Attending The Oscars with S. (my first time ever)
Part One
It's just as you would think. It is way more fun to dress up and be there
than to watch it on television. Having said that though, S. and I both
remarked that you can see the suits and dresses better on the broadcast and television
seems to obliterate a lot of wrinkles—but only in fabric—not skin. Up close and in-person
you can see every wrinkle and tear and all the supposed fixes in the fabric of
the human and also on the outfits that you might manage to ogle. This is only
one reason why Sidney Poitier’s daughter looked more put together than anyone
else. Her dress was made of (silver) leather and must have weighed quite a lot,
so it stayed in majestic shape throughout the night. That dress and Cate
Blanchett’s were my flawless favorites of the ones that I truly saw. And yes, dresses
get torn because women without nominations actually wear dresses with trains as
if they’re nominees or maybe brides, even. I don’t know. Academy and Dolby Theater
employees urge the crowd ever forward toward the theater throughout
the carpet-walk and with haste: Attendees Beware! The risk of
uncoupling a doyenne or two from her prized caboose is not to be underestimated.
Enemies were made.
Here’s a kind of timeline beginning with our arrival Dolby Theater adjacent: Because there
are many street closures, there’s a map to the Dolby furnished by the Academy. Once
you’ve figured out how to get onto Hollywood Boulevard via the assigned route,
there’s a police checkpoint. They use what, in effect are giant shoe mirrors on
the undercarriage of your car and then check the trunk and sometimes the glove
compartment. Our experience: Not at all sex-ay—but police were professional and
polite. Next, you drive around a medium sized SWAT-type unit set up in the
middle of the street, guns out. Guns were HUGE. I’m not talking about biceps. I’m
saying, maybe Heckler & Koch MP5’s. They were definitely intimidating.
Hurricane fences line both sides of the street at the sidewalk’s edge and
people stand behind these hoping to see celebs, however unlikely it is in that
location. When you get to Highland and Hollywood going west, you give the car
over to the valets. There are scores of valets and also even more cops. From
there, you get out your ticket and I.D. and if you’re like us, you arrive
exactly as Jared Leto is arriving so as not to be noticed by anyone at all and
to be afforded an in-person look- see to determine if Jared is “all that.” I’m
still thinking about the man-tan pancake-makeup he had on. It worried me in my two hours of sleep. I
dreamed about Picrin™ and how to remove pancake from
your standard white cotton jacket. Was I a dry cleaner in another life? 
When you get out of the car, you’re already on a piece of the
red carpet which for a few yards crosses the road and is The Red Carpet which then branches out into two sections. The
employee carpet or non-celeb side of the same red carpet but divided by
stanchions and velvet rope from the carpet that carries the famous. There, in
spite of a wide berth, everyone unknown and less known understandably crushes
toward the ropes to get a look at the nominee’s backs and an occasional front
as they’re interviewed by the international press corps. That’s damned neat. I
didn’t mind it one bit, but one of the good people working to keep our side of
the crowd moving confessed to me that he was soooo over it. I was bumped into
constantly and as you can see, this results in less than stellar iPhone photos.
Once inside the building we had our picture taken-for the
record-by the friendly Employee photographer. Ah, posterity! Then up the long
stairway to mingle with cocktails, hors d’oeuvres and the crowd. By the time we
got to the bar they were out of Champagne so we chose to go with the signature
cocktail which was The Penicillin. Good choice. Here’s the recipe—or something
very close to it.: http://spiritedcocktails.com/index.php/2011/04/23/the-penicillin
I ignored the snacks other than to note that among the
selections were pork rinds and fried kale (you-go-get-your-salty-crispy-fat on, Wolfgang Puck.) I could not have fit
a slivered almond into my gut without having to remove my dress (by Isabel
Marant.)
S. and I lingered over our drink, people-watching and
chatting with a co-worker or three of hers. As we made for the elevator to
Mezzanine 3-which is somehow also Level 5—I saw Benedict Cumberbatch. And I
wanted him to be slightly different than he was. He looked awkward and
uncomfortable with himself and who he was with. Maybe it was a weird moment
where he’d just forgotten someone’s name or face and had to pretend that he
knew them. Or is that just my
nightmare? I saw him in an un-suave moment and had to work my way up (or was it
down?) to feeling that this vulnerability made him cuter. He was also, like
almost every actor—let’s all say it aloud and in unison—smaller than he looks
onscreen.
We made it to our seats in time to avoid the 20 minute
penalty (you can’t go in until the next commercial break if you miss the
curfew.) We landed center stage Row L Seat 46, but so high, in seats so raked, that
the perspective flattened Pharrell's hat. When he got happy, I couldn't tell
that he was wearing one. There are teevee screens up top but just two very
small ones. My suggestion for the people of Dolby: install another few giant screens,
care more about the entire audience being able to see the lit-up faces of winners
and performers on stage. That bliss is to be shared, not just for the people on
the first two of levels.
Before the show began, in a Hunger Games moment, there was a
short speech from the announcer-voice-over dude about the kind of off-the-cuff
impassioned speeches without notes the Academy was hoping the winners would
bring. Hint-hint, comply. There were
other moments like that, most notably when we were repeatedly told not to clap
for the dead people we so miss and revere during the in memoriam montage. Turned
out they were super serious about this and they cut the sound feed completely due to a few
hands that couldn’t stop themselves from coming together.
More to come…
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