'Atta girl, Michelle Yeoh - we LOVE her!
She won for the "Best Leading Actress" award for "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once," which also won Best Picture, Best Director (actually to directing partners, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known lovingly as "The Daniels" - third time a directing duo or team has won Best Director), and a whole slew of other awards.
I'm not sure if many will remember this post from 2019, when I gave a list of my fantasy celebrity co-husbands, and then I listed my husband's fantasy co-wives - and Michelle Yeoh was #2 on his list - long before she was a household name.
We both approve of the other's "lists," by the way, we totally get it lol.
So he first developed this celebrity crush on Michelle Yeoh back in 2000, in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
However, she'd already been around Hollywood for a few years, but her acting ability was not taken seriously enough, just her looks and her dance/martial arts ability - most notably, as a Bond girl in "Tomorrow Never Dies" (1997) :)
She's an extremely-feminine bad-ass - proving these two things are not mutually exclusive :)
And at 60. she and Helen Mirren have somehow broken the age glass ceiling for women over 40 still being considered sexy in Hollywood - now being offered and playing more roles than she's ever had her entire life, so as she said in her speech tonight, "Ladies, never let anyone tell you you're past your prime."
Amen :)
Does this mean my husband has good taste? ;)
(Yeah, don't actually answer that lol)
As for my list, if you follow that old link, I'd like to apologize for my sports fantasy celebrity co-husband at that time, Aaron Rodgers, whom I've since fantasy celebrity divorced, after he went woo woo on vaccines, started showing up looking like a 1970s used car salesman, started promoting regular use of psychedelic drugs (did I not tell you in THIS post my addiction alert system was going off with him long before he admitted it?), and generally started talking out of his arse lol.
You'll be pleased to know that he has since been replaced by not one, but two fantasy sports co-husbands - Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes in a tie lol.
You will also be pleased to know that I just recently added Pedro Pascal to my list - but then who hasn't?
Every straight woman and gay man in the world crushes Pedro, right now - we ladies especially LOVE our Pedro :)
Also super happy to see Brendan Fraser back and his Best Actor win and Ke Huy Quan's win (hilarious that they both were in Encino Man with Pauly Shore in the early 90s) and Jamie Lee Curtis :)
Best moments?
All three of the above wins, not just because of their performances, but their backstories - if you didn't cry for at least one of them, then you have no heart (I, of course, cried for all three :)
Best Actor winner, Brendan Fraser, was blackballed in Hollywood, after the former President of Hollywood Foreign Press groped him at a restaurant, an advance he refused, which also adversely affected his mental and physical health. However, Darren Aronofsky decided to bring him back for "The Whale" - and talk about a comeback!
He Kuy Quan for Best Supporting Actor - Brendan's fellow "Encino Man" castmate - comes in second for the best comeback story, playing "Short Round" as a child in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, then left Hollywood not long after, unable to get roles for being "too Asian," and instead working behind the camera in production.
Tack on the fact that he arrived from Vietnam in a boat and lived in a refugee camp for some time. If that's not the American Dream, I don't know what is. We love his energy, he's still Short Round, all the way around, and we also love that he thanked his wife for her patience and encouragement, who has credited in several interviews for allowing him to follow his dream at whatever cost and never gave up on her faith in his dream of acting, even when he nearly gave up that dream himself.
And I loved this moment as well - Harrison Ford and He Kuy hugging on the way to the stage, as well as backstage after his win :)
And of course Jamie Lee Curtis, who visibly and hilarious exclaimed, "Oh, Shut Up!" when her name was announced in a semi-surprise win for best supporting actress (we love her because she says whatever she likes and it's usually awesome).
Then she ended her speech by looking up at the heavens and claiming the Oscar as a family win, a win for her parents - Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh - who were both nominated for an Oscar, but never won.
Also moving was the tears in her eyes from her husband, comedy filmmaker, Christopher Guest (Spinal Tap, Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, For Your Consideration).
Now, enough tears - so best dressed?
This year was about the tailored top half/big-skirt bottom-half 50s or the puffy-shouldered/skirted 80s - even the combination of the two - as well as capes!
So in my opinion, the best-dressed were mostly the usual suspects, with a few new entries, but in no particular order ...
Angela Bassett
Janelle Monae
Reminding you of some sort of cross between a tuxedo-bustiered Playboy bunny on the top and an Indian-sari bottom combo, you wouldn't have thought this would've worked, but it totally did - as only Janelle Monae could do.
Sofia Carson
Lady Gaga
Halle Berry
And of course the Queen of Oscar Night herself, Michelle Yeoh
Here are the runners up (meaning I liked the gowns, but something was amiss
Stephanie Hsu - I think it's the color that I don't like, it reminds me of a prom dress, but the dress is otherwise gorgeous!
