the ocean

-- Zendaya will wow the red carpet in a latex body suits and crocs.
-- Co-hosts Regina Hall, Amy Schumer, and Wanda Sykes will open the ceremony with a musical number mashing up every best song winner from the last 20 years.

-- In a shocking upset, Judi Dench will win best supporting actress and deliver a profanity-laden tirade in which she calls Olivia Colman the c-word.

-- Troy Kotsur will win best supporting actor and deliver his speech in a mixture of ASL and COBOL.

-- Rather than perform her best song nominee, Beyonce will cover Paula Abdul's "Rush Rush," later explaining "I just really like 'Rush Rush.'"

-- Lady Gaga will have to be physically restrained after she catches a glimpse of the best actress trophy and begins babbling incoherently in a wildly exaggerated Italian accent.

 -- Rachel Zegler will bask in the glow of having successfully made the entire evening all about her, despite not even being nominated.

-- On My Mind will win best live action short film, spurring mixed reactions among the approximately five Americans who actually saw all of the nominees in the category.

-- Jessica Chastain will get into a knife fight.

-- After winning best actor, Will Smith will forget to thank Jada, but weirdly remember the giant mechanical spider from his 1999 smash hit Wild Wild West.

-- Everyone will joke about how long the ceremony is while doing absolutely nothing to reduce the length of the ceremony.

-- Faye Dunaway will arrive and award best picture to Space Jam 2.

 

Which is the plan again this year. But we have actually seen some of the movies this time around, although admittedly most of that happened in the last week. If I had to pick a best picture, I might have to say West Side Story because I actually enjoyed it thoroughly, even though I thought remaking it was a terrible idea and I fully planned to hate it. I couldn't even fully hate Ansel Elgort, which kind of pisses me off. I also enjoyed Licorice Pizza, although I found the central relationship to be basically creepy and the treatment of Asians to be not just inappropriate but utterly mystifying. King Richard I remember enjoying, but that was several months ago, so I'm coming up short on specifics. Maybe I posted about it at the time? (I am 100% too lazy to check.) Dune I didn't really get at all. It looked good, but all the talking kind of seemed like nonsense? I'm generally pro Zendaya, I will say. Oh, and Nightmare Alley? Good lord. I wouldn't say it was bad, but I have no idea what motivated all of those awards bait actors to sign on for a 1940s freak show movie. Maybe just big fans of the fish sex from Guillermo del Toro's last movie? Stars, they're just like us.

We went to the beach, where the water was cold but the overheard political takes were hot, and grabbed lunch at a beachfront dive where the waitress had a thick Maine accent for some reason and told us about her friend "Judy No Booty," also for some reason. You can tell it was a five star establishment because it had just one restroom, prominently featuring a sign that warned patrons not to flush their tampons. I'm not sure if that's a masculine gaze or just poor plumbing.

Our AirBNB was fine, although hardly at the level we got spoiled with last year in Palm Springs. The front door had an electric lock that kept randomly not working, leaving us to choose between calling the management company six dozen times and just leaving it open. I did not feel comfortable with the latter, despite the strong assurances about Florida crime I received at the local Publix. The pool kept filling up with leaves, too, although fortunately I found the process of skimming it to be very Zen. To the extent that even means anything, I guess. 

Anyway, nice to get away, and even better to get back. There are very things I enjoy doing so much that I don't prefer to stop doing them.