This past Sunday was the Oscars and as always I went to the party that my friends Marie and Chris have. It’s one of their parties that I look forward to every year and it’s one of the best ones that I think they do. I love seeing people in costume and I love being around amazing people as we watch the awards. The party is the perfect mix of both of those things and that’s what makes it so special to me.
There are some years that I think of my costume for the party way in advance and there are some times that it comes together the week of the party. It just depends if something inspires me. And as soon as I saw “Incredibles 2”, I thought I’d go to the party as Edna. I did that the year the first “Incredibles” came out and I got second place in the costume contest! It was the only time I placed in the costume contest so I thought it would be the perfect repeat costume.
But someone went as Edna to the Halloween party and I decided that I wanted to do something different. I wasn’t sure what I’d do, but I figured I’d think of something. But time flew by and it was the night before the party and I still had no idea on what I wanted to go as. I had an easy idea that night and figured I could easily do it (it mainly involved wearing stickers) and I knew it wouldn’t be anything spectacular.
Then, on Oscar Sunday morning, I was doing my laundry and saw my Disney dog leggings I got a few months ago in my dresser. I remembered that “Isle of Dogs” came out in 2018 (which is the only rule for the costumes) and thought that would be so much better than my original idea. So I was going to wear the leggings and make stickers of pet store aisles to wear on my shirt. The stickers didn’t want to stick on my shirt, so I only put one on and used the others as backups for when that one fell off. It wasn’t my best costume, but it was comfortable and fun and that’s the best combination.
The decorations for the party were all about Mr. Rogers Neighborhood and they had an amazing puppet backdrop to use and they made puppets to go along with it!
There are a couple of different spaces to watch the Oscars, but I always sit in the quiet room. We talk during the commercials, but during the show we are quiet. There is sometimes something said quickly while someone is walking up to the stage, but the point of the quiet room is to be able to watch (the other spaces to watch has people talking throughout the show and the focus is being more social). We usually have the same people each year in the quiet room and we are all good at following the quiet room rules. But we also know each other well enough to be ok with the little whispers and talk that may happen.
And one thing we kept discussing was the show. There was so much in the press about how this show was the first one without a host in a long time and there were people wondering how it was going to go. And we all kept saying how much we were enjoying it without a host. I feel like the presenters had more opportunities to be funny and have little bits and the show still seemed to move quickly. It only ended about 15 minutes late, which isn’t bad compared to other years.
And we also were discussing how happy we were that they didn’t give any of the Oscars during the commercial breaks. Originally, 4 of the awards were going to be done during the commercials so we wouldn’t be seeing them while watching the show. They were going to have them online, but that’s not the same. The Academy reversed their decision and I’m so glad that they did it. I thought it was a bad decision to not air all the awards because everyone equally deserves to be honored the same way when they win.
And honestly, I felt more inspired watching the speeches for some of the awards that were going to be during the commercials than I did for some of the bigger awards. I love seeing people who are truly passionate about what they do be recognized for their hard work. I especially love seeing the winners of the short animated film, short live action, short documentary, and feature length documentary because I know that many times those films are passion projects. They don’t necessarily create these films to try to win an award. They do it because they had a story they wanted to tell and they went out and did it. And when they win you can see the pure joy and excitement on their faces. It’s really amazing to watch and I’m so glad I didn’t have to watch it online later to experience that.
Overall, I felt like the show was a really good one. Going without a host worked well, the winners for the most part were who I wanted and the speeches they gave were good, and I had a great time with my friends. I did get a few votes in the costume contest, but I knew I wasn’t going to win. The winners had really incredible costumes and I can’t compete with those. I was in the top 5 for guessing the winners of all the awards which was better than I expected to do. So many of my guesses were random so it was just lucky I did that well.
I realized while watching the Oscars that there have been a lot of films I missed. I’m trying to find ways to catch up on some of them now, and I’ve already been able to watch the winner of the short documentary on Netflix. There’s no rush for me to catch up on them, but I do want to make an effort to try just so I can see what made all of those projects awesome. It will be some good entertainment between customers when it gets slower at my job later this year.
