Miley Cyrus Skinned The Little Mermaid And Wore Her Tail to the Oscars.

If Ariel had just stayed in the kingdom and performed with her sisters like King Triton wanted, this would never have happened.

Oscars 2K9 has come and gone, but in its wake we're left with the remnants of a giant shitfest, courtesy of too many people to name. There were many giant hits (K-WIZZLE!) and misses (the horrendously directed In Memorium, in which you couldn't see Cyd Charisse's name because apparently it's a real treat to watch Latifah slog her way through tuneless shizzle), and Weenie Enema will supply the highlights and lowlights for those unwillingly to sit through a quarter of a day watching pretty people congratulate and laud each other.

The Hits.

"I'd like to thank Jack Dawson, who froze to death so that I might live and win this prestigious award."

1. As already mentioned, K-Wizzle has finally snagged the Oscar she deserved for almost drowning in the North Atlantic and getting shot at by Billy Zane, stolen at the last minute by the mediocrity of Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets. Despite being 11 years late, it was a real treat to see one of the premier actresses in the world getting her due - and besting Meryl in one of her stronger nomination years. Meryl, demure and noble in defeat (it HAS happened 13 times now), also treated the public to an excellent hairdo that was clearly inspired by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, minus the poon flashing. For that, we are grateful.

2. So there was no question that the Brangelina/Aniston drama goodness was going to be at the fore this year. For all of its entertainment value, it does make one question how truly evil the organizers of the awards show have to be to not only get Jennifer to present TWO awards, ensuring her presence on the stage for at least five minutes, but putting her basically TWO FEET from the other two equilateral angles in that cursed love triangle. Who wouldn't choke a little from that kind of pressure? Sadly, it wasn't surprising when Jen's comedic timing, a bit rusty since Friends went off the air, was slightly a kilter during a badly written banter with Jack Black. What did the directors of this noble show do when she stumbled for a second? Well...what would YOU cut to?

Ouch.
At this point, I think Jennifer Aniston has won the right to never go to any televised awards show ever again. That said, it's pretty amazing that the wretched drama lived up the hype for yet another day.

3. For some reason, the decision to get five previous winners to present the award in their respective categories has been pretty polarizing. I LOVED IT. You clearly can't do that every year, as you'd run out of people in less than 10 years, but they should definitely keep this one in storage for a good time in the distant future. They could have picked some real douches for this, like Gwyneth or Julia Roberts, but were largely successful. It would be interesting to see how they arrived at the decision for who got to introduce each nominee, as some of them didn't seem right. For instance, wouldn't it have made much more sense for Julie Andrews to get the Anne Hathaway assignment? She's a former Best Actress winner and was her co-star in the movies that jump started her career. Very baffling. And as much as I consider Sophia Loren a fairly legit legend in her own right, she's no Meryl, but who is? Ideally, I would have dug up Katherine Hepburn's corpse to deliver that speech. And if I WERE forced to select a living actress, I'd probably go with Olivia de Havilland or Joanne Woodward, both of whom probably aren't up to teleprompter reading, but a Weenie Enema can dream.

"Meryl, you were WONDERFUL in Doubt. Almost as good as I was in The Heiress and Gone with the Wind!" <3<3<3

The Misses.

1. Beyonce? Really? As much as I appreciate the millions of calories Hugh Jackman burned up in rehearsing his mother dance routines, this isn't a 1950s musical - there's a reason Hollywood isn't chomping at the bit to remake An American in Paris and Gigi. I myself don't know how to successfully navigate the line between retro badassness and stale shiz, but neither does Hugh. I get that the dude doesn't really do comedy, but all homie had to do was walk on stage like this and instantly win the approval of millions:

Having never seen the movies, I'm mildly surprised to see that Wolverine appears to have some sort of wolf ear things to go with his claws. Interesting. Which reminds me - Halle Berry was there. Couldn't they have done an X-Men skit? It would have been infinitely better than Beyonce lip-synching her way down a staircase with the cast of High School Musical. Is the Academy THAT desperate to capture the tween demographic?

