagine
how they got all these celebrities inside. I thought perhaps limos simply
pulled up to the curb depositing celebrities at the front of the Dolby Theatre
where a slender red carpet, much like the yellow brick road, led them to their
destination inside. Let me tell you, it made much more sense that they blocked
of the section of Hollywood Boulevard in front of the theater, set up security
check points for everyone entering the ceremony, laid out a red carpet that
covered the blocked off street and entrances, and placed bleachers along the
street on the way into the theater.
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Bleachers set up just before the entrance to the Dolby Theatre
and a week or so before they blocked off this section of Hollywood Blvd
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The bleachers
are where 700 hundred lucky people get to sit and watch the celebrities as they
arrive. And! Tickets to sit in the bleachers are available when you enter a lottery
to win them. This year the lottery opened on September 24, 2012, and closed on
November 16th with winners being announced later that month. So mark
your calendars and look into this next year. The process is simple. Just sign
up to be an Oscars insider at www.oscars.org/insider and bookmark the site. Then next fall
keep your eyes peeled for your chance to enter. The best thing is you don’t
have to live in Hollywood, LA, or California to be chosen, so it’s the perfect
excuse to come visit the area and have a blast!
Perhaps next
year we’ll try for bleacher seats, but for this year my husband and I walked the
neighborhood to check things out, and then settled in our living room to watch
the awards. Even though we walked the area of our neighborhood it was clear
that even though we lived here the actual area of the event was off limits. You
couldn’t really get too close to the actual area, and the streets seemed more
NYC than LA in terms of foot traffic.
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A security checkpoint at the foot of Hollywood Boulevard and
Highland Avenue. You can see the El Capitan Theatre across the
street, which is next door to Jimmy Kimmel Live. This picture
was taken from an escalator leading to a shopping mall area that
surrounds the Dolby Theater and Leows Hotel.
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Tourists stopped
in the middle of the street to get pictures of the black limos and giant SUVs
even though there was no sign or promise that a celebrity was in tow. A radical
religious group staked out a few street corners and yelled some pretty mean
stuff through loud speakers at the limos driving by, and the people walking
around. It was just another day at work for the LAPD officers working the
traffic detail as they seemed unaffected by it all.
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A View From Above - This was a bird's eye view of the Academy
Awards' entrance. You can see Jimmy Kimmel Live across the street
and the large gold curtain that celebrities walked past to enter the
Dollby Theatre
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One thing that
shocked me was the lack of viewing parties being held in the LA area. I should
rephrase that – a lack of affordable viewing parties in the area, because of
the few viewing parties I could find the prices ranged from a couple hundred to
a couple thousand dollars. I thought for sure the American Cinematheque would
have a viewing party, or maybe even the Roosevelt Hotel (which was the site of
the very first academy awards in 1929), but neither establishment hosted such
an event this year. So we watched live from our living room, and we thoroughly
enjoyed it.
And!... My opinion, for
what it’s worth…
I thought Seth
MacFarlane was fabulous. I love that he tried to crack an Abraham Lincoln joke
and realized after “140 years it’s still too soon.” Not only was MacFarlane
funny, he was an excellent singer and dancer. I loved his sock puppet version
of the movie Flight. Bravo!
I was less
impressed with the gowns this year than I have been in the past, but there were
still a few noteworthy ones. My top favorites were Octavia Spencer’s Tadashi
Shoji gown, and Sandra Bullock’s Elie Saab Haute
Couture gown. And because I love
the 80s and Jane Fonda I adored her yellow Versace gown that looked like
something out of Dynasty.
Selma Hayek had my favorite hairdo, and I was
super disappointed that Kristen Stewart never gets her hair done. True to form
she looked like she just rolled out of bed and was dragged to the event. Poor
Kristen.
Jennifer Lawrence was super classy, and it
appeared that she tripped on her tremendous gown walking up to receive her
Oscar for Best Actress, but she saved face with her short, sweet acceptance
speech. (And I thought I was the only one who fell going up stairs).
Daniel Day Lewis who won the Oscar for Best Actor
gave my first favorite acceptance speech, but
when
Ben Affleck accepted his
Oscar for Best Picture my New England heart was proud, happy, and utterly
softened by his overwhelming show of gratitude.
His final words, “It doesn't matter how you get knocked down in life because that's
going to happen. All that matters is you gotta get up.” Loved it!
