It’s Oscar Time Again

That’s right.  

This is the biggest night in all of Filmdom.   It is as big as Superbowl Sunday is to football fanatics;  as big as The Tony Awards presentation is to some gay men.

Usually, the Academy Awards show is one I try to watch, if for nothing else, to witness the depths to which  Oscar head writer, Bruce Valanche will go to get a laugh.  I don’t know if dreadfully odd-looking  man has taken leave of his post under a bridge to pen the  jokes the year.  Comedians aren’t hosting the show for the first time in like…forever.  This year, actors Anne Hathaway and James Franco are hosting.  They’re represent a lot of firsts:  they’re  youngest hosts EVER, the first non-comedians to host in forever and the first male/female tag team to ever do so.  

I’ve seen the previews touting their duties.  To be honest, I don’t anticipate laughing much over the next several hours. 

THE CLOCK STRIKES  10:55 pm (CST)

Turns out I was right.   

The Oscar show just ended and save for Melissa Leo’s use of the F-word during acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress, the telecast was largely forgettable.   As for the hosts?    James Franco was stiff and maintained this strange expression the entire night.  He rarely took his eyes off the tele prompter and that gave him this odd, deer-in-the-headlights look.    It was if he was embarrassed to be there.   He should have been.   And Hathaway?   Well, this  Adderall fueled bundle of energy was either consciously or subconsciously aware  of her co-host’s lackluster performance.   Her enthusiasm was enormously annoying  and she constantly woo hoo’d on mic, but off camera every time some celeb walked on the stage. 

We know why these two were picked.   They’re young Hollywood.   But really, why?  Why do the producers insist on trying to appeal to a younger demographic?  I know we’re obsessed with youth, but in Oscar’s case, it just doesn’t work.   It didn’t when Chris Rock hosted a few years ago.  That was a tacky show with hardly any viewership, and of those who did watch. it wasn’t the hip generational type they wanted to draw.  Last night’s show  was only minutely better in my opinion , but  even so, it wasn’t all that entertaining. 

 Gwynneth Paltrow proved she should stick to being a singer’s wife.  Mrs.  Chris “Cold Play” Martin sang a nominated song from some country movie she performed in and it was beyond awful.  I’ve heard her sing before on the You Tube and I guess thanks to the magic of studio processing, she sounds a lot better recorded as opposed to how she sounded during a live performance.    Paltrow sang tentatively as if she was very, very, very nervous. 

The lovely Hallie Berry was brought in to pay “homage” to Hollywood first siren of color, Lena Horne who died in 2010, but it was too short.  It did nothing to celebrate her storied life or career.  I think inclusion of this segment was  something of an after thought to combat this year’s incredibly white bread Oscar presentation.    It was awfully Anglo, there were no nominees of color, unless you consider Javier Bardem, which Ididn’t and neither did the Academy, apparently.  Other than that,  James Franco was the only nominee who’s last name ended in a vowel. 

As for the winner’s, there were no surprises.  As I already told you,  Melissa Leo beat out Helena Bonham Carter for the Best Suppporting Actress.  Perhaps that was the ONLY surprise, and not much of one, actually.    Christian Bale was named  Best Supporting Actress, Colin Furth won Best Actor and Natalie Portman took home the statue for Best Actress.   That was hardly a surprise.  You see, Hollywood LOVES  kids who grow up before the camera and often rewards them for their years on the soundstage.  Natalie started acting at 11.  I remember her role in “Beautiful Girls”.   She possessed that certain something.  She was special.    She literally grew up in Hollywood…like her fellow Oscar winners,  Jodie Foster and Ron Howard.   Someday perhaps, Leonardo diCaprio and Diane Lane who have also grown up amid the tinsel and paparazzi will someday take home the gold statue.

Speaking of,  I am convinced that serial Oscar nominee, Annette Benning is the Academy Awards’ version of Susan Lucci.   But Susan Lucci eventually won a Daytime Emmy.  I doubt Benning ever will.  She’s facing a horrible Hollywood obstacle.   Time.  Annette will turn 53 in May and yeppers, s getting a little long  in the tooth as they say,  and Hollywood doesn’t like it when women have the audacity to age.   

Age. 

