Red Carpet

As something of a film fancier and enjoyer of nice dresses, the Oscars is something that I get excited about, although always seem to forget to book time off work in order to be able to stay up and watch it. However, seeing as it overruns by a lot and gets a bit boring, that's probably a good thing as I can still enjoy it without having to sit through it. I've just been reading through a post via my favourite website Go Fug Yourself here (scroll down for Fugging the Oscars), which is a blow-by-blow account that made me laugh quite a lot. Essentially: Helen Mirren and Forest Whittaker won. Big surprise. Alan Arkin won, which is good as Little Miss Sunshine was genius, although I loved Mark Wahlberg so much in The Departed that I was secretly holding out for him. Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker (my favourite editor) both won for The Departed which also won best film. Although there were better films, I'm just really glad it won over Babel and The Queen. I haven't seen either of those for a reason. The fact that Babel was by the same guy who did 21 Grams didn't encourage me to see it as that was one of those films, like Mystic River, that I felt I was supposed to like because it was very serious and important but came out of feeling very let down. I also read a review of Babel that said that if the same idea had been done with a more positive feel, it would have been ridiculously naive, but as it was a depressing subject matter, we're supposed to take it seriously, which is pretty much my feeling about 21 Grams and confirmed my prejudice. And I know I should probably see The Queen and get my ideas changed about her but I don't want to. She's just a woman with a crappy job who's pretty much out of touch with modern Britain for all of her hand-shaking and hospital visiting. I feel sorry for her but I'm not interested enough to spend two hours in her company.

To be honest, the awards are generally a let-down after all the hype and the speeches can be embarrassing but the outfits never let us down. Annoyingly my favourite dress of the year belonged to Reese Witherspoon. And it's dark blue, which I always feel is a back-up black at awards ceremony, i.e. dull. But unfortunately, having looked at several photos, I still love it to bits. It's gorgeous. Cate Blanchett's was much less upsettingly pleasant as it was interesting, unusual and on an actress who I respect and like, and who appears uncredited in Hot Fuzz (it is her - I've had it confirmed. I am no longer the crazy woman ranting about how I know it is her to a defiant MuleBoy. I am now the crazy woman with proof). Gwyneth, Penelope and Jessica Biel all came a cropper to unpleasant shades of pink. I liked both Eva Green and Nicole's dresses but their faces scared me. Cameron Diaz decided to wear white, which always looks bridal, and she managed to get a dress so architectural in structure that she looks like a bride from an awful 80s wedding. Or a really clean version of the Tricorn Centre. And she should stop being brunette. I thought that Helen Mirren looked great but she generally does. Kate Winslet, my favourite red carpet person, looked a bit lacklustre. Mainly because of her hair. But she wore a colour which is the most important thing. My favourite men were Robert Downey Jr, Clive Owen and James McAvoy. Eddie Murphy looks like he thinks that he's still in Dreamgirls and Djimon Hounsou, lucky bastard who got to sit next to Jack Nicholson in the front row (if I ever go to the Oscars, I want to sit there. Can you imagine getting little asides from Jack Nicholson? Also, he always genuinely looks like he's having fun), had shiny edgings to his lapels. Daniel Craig is always gorgeous but, like Eddie, seemed to forget he wasn't actually on set and had dressed Bond-appropriate. I know it's difficult to escape Bond comparisons in a tux but would refer him to Clive Owen's example. The rebel didn't wear a tie of any kind! And it still worked.

I can't wait until the highlights, I want to see the interpretive dance where they make images from recent films. I want to see Abigail Breslin and Jaden Smith be cute together. And I want to see the Dead Person Montage, which, if I'm honest, probably is one of my favourite bits of the show. Even if it isn't as good as what Mark LaMarr used to do on Never Mind the Buzzcocks for all the people he just wished had died over the year.

Lacking Inspiration

I have been finding it very difficult to do anything recently. My enthusiasm for things has evaporated temporarily. Pretty much the only things I have looked forward to are going to see my Dad and TV programmes (although these are very dependent on mood, except for America's Next Top Model which I could genuinely watch for 24 hours a day without getting bored). Obviously it hasn't been that bleak, I may be exaggerating a little. I went out for a Valentine's Meal with MuleBoy and we've been doing wedding stuff. But I missed an audition for Big Liam's band because I was going to the hospital the day after Dad's op and had spent the morning in floods of tears. I couldn't face getting a part in the next play so pulled out after auditioning. I haven't posted or written anything for a month. I've stopped going to the gym and ate nothing but sugar for about a week before moving on to junk food and cheese for the last three weeks. This, in turn, has led to hours of standing in front of the mirror hating myself, unable to find anything to wear. I am planning to go to the gym today but am finding it hard to shift out of patterns of self-hating leading to binging.

But my Dad is home and, if not entirely himself again, is getting there. Although it has led to some problems in my brain area, this whole experience has not been as bad as it certainly could have been and I have coped. My manager said yesterday that she would have been crying the whole time and I find it hard to believe that I wasn't. I had one bad day and that was it. I just feel like I've been crying the whole time. I have tears that spring into my eyes from time to time caused by random triggers like, for some reason, the end of The Railway Children repeating in my head. I'd walk down the road and "Daddy, Oh my Daddy" would hit me. Seriously, I just typed the blessed thing and it made me go. I think that what I need is some kind of finish to the whole thing. Some kind of train platform reunion where my Dad can dance a jig to prove he's okay and I can hug him and just feel better.

I am having second thoughts about posting this. Obviously, if you're reading this, the first thoughts won out. I saw Dad yesterday and he was up to sitting at the computer and had read my last post, which is good. But I don't want to write a post about how I feel crap because I've been mildly traumatised by my Dad's heart attack and subsequent triple heart bypass and then have him feel guilty when none of this is his fault. But I do need an outlet and this is my forum for my more selfish and self-indulgent thoughts. I just urge you, Dad, to understand that, however much I would wish to protect you from knowing that it was difficult for us, it was hard and we struggled at times but we would willingly go through worse for you to be alright.