2. Natalie Portman was subjected to ruthless treatment by the Academy in 2005 when they thought Cate Blanchett's mimicking, trouser-wearing Hepburn imitation exceeded her superb performance in Closer. Frankly, Natalie has every right to ignore their existence until they rectify this error and put her on the podium - preferably at Blanchett's expense. But Portman is a better person than I, and having been given an invitation to present an award, not only showed up, but looked even better than she did four years ago (was it really that long ago?) when she showed up straight out of a Latin textbook.

Natalie est melior quam Blanchett.
Heh.
Anyway, what does she get for her troubles? She's given the thankless task of playing the straight man for Ben Stiller's Joaquin Phoenix imitation, thus being totally and unfairly overshadowed once again. Sigh.

3. I had a few people over for a quiet Oscar get-together, which included Drunk Erin and 2007 Emma Grimshaw Letter Writing Contest winner Steven. Before the festivities got under way at 6 (I watch EVERYTHING), we decided to have an intense drinking game, which included taking a swig when the camera cut from Brangelina directly to Aniston (it happened several times) and whenever we saw someone on the red carpet and immediately asked, "What the hell are they doing there?" Since Jennifer Grey and the aforementioned mermaid snatcher were invited, it meant much liquid consumption. I stuck to Diet Pepsi, but I had a bottle of Cuervo left over from a party last summer, which I mistakenly gave to Steve. Of course, Steve ended up drinking pretty much the entire bottle by hour two, and passed out shortly thereafter. This meant that I had to turn the TV up during K-Wizzle's acceptance speech because SOMEONE was snoring. Loudly. Growl.

I will now leave you with a little white pony.

Excessive Indian Armpit Hair, Illiterate Nazis, and Other Goodness.

Wait, she's not a Nazi!

Weenie Enema is returning from obscurity to offer unsolicited Oscar wisdom. This is the first time in the history of all things that I've pretty much seen every major film nominated, though I lost interest in bestowing my four-star blog reviews on the populace after seeing two malnourished leads in the space of a week. Although this awards season has had few surprises thus far, it should still be interesting to see whether K-Wizzle finally nails down that Oscar, if Christian Bale backlash affects any of The Dark Knight nominations, and if Jennifer Aniston shows up on the red carpet, steals one of Angelina's children and attempts to reenact a scene from Changeling, which might actually help the ratings for years to come.

Clearly, one baby from the Brangelina clan would not be missed terribly.

Best Picture.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Frost/Nixon.
Milk.
The Reader.
Slumdog Millionaire.

This, by virtually all accounts, has been a weak Oscar year. As best as I can figure, the definition of a strong year means having at least seven or eight legitimate Best Picture contenders, 2007 being a case in point, where films with early Oscar buzz like Into the Wild, The Assassination of Jesse James, Gone Baby Gone and others weren't really even considered because the five slots filled up pretty quickly. However, it's kind of a moot point if you didn't like more than one or two, which was certainly true for me, where I was on Team Atonement and little else. This supposedly lame year has been filled with quality shizzle in my book, and none rate higher with me than The Button. I heart all buttons, and comparisons with Forrest Gump - a movie that really hasn't held up very well, along with Tom Hanks' "pectorals" - are erroneous. You would think that Brad Pitt getting younger and younger would be a delight to see, but at a certain point - I would say when he hits middle school age - it becomes surprisingly heart-wrenching, especially if you're not used to 13-year-old boys acting like present-day Sargent Shriver. Despite Button's 13 nominations, it would be shocking if Slumdog didn't win, which was a perfectly good movie, though it sadly doesn't have the magic of age reversal. But really, how many movies do?

The answer to the question - What would Maria Shriver look like if she ate and had testicles?

Best Actor.
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor.
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon.
Sean Penn - Milk.
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler.

Conventional wisdom suggests a throwdown between the plastic surgery victim and Madonna's ex-husband. I would submit that Mickey edges out Sean by virtue of two elements - giving a shout-out to his dogs at the Globes, thus ensuring the votes of chihuahua lovers the world over, and getting shot with a staple gun in the ring, though the shooting was so frenetic that it might have been a stunt double. Still. It's hard to argue that he didn't have the harder role, since he was playing an ugly mug who bore an uncanny resemblance to that weird dog flying thing in The Neverending Story and had a bunch of folding chairs smashed on his head and Sean Penn had to...what? Make out with James Franco? What a rough gig.