That’s why Franco and Hathaway were brought in as hosts; to appeal to a younger demographic.     Frankly, I don’t mind seeing old Hollywood up as part of the ceremonies.    Granted, it was a bit painful to listen to the aphasic Kirk Douglas handle the Best Supporting Actress award.  His speech was affected  by a stroke in 1996.   But in a way, I was proud of  the Academy for allowing the afflicted nonagenarian so much face time.     He, along with a very sickly Elizabeth Taylor, Ernest Borgnine, Eli Wallach and  Joanne Woodward are about all that’s left of  ‘Old Hollywood’. 

Robert Redford and Warren Beatty will soon be reaching that tarnished state of gilded Hollywood soon.   They’ll be to my 20 something nieces and nephews who Gregory Peck and Richard Widmark were to me 30 years ago.

 And then there’s all the fashion.   The dresses, hair and makeup that these so-called fashionistas on E!  (Kelly Osbourne???????)  think are drop dead perfection make me scratch my head.    They were gaga over Cate Blanchette’s dress, which frankly, I didn’t get at all.

Then, they ragged the lovely Scarlett Johansen’s dress and hair, which I loved. 

We agreed though on the way Jennifer Hudson looked.  She’s lost an amazing amount of weight over the past year.    She was a vision in vibrant  tangerine red, buut if I had one complaint, it was that her cleavage looks drawn on.    

This year’s Oscar show was really quite the snooze fest.  The filmed intros which are traditionally funny ways of Hollywood ripping on itself for the year that was,  was awkwardly unfunny.     Everything was terribly predictable.  I might have just watched my very  last Academy Awards presentation.   I’ve realized it’s not worth the average three hours and six minutes that it takes from beginning to end.   Plus, all the impetus that’s placed on fashion and figures.   That ain’t easy for a short woman with a tall appetite. 

For the movie, Black Swan, the already thin actresses, Mila Kunis and Natalie Portman  lost 20 pounds to anorexic  ballerinas with screws loose.   I also think Christian Bale prepped for his role in “The Fighter”  by smoking cigarettes, eating styrofoam and sipping Ipecac to get his body looking heroin chic.  

So yes,  I admit that as a short, stocky-ish woman, I do get a smidge depressed when I look at these stunning processed people, women mostly.   I know the fate of my flab lies in my hands…Jennifer Hudson did it.    With the help of Weight Watchers, she says.   Yeah..unless that’s the name of her bariatric surgeon!! 

So yeah, I know, if it is to be, it is up to me.   That affirmation and 764 more adorn the walls of my room.   But I know that somewhere I am that lovely thin middle aged woman under all that adipose.    Even with my ”I didn’t get the job” 14-inch consolation pizza that I just ate;    that “JT didn’t call when he said he would” Supersized Double Whopper Meal that I want to order;   and that dozen “I’ve got nothing else better to do” chocolate chip cookies I’ve  just eaten,  there lies a waistline.   And hips that don’t damange furniture.    And underneath that waistline lies a metabolism that I will admit, has seen better days.   I will be 52 in just over a month and I hate that slower metabolisms come with the aging territory.   I’m convinced that I am the only person on the planet who could gain weight while in the midst of a rampant Meth Amphetamine bender.   How, when did that happen????  

Twenty years ago, I had a metabolism like a blast furnace.  I could eat  One-A-Day vitamins with iron and fart nails two hours later.

Oh well….

You know,  I think I’ll skip watching any and all award shows from now on.    I don’t have the right mindset for watching  the constant stream of  size 2 dresses,  all that self-congratulatory attitude and skinny, exclamation point looking women wearing  Harry Winston jewelry that cost more than  Germany paid in war reparations.  

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Something Whacky This Way Comes

As a child, I knew my family–even the extended one–was different.  On my mother’s side, I’m one of 22 first cousins.  

I have three on  my father’s side.

My mother’s family was a prominent one at one time.  We were like the Kennedys in some ways, but without all that pesky Irish Catholocism.   We come from a large ranching family that produced successful progeny:  this includes, but isn’t limited to several attorneys, a few teachers, successful realtors, one golf pro,  one PR/Marketing guy, several oil and gas types, a member of the House of Representatives and one bombastic broadcaster/blogger.

My father’s family was smaller, but successful in its own right.  They owned car dealerships.  They were given credit for owning the first home in the area with central air conditioning , every family member had his or her own car as opposed to one family car only AND the Kendricks get the nod for one of the region’s first truly scandalous divorces. 

Tongues wagged for years.

