The Dude abides

Sleepy, with a sugar hangover. Wore a crown home last night: won the prize (also biscuits, which I kept, and tea, which I gave to a colleague) for correctly calling the number of Oscars® The King's Speech would win and (the tiebreaker) getting 3 of the 4 specifics. Was runner-up for the pick-the-winners pot of gold, with a respectable 16 for 24 to host Donna's 18. (Coincidentally, the same scores topped the standings for at least one party in Champaign, Illinois, where my daughter placed 2nd to my son-in-law.)

So the show? Yeah, pretty bad; I thought the kids would be lots of fun, but I was wrong. Franco was especially disappointing: seemed to be in a different time zone or something.

Not scandalized that Melissa Leo proved that you really can buy an Oscar®, but she certainly didn't make herself any friends with her speech. Firth's was as classy and as self-deprecating as we knew it would be.

Happiest-to-be-wrong: God of Love's win.

Earlier in the day, saw, at my guests' request, 2 more movies than I'd expected to see on the weekend:

The Big Lebowski

(1998)

The rare film that makes me smile more with each subsequent viewing. I hope I'm not around for it, but when it's Jeff Bridges's turn to be elegized in that part of you show where everybody keeps saying "Oh, right: I forgot he died!" he won't be shown as Rooster Cogburn or Bad Blake or any of his future nominated roles; he'll be sipping a White Russian in the Dude's bathrobe.

A Damsel in Distress

(1937)

Damn! Only reason I recorded this is that I was thinking it was the source of Astaire's sublime drunken "One for My Baby" dance, but within minutes I realized: no: The Sky's the Limit.

Nothing sublime here, except maybe the teenaged face of Joan Fontaine. Apparently she couldn't dance a lick, though: only one romantic dance number, and her steps are distinctly Not Falling Down 101 level. A couple of good Gershwin songs, but Burns and Allen annoy as much as amuse. Never again.