Danai Gurira - so I love the gown ... and I love the hair ... just not together?
One distracts from the beauty of other, almost, instead of working together.
As for the ceremony itself, thank God they were light on the slap jokes, we're all sick to death of it, but of the few that were made, the funniest was Jimmy Kimmel talking about his own protection, pointing out the amount of Irish actors nominated this year, sitting in the front row, that one would have to go through to get to him (camera pans to Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell, holding up their fists as if boxing the camera, taking that tired stereotype well) - then Michelle Yeoh (doing some karate moves at the camera) - and even Pedro Pascal, who made a serious "Joel" from "The Last of Us" face (or I'd say Mandalorian face, except he wears a mask), and gestured the "I'm watching you" sign with two fingers from his eyes to the camera. All good natured, in the end :)
Actually, there were actually even less awkward moments than usual, this year, with most of them occurring on the red carpet.
However, this year, the ASL interpreters stole the show and were more interesting than either the interviewers or the megastars being interviewed ... which is exactly what I texted live to a friend who was unable to watch lol
However, one of those red-carpet awkward moments I noticed was Hugh Grant, acting like huge a-hole to Ashley Graham on the red carpet.
Okay, granted, her first question wasn't her best and it threw her, but when she tried to recover and move on to better questions, he just made it worse by acting like the rest of her questions were stupid, too, and refusing to answer them reasonably. He behaved snobbish, rude, and uncooperative - why even agree to be interviewed then?
Apparently by the time he made it onstage to present he adjusted his attitude, though, because he kicked it in his presenting speech and became self-deprecating (talking about the difference between Andie McDowell's skin and his skin was moisturizer, and that this is why he looked like a scrotum lol).
As for those interviews, alhough Jimmy Kimmel did a really good job overall, asking the pretend fan questions to the attendees - who are already nervous as hell, mind you - to answer absurd questions, with "cocaine bear" coming out to paw at Malala, was not only painfully awkward, it was just plain ... weird? lol.
I mean, I like absurd humor, as we all well know, but what the ???
Did you and cocaine bear snort a few lines just before that or what?
This is a Nobel Peace Prize winner ... and you thought you'd re-elevate the Oscars by having some guy dressed up like a cracked-out bear paw at her or-?
I mean, that's like asking creepy Chuck E Cheese to take a selfie with Pope Francis at the Vatican, just ... No
Poor Malala tried to play along anyway, and actually gave the best answer.
Her question was "As the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history, do you think Harry Styles spit on Chris Pine?”
Malala, without missing a beat, said: "I'm just here to talk about peace."
Brava, Malala - this is one of the many reasons why we love you :)
And Jimmy kind of made fun of her name, too, as he walked away, and also appeared to take a slight dig at Colin Farrell, asking him if he was going home with the donkey tonight.
Okay, so for those unaware or unsure, IMO, that was a double-entendre jab at Colin Farrell.
Because yes - although Colin Farrell let the donkey sleep in his bed in the Banshees of Inisherin, Colin Farrell also had the previous reputation of scamming and sleeping with nearly every actress in Hollywood, during his alcoholic/drug/sex-addict days in the early-to-mid 2000s.
And in case you weren't sure if Jimmy's joke was a double-entendre for his prior reputation, look at Colin's face just after Jimmy said it, still somewhat present in this photo, taken at the same moment as the one above (the one with the bear and Malala), only taken closer ...
His son, Henry, is laughing at the bear, but you'll notice that Colin is still looking at Jimmy like, "Yeah, you're lucky you have security detail this year - eff off, ya bastard" LOL
HOWEVER again - Colin has been clean and sober, for the last few years - yet another comeback story, this year.
It was probably hard enough for him to stay sober, last night - let's cut him some slack and not tack on more pressure on him to want to use, yes?
So let's be kind and allow him the chance to redeem himself and we'll just wait and see.
And I thought we were taking it easy on insulting the nominees and their wives this year?
Whether good PR or sincere, not only did he bring his 13-year-old son, Henry, as his "date" to the Oscars ...
... but everyone describes him now as being extremely kind and empathetic, and though I can't find a picture of it, his reaching out to Brendan Fraser, in such a kind way, on his way up on stage, despite just losing to him, was very touching and appeared sincere.
Who knows, though, it could all be acting - we'll wait and see.
Otherwise, bravo, Oscars - clearly about comebacks, kindness (mostly), and warming our hearts again this year - thank you for the much-needed re-elevation - the Oscars became, once again, a delight to watch :)
(I totally dug the art deco throwback decor, too! :)
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