"I'm a broken-down piece of meat...and I can fly!"

Best Actress.
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married.
Angelina Jolie - Changeling.
Melissa Leo - Frozen River.
Meryl Streep - Doubt.
K-Wizzle - The Reader.

It was recently brought to my attention that although Meryl is a goddess who will forever be recognized for her talent and ability to rope in prestigious award after prestigious award, she has never won an Oscar in my lifetime. I was born during the high point of the Reagan Revolution (1984) and Meryl copped Best Actress for Sophie's Choice in 1982. A sobering fact indeed. At any rate, Angelina is really only going to the ceremony to show off her arm candy (and who wouldn't?), and not enough people appreciate Homicide: Life on the Streets or her amazing turn in the best Law and Order episode title ever (Who Let the Dogs Out?) to vote for Melissa Leo in an upset.

Which brings us to three. One would think this is Meryl's best chance so far to get Oscar #3, although I personally would have nominated her for the brilliance she brought to Mamma Mia!, but the smart money is on K-Wizzle, who has patiently sat by while actress (Mira Sorvino) after actress (Helen Hunt) after actress (Jennifer Connelly) after actress (Hilary Swank) after actress (Helen Mirren) has gone up to the podium. Although it has been subjected to some merciless reviews (the NY Post headline "Deathcamp for Cutie" almost made up for their anti-K-Wizzle vitriol), The Reader is much like Brokeback in that its very definition has been misinterpreted. If you'll recall, Brokeback was unfairly labeled "the gay cowboy movie" even though they were actually SHEEPHERDERS and there was a total of maybe 30 seconds of leather cheerio love throughout the entire movie. Very unfair. The Reader is being labeled a Holocaust movie even though there are hardly any Jews to be found on screen (two) and the purpose of the film isn't to show, "Hey, Nazis have feelings too!" but that a lot of Germans, not even necessarily ones who truly believed in the Hitler methodology, were forced into horrible circumstances that in hindsight made them look less than human, when that wasn't truly the case. Such a badass movie. Also, Anne Hathaway probably shouldn't get an Oscar when Rosemary Dewitt aka Slut from Mad Men and Amazingness Defined Debra Winger were better, but some sort of award for working side-by-side with Kate Hudson should be in order.

This woman CANNOT be happy that she's the fourth search result for "who let the dogs out."

Best Supporting Actress.
Amy Adams - Doubt.
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Viola Davis - Doubt.
Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler.

You have to think that if there's a chance at a crazy upset, this is probably where it would happen. Penelope is excellent and makes Scarlett look even worse than usual, but some of these nominations just seem baffling. I feel like they just started looking at the casts of the Oscar movies to fill in the spaces. Viola Davis is in basically one scene in Doubt, and the vast majority of it involves a thick stream of mucus forming a pool between her nose and upper lip. I couldn't tell you what she says to Meryl while the boogers coagulate, though I suspect it was something like, "That really sucks that PSH is touching my kid, but we are an impoverished black family and he needs to graduate from your good school, so...I don't know. Tell PSH to stop doing it." Not a very good movie, and Amy Adams is really starting to get on my nerves, but was thankfully snot-free. This is a slightly difficult call, since K-Wizzle was sweeping up all the Best Supporting Actresses until the nominations for this came out, but I'm going with Marisa Tomei, who may actually be better than Mickey "Neverending Story Dog Thing" Rourke, and is apparently having a contest with K-Wizzle to see who can make the most movies whilst flashing boobs and nethers. It's hard to imagine anyone topping K-Wizzle in that department, who by my count has been in at least four. Whew.

If Halle can get an Oscar for straddling Billy Bob, perhaps Viola can win for her unintentional cold medicine commercial.

Speculation on Supporting Actor seems pointless as Heath's corpse is primed to take the Oscar that he should have gotten for the shepherding.

They didn't go up there to fish.