This past weekend was the Oscars and as usual I was at the party that my friends Marie and Chris do each year. This party is one of the best parties that they do because not only do they have amazing decorations but we get to watch the Oscars! I love seeing the awards being given out and I’m always happy to have an opportunity to figure out a fun costume.
I’ve been doing much more low-key costumes the past few years and this year that trend continued. I actually had this costume figured out last year when I saw “The Disaster Artist” for the first time. I had read the book first (which I recommend reading if you haven’t yet) and in the book as well as the movie the green screen almost became a character. It was so weird to create a green screen setup for a set that was right next to them. It makes no sense but that’s what they did. So I decided that I wanted to be the green screen from the movie as my costume.
I thought that there might be a chance someone else would get their costume inspiration from “The Disaster Artist”, but I was so excited to see that a friend dressed up as James Franco playing Tommy Wiseau so she could post the same way he is posed on my fake green screen!
And I loved the costumes that Marie and Chris wore (he was Pennywise and she was Tonya Harding).
And as more people arrived to the party, I was loving all the costumes. Some people went for costumes that made them look like characters from the movie (“Lady Bird”, “War For The Planet Of The Apes”, and “Get Out”) and others were more puns on the movie (the one with the name tags is “Call Me By Your Name”).
And before the show started, I also was checking out the decorations for the party. Marie and Chris had been posting online that they would be doing small this year and we all just figured that it was because they always go over-the-top and they needed a bit of a break. But it was more of a pun because they were inspired by the movie “Downsized” and did miniatures for all the decorations.
Once it was time for the Oscars to start, I hung out in the quiet room (where talking is only done during the commercials). More people hang out in the loud room, but I really do like to watch the awards and hear the speeches. I tried to go out of the quiet room during the commercials to socialize with people, but I pretty much stuck to my spot on the couch talking with the others in the quiet room between awards.
And since this was a live show, there was no way to forward through the commercials. Usually that bugs me, but this time we were noticing that the commercials were all pretty awesome. Most of them were about being creative and producing your own work. The commercials were very focused on inspiring those of us who were watching the Oscars from home but one day hope to be there. And they did inspire me. I was getting a little annoyed when we kept seeing the same commercials over and over again, but the inspiration I felt was more than the annoyance.
As far as predicting the winners, I didn’t do as well as I have in the past. I didn’t see as many of the nominated films as I hoped and I decided to guess the winners I wanted for some categories versus the winners that were more likely to happen. But that’s ok with me because there are some people at the party who take the guessing very seriously and do see pretty much everything that was nominated. I just like being around people who are as enthusiastic about watching the show as I am.
And most of the winners were what was predicted even if they weren’t necessarily the ones I picked. But it still made me so happy when I saw some of the winners like when Jordan Peele won for writing “Get Out”. That was one of my favorite movies of the year and I love how he has shared how hard it was for him to write it and how he quit so many times but just kept going. And I loved when the winners for live-action short film talked about how they got the money for their film by crowdsourcing. That’s something I’m familiar with and it’s a good reminder that as long as you have an idea, there is always a way to make it and you never know if it will win an Oscar.
After the show was done, everyone headed outside for the costume parade and voting. I knew I wasn’t going to win because there were so many amazing costumes, but I was hoping for at least a vote. And I did make it to the honorable mentions so that means someone voted for me (and it wasn’t me)! The winners all had amazing costumes and they totally deserved to win.
As soon as the winners for the costume contest were announced, I had to say goodbye so I could drive back home. I wish I could have stayed at the party longer, but I rarely can do that because of my schedule. But at least I got to spend Oscar Sunday with awesome friends and feeling like anything is possible!