My maternal and paternal families have all known strife and now my immediate one is in a state of flux.   Some things have transpired recently and in true Kendrick fashion, it has resulted in massive melodrama, horrific misteps, egregious communication snafus and plenty of angry torch and pitchfork wielding emotions.  

All of these things could have been avoided if we or at least the members of my immediate family had been more self-actualized, but somewhere along the way, that wasn’t instilled in us or we didn’t posses the tools to find this elusive internal strength on our own.  We never understood that was a viable goal for which we should strive.

But why?  How?  For my sisters and me, was this part of our own small town Catholic roots?   Was this handed down from generations of people who never found this either?   Is this failure to launch, innate?

I don’t know and I wish I did.  I can however, state proudly that I think there’s something to be said for a self-actualized woman, especially.   One who has graduated from High School, left home for college, got her degree;  landed a job in her chosen field, lived alone for a year or two and gave herself the opportunity to make BIG TICKET purchases and BIG TICKET life decisions, on her own.  And if any of them proved wrong, she had the sense and stamina to resolve them herself.    If marriage and children come later, great.   If marriage and children don’t surface, well, that’s okay too.   

To find one’s potential (especially for a woman)  and live up to it is a wondrous, glorious thing and increasingly more essential in this day and age.   Does a college degree, two years of solo apartment dwelling and as many years in the workforce guarantee happiness?   

An emphatic ‘no’, but all of these things can work together to instill in us, a sense of self-worth and in that in turn, promotes self-esteem and that my friends, IS the Scotch Guard in life.  Healthy self-esteem helps repel an abundance of negatives.   It keeps the losers out of our lives, the manipulators, too and attracts those who are like-minded people who by and large, are just as mentally and emotionally healthy.  Self esteem helps keep us more honest in our choices.   

I never married, but my sisters did and might I add, at a very young age.  They went from daughter to wife, then mother in a brief matter of time and then immediately they became identified solely in their roles as wives and mothers.  I don’t negate the importance of these roles, but very often moms and wives operate within limits set for them by husbands or from parental input that caved to societal mores.  

For my sisters, the women that they were; that they are, got lost in one very involved and prolonged identity crisis.    I wasn’t any better–not really.   True, we chose different life paths, but hell, I ran from relationships for decades and allowed myself to become identified by a public persona that admittedly, I got lost in.   I remember being in my car  in the parking lot of a Houston area  mall several years ago and the Goo Goo Dolls song, “Name” was playing on the radio.   Somber tune, but the lyric that got to me was when lead singer and hunk, Johnny Rezeznik warbled…

And don’t it make you sad to know that life is more than who you are 

And cue call to therapist.

Aside from the inappropriate contraction, the sentence resonated with me.   Still does.

You know, we can get so hung up on identity–who and what we are,  and at the same time, we can also flounder because we’ve nary a clue as to who and what we really are.   I know that sounds like I’m backtracking, but I’m not.  I’m trying to make a point here.    As women, we’re so much more than that which we’re preceived publically.  We’re more than  pretty faces; more than comedians,  Wall Street CEO’s, bankers, teachers, PR execs, engineers, attorneys, bakers, authors, news types, doctors, nurses, accountants and certainly more than wives and mothers.    Too much of anything is never a good thing.  Mother’s need to paint and sometimes, painters need to don a maternal smock every once in a while.  

I have an unyielding faith and belief in my sisters:  the ones who can give me a kidney if need be and those who are my sisters in the spiritual sense.   I do believe that if we can shed the shackles of childhood traumas, erase the continuous loop of Mommy tapes in our heads that kept telling us we’re not good enough–the people we replaced her with as adults;  the threatened domineering ones in our lives who because of their own insecurities, hold us back .  If we can break free of those impediments and if we can gain the self-esteem to trust our own judgement and abilities to make the right decisions–whatever those might be,  there is nothing we can’t do.   This, I sincerely believe.

Now, before I break into a chorus of Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman”,  I have no shame in admitting that I have come to respect and appreciate the fully actualized woman than ever before…I just hope to one day meet her before I die.

As for the tumult in my own family?   I can validate every emotion everyone is feeling.  I completely get the self-righteous indignation; the blustery bravado,  the rage-fueled statements that vehemently shout,  ”I never want anything to do with you ever again.”   They don’t mean that or at least, some day they won’t.       And because I understand this so well, I will allow each  member the time it takes to process the pain and angst to the best of their age/maturity level, which unfortunately for my family, hovers generationally speaking, right around 13. 

Wish us luck.

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