Advertisement

John's flub, J.Law's fall

 
J. Law, Lupita Nyong’o “fight.” Inset, Travolta, far too pleased with himself.
J. Law, Lupita Nyong’o “fight.” Inset, Travolta, far too pleased with himself.
Published March 4, 2014

Is Jennifer Lawrence's goofy-gal shtick growing thin? How many retweets did Ellen's selfie-with-the-stars get? And what in the heck happened with John Travolta and his imaginary pal Adele Dazeem? Herewith, a few lingering thoughts from Sunday's 86th Academy Awards:

210 MINUTES … That was the running time of Sunday's Oscars telecast. A serious haul, but at least it wasn't 2002's marathon, which clocked in at 263 minutes! Part of the reason this year's event — which, save for a flabby midsection, was pretty entertaining — tested the clock is that the in-house orchestra refused to play any of the winners off the stage.

AND 43 MILLION VIEWERS … Three and a half hours aside, the show drew 43 million viewers — the most-watched Oscars show in 10 years.

OOPS, THERE GOES ANOTHER J.LAW PRATFALL There was a time, sometime circa The Devil Wears Prada, when Anne Hathaway was America's Sweetheart. By the time she took best supporting actress for Les Miserables, her shtick was playing like, well, shtick: an actor buying into her own adorableness. Call us party poopers, but Jennifer Lawrence is starting to veer that (Hatha)way. On the Oscars red carpet, J.Law ate pavement, although it wasn't nearly as cute or, um, natural as when she tripped up the steps last year to accept her best actress statuette for Silver Linings Playbook. This year, she also tried to steal the spotlight when presenting the best actor trophy, asking why everyone was laughing at her (um, were they?). Finally, an after-party snap of her trying to snatch Lupita Nyong'o's best supporting actress hardware was a teeth-gritter. Ugh.

TURNS OUT TRAVOLTA IS ITALIAN FOR "NOT EVEN CLOSE" One of the most bizarre Oscars moments ever came courtesy of John Travolta, when the actor and his hairpiece egregiously mispronounced Idina Menzel's name, calling her something that sounded like "Adele Dazeem." (Yep, there are already at least two Twitter accounts for the name. Good job, Internet!) Couple things about this scenario: First, how does John not know who he's introducing until he sees it on the prompter? Plus, he was introducing her performance of Let It Go, a.k.a. the most popular song from one of the most popular movies on the planet, Frozen. You should really know who Menzel is, John. And second, and most hilariously, Travolta looks BEYOND delighted with himself during the intro, when he says, "Please welcome the wickedly talented, the one and only … Adele Dazeem!" Every time we think about it — and we can't stop thinking about it — we hit our head on the desk laughing.

20/24: That's how many predictions tbt* movie critic Steve Persall guessed correctly before Sunday night's show.

IN MEMORIAM (OR, YOU KNOW, WHOMEVER WE HAVE TIME FOR) It seems like every year the Academy has an oops in its In Memoriam segment. This year, the powers-that-be again erred on the side of ignoring those most notable for TV work. Most egregious was Dennis Farina, the mob-movie man who co-starred in the film That Old Feeling with Bette Midler — who sang right after the memorial tribute! And what about comedy legend Jonathan Winters, who made such flicks as The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World? Alas, the Academy tried to cover itself this year by putting 111 of the fallen online, including many of the high-profile snubs, at oscar.go.com.

"IF ONLY BRADLEY'S ARM WAS LONGER" Ellen's all-star selfie started with just her and Meryl Streep … then Julia Roberts, who wanted to merely flash bunny ears behind them … then Channing Tatum … before including a mosh of Bradley Cooper, the Pitt-Jolies and, most adorably, Lupita Nyong'o's brother Peter. Ellen wanted to set a new record for retweets, and boy did she: more than 2,769,497 and counting. You can call the moment staged; you could say it was a shameless plug for a smartphone. But, hey, it sure looked like loose, wicked good fun to us mortals.

Scarlett Johansson is pregnant

It looks like Her star Scarlett Johansson is preggo. E! News is reporting that Johansson is expecting her first child with her fiance and the most lucky man on planet earth, French journalist Romain Dauriac. The sultry-voiced actor, 29, announced plans to wed in September after the two went public with their romance in November 2012. TMZ reports Scar Jo is five months along. (Pause for subtraction.) But Johansson isn't about to rush down the aisle. "I'm not doing any wedding planning," she told Good Morning America in January.

Bynes breaks long Twitter silence

She's baaack! After a long period of silence on her once maniacal Twitter account, embattled former Nickelodeon star Amanda Bynes has returned to social media. Hi everyone! I'm busy studying at @FIDM but I want to say I love you to my fans! Xoxo Amanda, she tweeted on Saturday. FIDM is the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in Orange County. The Hairspray actress also deleted old tweets that chronicled two years of personal and legal problems, Us Weekly reports. Just last week the 27-year-old pleaded no contest in her 2012 DUI case that set off a string of madness that landed her in inpatient rehab, from which she was released in December. Bynes faces three years of probation, various fines and three months of alcohol education.

That's the selling price of Pharrell Williams' large, lumpy Grammys hat, designed by Vivienne Westwood. So if you're wondering why the Happy singer was wearing a different ginormous topper at the Oscars, perhaps it was because Arby's, whose logo is a similar chapeau, bought the original on eBay. (They've had a playful, ahem, beef.) Pharrell will donate the money to charity.

$44,100