Call the Betty Ford, Honey--Oscar's Been Hitting the Crack Rock Again

Well the nominations are in and the reason the Oscars are gold and shiney is because pretty much everyone associated with them have popped one too many E tablets within the last year or so. Am I biased? Maybe. Prejudiced? Perhaps. Ignorant and Petty? Definitely. The only movies on the lists that I have seen are Shrek 2, The Passion of the Christ, and the Phantom of the Opera, my reasons being (respectively) it was out on rental (I'm cheap,) I was curious, and I was half-crazed with phandom. Wait! I also saw Spider-Man 2 on a bootleg DVD courtesy of my brother's friend Aaron. Phantom: Hell YES for Art Direction, Cinematography, and Song ('Learn to Be Lonely'.) The first two I can understand, but for the song, I can't help but wonder if the nomination would have been quite so accepted if the composer wasn't quite so well-known and respected. Yes ALW is a veteran of his craft and no doubt he's got the goods, and I love this song and he delivered splendidly on any and all promises made by his past works. But--if he had been a younger, not-so-well-known composer, with just as much genius and the same song, would it have been nominated? I can't answer my own question, which is why I'm posting it here. Most of the big-name movies nominated (Million Dollar Baby, Ray, The Aviator and so on) I haven't seen either because I'm broke or frankly I have no interest in them. I made the trip into town twice to see Phantom, payed too much money to sit in a cramped and weridly layed-out theatre and watch it. And I loved it. The movie was not at fault, I just happened to spend all my extra cash on Phantom and I don't feel like I missed out from the other movies out there, aside from a vague sense of inferiority because I don't know what I'm talking about when I talk about those serious-acting-drama artistic-type movies that people see then 'discuss' deeply in dimly lit coffeehouses where they also read poetry or talk about politics or philosophy or smoke cigarettes. And not to echo Cleolinda so much as go into more depth on the issue: Costumes Nominations. I haven't seen any of the movies specified under Best Costume Nominations, but I re-iterate: Why not POTO? Here's the rundown of what I think of the costumes in these movies based on the trailers I've seen on TV and not the actual movies:
The Aviator: Oh. My. Gosh. They dressed everyone in costumes based on the majority of what I can find in my Grandmother's closet or the stock wardrobe for Evita. Pilot uniforms are nonetheless uniforms, and here I give you--the recipe for 1930's-40's starlet fancy dresses: 1)Take colourful silk and satin slips, add a dash of feather boas and metallic beaded fringes sewn on at strategic points. 2) Crimp hair and set to simmer for 30 minutes, or until everyone looks pale, pinchy-faced and repressed. 3) Glimpses of bony sternums should occur once Leo has taken one of any number of random starlets up for a romantic ride in his aeroplane, and only after he has nearly let you both plunge to you deaths by letting you take the wheel while he goes back to make some martinis. 4) Set Auto-Pilot for 3000 ft in the air and have hot/sweaty/romantic/artistic/significant-to-the-story-how? sex in the back while the wheel is left mysteriously unattended.
Ray: Give Jamie Foxx a pair of sunglasses and set him loose. How high can your costume budget be? I know that amount of money spent doesn't equal quality of costumes, but how many different pairs of Ray Bans can you buy? (Didn't realize the "Ray" thing (pun?) until I'd typed it. And I'm leaving it in. Just because I think it's funny. I hope no blind people are reading this and take offense.)
Lemony Snicket: Every time I hear this title I mistake it for some kind of British sweet, perhaps a sour lemon drop hard candy type thing. Good Lord, they gave Jim Carrey a beard and a half-bald head and a coat and tails suit. Then they dressed him up as a sea capitan. How...Hallowe'en of you.
Finding Neverland: I keep on confusing this one with the Peter Pan movie from earlier in the year. Both fail to impress me costume-wise, at least from the commercials. Peter Pan--the mermaids were mostly CGI, otherwise that would have been some cool costuming shit. In Finding Neverland, all I can see is that they put Johnny Depp in a pinstrip suit, (which I CAN appreciate and therefore would nominate, but not seriously expect to win.)
And last but not least Troy: Oh Holy Hell. How do you nominate this movie for costumes of any kind? Give me scissors, a dozen sweaty, unwashed, bare-chested Brad and Orlando look-alikes and a truck full of potato sacks and I can recreate your 'costumes' for this movie. You might argue that "a lot of research went into the clothing of the time..." yes and I'm sure any eagle-eyed movie-goer would notice a mistake such as "Oh my goodness they draped his loincloth the wrong way! That's at least a decade too early in the Massive Timeline of Trojan Haute Couture! What a fashion faux pas! The Trojans are spinning in their graves!" Considering they had a brand of condoms and a virulent strain of computer viruses named after them, I don't pity the Trojans, or what they wear. They obviously have bigger things to worry about, such as screwing up hard-drives & preventing proper computer processes and screwing people & preventing babies, (babies could be called 'proper human processes if you consider the course of nature,) than how their potato-sacks are cinched around their waists or draped across their shoulders.
I think Phantom deserves at least a nomination, given the deep symbolism in some of the costumes as well as the utter grandeur and period detail of it all. The Straps of Inconsistancy, are, of course, in a league of their own. As is Carlotta (Minnie Driver)'s wig for Il Muto. And maybe they deserve a makeup nomination too, just because they besmirched Gerard Butler's good looks so much ON PURPOSE. Or maybe they deserve demerits for that...can't be too sure. Definite demerits for Patrick Wilson (Raoul)'s hair. I know for a fact that the "flipped" look for the ends of your hair didn't come into vogue until the 60's, and even then, it was primarily restricted to women.

Oscar-nominated movies, Trojans, blind people, (inadvertantly, I swear!) and (yet-again) Raoul's Hair---Good Things---> GUNNED DOWN!

*just realized blind people WON'T be reading this, because they CAN'T*
Phew.
Looks like I get off scot-free. :)
('Hm? What scot? Like the paper-towels?')