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Ladies shine and sing at the Oscars

Welcome to the 2013 Academy Awards. I tell you this because what with all the singing and dancing and appearance of Kristin Chenoweth everywhere you might have confused it for the Tonys momentarily. But, no, it was indeed the Oscars and there were awards and musical numbers and bad jokes and better speeches and the world’s most endearing fall.

The show’s host was Family Guy creator and wanna be Broadway star Seth MacFarlane. He started the show by, wait for it, singing a song about seeing the boobs of Oscar-nominated actresses. Let me repeat, he sang a song called “We Saw Your Boobs.” I’m a gay lady who loves seeing boobs and that made me never want to see boobs again.

William Shatner shows up in the opening number as Captain Kirk because, I’m not really sure and probably now neither is he. And then there was more singing and more dancing and Charlize Theron and Channing Tatum came out and danced together, giving AfterEllen and AfterElton readers a reason to care about the show again.

p.s. Charlize’s new short cut? We want to marry it an live happily ever after together.

After what seemed like an eternity, over 20 minutes, the real show finally began and the first real award was handed out. It was Best Supporting Actor otherwise known as the If Christoph Waltz is Working With Quentin Tarantino He Automatically Gets the Award award.

The first high-investment award of the night (at least from my perspective) was Best Animated Feature. This year my heart was split between Pixar’s first feature with a female lead Brave and the sweet video game hero’s journey of Wreck-It Ralph. Brave won, which I can’t fault — and hopefully will prompt the animation studio to make even more and better female-centered films — but darn it if I didn’t want Ralph to get that gold medal, too.

The Avengers came out to present the awards for cinematography and visual effects. But Scarlett Johansson wasn’t there so, really, what’s the point? Though we did learn during the acceptance speeches that the Academy decided to use the Jaws theme music to play off long-winded winners. Which was pretty fun at first, but ultimately pretty damn rude.

The schizophrenic evening that couldn’t tell if it was a song-and-dance show or frat-house kegger included the hosts telling jokes about women being difficult, women getting the flu to diet, women becoming victims of domestic violence and a gay joke just for good measure. The night also included a tribute to James Bond movies. Halle Berry came out to introduce the segment, and uttered the words “Pussy Galore” which should now be every lesbian’s ringtone. Frequent Bond crooner Shirley Bassey came out and belted “Goldfinger” and we all felt a little nostalgic for smoking jackets and retro misogyny. Though we were also confused by Halle’s dress. Are big shoulder pads back? Really?

Then the show got confused and thought it was the Tony’s again when John Travolta and his toupee came out and introduced three consecutive musical numbers. First “All That Jazz” from Chicago by Catherine Zeta-Jones. She looked great, but that musical is 11 years old. And then “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls by Jennifer Hudson. JHud sounded and looked stunning, but, again, what’s with all the musical numbers? And then, finally, Oscars got to the point and the cast of Les Misérables came out and sang a medley. Well, Russell Crowe tried to sing, poor dear.

Best Supporting Actress goes, with little suspense, to Anne Hathaway who is sweet as always and utters a little “It came true” when handed her award. I know there are some Anne haters out there, but the Princess of Genovia just won an Oscar so it’s a good day in my book.

More than an hour into the show, presenter Sandra Bullock got up to hand out an award and expressed our sentiments about the show, its pace and our combined fear that we’d run out of alcohol before the evening was over while struggling to open the envelope.

Then Kristen Stewart emerges on stage with a visible limp, after arriving to the awards on crutches from injuring her foot. Mark my words, it’s only a matter of time before her gimpy walk gets turned into the new lesbian pimp walk. Though, come on Harry Potter, you could have offered Bella Swan your arm for support. I mean, I know you don’t want to confuse the two franchises but everyone knows yours are better already.

Adele comes out to awe us by singing “Skyfall” and then delight us by winning for “Skyfall.” She’s half way to an EGOT and charming as very as she gets choked up and then tells the assembled audience, “amazing.” Come back, Adele. Never leave us, Adele.

Oh, and if you are wondering why the cast of Chicago got yet another plug at the Oscars — Richard Gere, Renee Zellweger, Queen Latifah and Zeta-Jones came out to present the musical awards — it’s because the show’s producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron also producer the 2002 musical. Are they allowed to blatantly try to boost their DVD sales like that?

Back to the show, Barbra Streisand closed out a night of stellar female vocalists — J-Hud and Adele and Babs, oh my — by singing “Memories” in honor of its writer Marvin Hamlisch who passed away last year. It was Streisand’s first appearance at the Oscars in 36 years and she was, of course, like buttah.

Three hours into the show and with little hope for an amicable ending, the biggest awards of the nights came in quick succession. Ang Lee won for Best Director for Life of Pi, and I again feel the nostalgic sting of Brokeback Mountain losing to Crash.

The Jennifer Lawrence wins Best Actress and makes us love her even more by falling on her way to the podium. Her tumble, henceforth to be known as the J-Fall, was perfect, as was her gentlemen co-stars Bradley Cooper and Hugh Jackman rushing to help her up. She recovered gamely on her own and joked about her subsequent standing ovation only coming because of her embarrassing trip. Let’s be best friends forever, Jennifer. Signed, everyone.

And just when the night seems to be picking up thanks to the never-ending charm of JLaw, Daniel Day-Lewis proves he’s more than just method. He’s damn funny, too. As Meryl Streep presents him with his trophy — the only man to have won three Best Actor awards — he quips that he did a one-for-one role swap with. He joked he was originally slated to play Thatcher and her Lincoln.

The night’s biggest and last honor was presented by Jack Nicholson by way of First Lady Michelle Obama. The FLOTUS’ surprise via satellite appearance was exciting, but also a little puzzling. But who cares, there were FLOTUS arms and it worked for me.

The award itself went to Argo and brought producers and fellow beard enthusiasts Ben Affleck and George Clooney on the stage together. The bear community had a good night as Clooney, Affleck, Cooper, Jackman, Chris Pine, Joaquin Phoenix, Paul Rudd and Chris Evans all opted to get their inner grizzly man out.

The poor Cheno comes on stage to sing the awkward closing song “Here’s to the Losers” over the closing credits. And it only took three hours and 33 minutes.

And now, on to what you really care about, the dresses.

p.s. This what JLaw’s full dress looked like. No wonder she J-Fell.

So, thoughts on this year’s awards, winners, fashions? Next year, let’s just have Tina Fey and Amy Poehler host this thing like Shatner suggested.

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