Grouching about the Oscars

Think good thoughts about Lucy, who lost a beloved friend today.

Today I went to Berkeley with John. We want to go hiking in Tilden Park, since he's heard good things about it (not just from me, I think) and I've enjoyed going there with Rob. Instead, we ended up going into downtown Berkeley, walking around trying to decide where to have lunch, and shopping.

We actually went to a quite good rotisserie chicken place on Shattuck Ave. And we swung by Other Change of Hobbit bookstore, as well as Rasputin Music and Amoeba Music. I picked up some used jazz, an album by Marillion, and To Cry You a Song: A Collection of Tull Tales which are covers of Jethro Tull songs by former members of the band and others (such as John Wetton).

I've been playing lots of Tull in my car, and John's interest seems piqued by them. And he's mainly just heard me playing This Was and Thick as a Brick, neither of which is among their strongest albums (although Brick does have a fairly improvisational feel as rock goes).

Anyway, we did a lot of walking, which is good since we ate a lot of chicken.

In the evening we watched part of the Oscars and John and his roommate Kim made artichokes with a garlic mayonnaise dip which were quite good. But I decided to leave in the middle of the show because, frankly, I find the big awards shows to be tremendously tedious and truthfully I don't really care enough who wins to actually watch it live. It's not like I've actually gotten around to seeing American Beauty even though it won Best Picture.

Why don't I care about the Oscars? Well, for one thing, Gladiator won the Best Picture award. Good movie. By no means a great movie. The instigation and the resolution of the plot both turn on major characters being flagrantly stupid. Who picks these awards anyway?

(I don't even know who wins Grammy awards anymore. My musical tastes are too far removed from mainstream pop for me to have even heard some of the artists who get nominated.)

On the other hand, watching the Parade of Actresses in Dresses was diverting. Mostly I found few of them attractive. The gowns were generally more hideous than not (Jennifer Lopez and Bjork were especially worthy of fashion scorn; Bjork additionally appears not to know much English and seemed clueless in her interview). Tom Hanks was sporting a grotesque little moustache that caused Kim to remark that his next role must be Hitler.

On the plus side, Penelope Cruz and Angelina Jolie (in a white suit!) were both extremely beautiful. (Hmm, have all my readers figured out yet what I find attractive and/or beautiful in a woman? No? Well, I'll keep you guessing.) I don't think I've ever seen either of them in anything. Of course, I never go to movies based on the appearance of the actors, and rarely even based on the acting skills of the performers. Great movies start with great writing.

Steve Martin was very funny. Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe were the most frequent targets of his barbs - which were surprisingly sharp. Roberts laughed her head off at them; Crowe looked extremely perturbed.

Okay, that's surely more than anyone would want to know about what I thought about the Oscars.

Wow, this weekend sure went by fast!