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| Jean Dujardin, accompanied by Uggie, picks up his Oscar for Best Actor at the 2012 Academy Awards ceremony. |
The 84th Academy Awards
Ceremony date: February 26, 2012
Best Picture: The Artist
Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Best Actor: Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Best Actress: Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady
Whose bright idea was it to make the menu themed? It was
mine. It was all my idea, and I had no one to blame but myself when I was still
making fried chicken as the lights went down inside the Dolby Theatre (née
Kodak, and at the time the Hollywood and Highland Center). I was throwing my
biggest and, to date, last Oscars party. Perhaps there will be another in the
future, but I can promise you this: The menu will not be themed.
By late 2011, early 2012, I had made some good friends in
the small newsroom at The Union. I was still only 23 and no one else on the
editorial staff was really in my age bracket, but nobody made me feel too bad
about it. I was another ink-stained wretch. I was in the club. That being the
case, I thought I would invite them into my world for an evening.
Still without cable, I asked one of my co-workers and
softball teammates if I could host the party at his house. He agreed. That set,
I decided to attempt something I had seen mentioned online: a themed menu based
around the nominees. Implicit in “seen mentioned online” is the absent phrase
“by professional chefs and party planners.”
Based off the nine Best Picture nominees, here is the menu
I, a single man in his early 20s, thought I could prepare for a group of a
dozen or so people:
Moneyball – Ballpark peanuts, served as a
preshow snack for the baseball movie
War Horse – Baked portobello mushrooms because
a very quick Google search for “British appetizers” yielded this result to go
with the World War I film
The Help – Fried chicken, a dish that is a
major plot point in the film (yeah, remember that movie?)
The Descendants – Pineapple roasted pork loin
(vaguely luau themed for the Hawaii-set film)
The Artist – Black-and-white cake (you see,
because the movie is black and white)
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – New
York cheesecake for the 9/11 weepie
Hugo and Midnight in Paris – A
selection of French wines for the two Paris-set films
The Tree of Life – This is where I gave up.
Really, what would you have me do for Terrence Malick’s existentialist
masterpiece?
The morning of the show, the softball team had practice, and
my friend agreed to let me skip practice and do the setup and organization
while he was out. My friend Sean, whom you may recall from previous
installments of this series, joined me to help with the prep. Sean is not
really an Oscars guy, but he is a good friend, which is why he found himself
making 30 pieces of fried chicken over a hot stove as the show approached.
I remember Van Helsing was on the television. Not
exactly an Oscars mood setter, but you worked with what you got in the last
days of cable television. I had the pork loin in the slow cooker. The mushrooms
were in the oven. The rice was ready to go. I set out the peanuts and announced
the predictions contest. All my friends were sports fans, so the prize was a
movie pack that included a microwave popcorn, a pair of movie-sized candies
(purchased from one of the world’s last Blockbusters), and a copy of Moneyball
on DVD.
By the time the show started, the appetizers were served,
the pork loin was ready, everything but the damn fried chicken. I was doing my
best, but finally, we had to pause so I could finish and watch the show. That
was when Sean – again not an Oscars guy but one hell of a mensch – jumped in
and finished the cooking.
Billy Crystal jumped on stage, gave a fine monologue that I
remember mostly for his James Earl Jones impersonation (“Baseball.”). Then
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist traded
off winning all the awards. Hugo was that year’s crafts juggernaut, and
I still remember being annoyed when it won Best Visual Effects over Rise of
the Planet of the Apes. Little did I know at the time I would get to be
annoyed by the Apes franchise unjustly losing this award twice more in
the years to come.
The Artist was a strange frontrunner. I distinctly
remember the outside world declaring it artsy Oscar bait. Following the victory
by The King’s Speech the year before, I understand the inclination, but
that truly could not have been further from the truth. No black-and-white film
had won the top award since 1960. No (nearly) silent film had won since the
first ceremony. No French-produced film had ever won. So, this black-and-white,
silent French production was not your typical Academy movie, no matter how much
the organization’s detractors wanted it to be.
I like The Artist. Stacked against The Tree of
Life or even Moneyball, though, Hazanavicius’ silent homage to old
Hollywood is a slight winner. Jean Dujardin is good in the lead, and Bérénice
Bejo is tremendous in her meaty supporting role. Obviously, the world remembers
Uggie. I saw it the same afternoon I saw Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,
a double feature that could give you whiplash. The comparison made The
Artist a necessary salve. In a fairly heavy group of nominees – The Help
and Midnight in Paris notwithstanding – maybe that is what the Academy
was looking for, too.
Quick notes: I did not stop throwing Oscars parties
for any reason. Circumstances simply have not leant themselves to the occasion.
If I do again someday, you, dear reader, will be the first to know. Let it be
known, however, that everyone had a good time that night. … Woody Allen won his
fourth Academy Award, taking Best Original Screenplay for Midnight in Paris.
It was also the fourth award he chose not to show up to receive. It will likely
be the last award he gets from the Academy, as well, given the current
circumstances.
Next time: I’m late, I’m late for a very important date,
and I spill the wine on my dad’s couch.
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