Pushing the (possibly only) Envelope

Is it wrong that I loved almost every second of the S.A.G. Awards? Is it because I haven't seen an awards show in awhile or was it really good?

Feel free to weigh in. Maybe it's because I agreed with (almost) every award. I knew it was going to be good when they started off by getting it right and giving the Sopranos the recognition they deserved.

I was so giddy from the speeches and all I decided to give out some awards of my own...

Missed opportunity of the night award: Alec Baldwin won for 30 Rock, but was MIA, so we didn't get to see him accept his richly deserved recognition by his peers and give (what I'm sure would've been) a great speech.

Which of course gave way to the...

Fakest smile of the night award: Jeremy Piven, who, right after LOSING to MIA Alec Baldwin, flashed those pearly whites only AFTER he realized the camera was on him.

Guy who made the girls (or at least, this one) swoon award : Javier Bardem, who for some reason can pull off that open shirt thing without looking cheesy. His genuine speech just made him hotter.

"I am definitely the only person on the planet who noticed this" award: THAT goes to me, for noticing that the very first clip in the Charles Durning Lifetime Achievement Award montage was from giant 1983 flop Twist of Fate, the ill-conceived John Travolta/Olivia Newton-John post-Grease re-pairing. Seriously? That's your choice to kick off the showcase of this talented actor's body of work, editor-person? Not Dog Day Afternoon? Not The Sting? Um, o.k., Twist of Fate. Whatever.

Speaking of Charles Durning...The "It's never too late to get it right, so get off your ass " Inspiration Award: It's a tie between both of these gentlemen who appeared at the awards:
1. Charles Durning - who didn't appear on screen till he was FORTY!
2. Mickey Rooney - who was married SEVEN times before meeting his current (and eighth) wife...who he's been married to for THIRTY years!

The "sure wish we'd submitted a different clip" award: people from Weeds, whose clip included Mary-Kate Olsen, less than a week after her name was splashed all over the headlines in connection with Heath Ledger's death.

And while we're on THAT subject...the "I guess we're not going to bother to re-edit the dead people montage in any respectful way and instead we're just gonna shove the Heath Ledger clip with no audio at the end after the fade to black when the music has stopped and the audience is wondering 'where's the Heath Ledger clip?' " award: editor-person that edited this montage...perhaps it's the same genius that cut together the Charles Durning piece? At least Daniel Day-Lewis paid tribute to Heath in his speech in a respectful way...even though I hate myself a little for letting the teeny-tiny cynic in my soul wonder a little bit if this was fake, especially since Daniel also talked about Heath on Oprah...and has said he didn't know him.

As Tom Cruise presented the last award of the evening, I longed for the days when I thought he was a hot movie star and not a crazy alien. I wonder if I will ever again be able to see him as anything other than a punchline.

Not to be, ya know, glib.