Your Oscar Recap

Hollywood’s most glamorous day has come and gone, leaving nothing but a mess of glitter and stardust on the red carpet outside the Kodak Theater. If you missed the 81st Annual Academy Awards on Sunday, we’ll walk you through some of Oscar’s big winners in this week’s blog. (http://www.oscar.com)

Our star-studded evening begins on the red carpet, where America’s Next Top Model’s Jan Manuel noted that Kate Winslet’s hair “may look very retro, but is actually very futuristic.” In the ever-cycling world of style, where “what goes around, always comes around,” it’s nice to have someone who can tell us exactly what point on the temporal spectrum a hair helmet comes from. Later in the evening, that same very futuristic hairdo found its way to the stage as Ms. Winslet took the Oscar for Best Actress for her role in The Reader. Like host Hugh Jackman, we didn’t see The Reader, but we think she deserves the award nonetheless. What can we say? We’re big fans. You know what else we’re big fans of? Wind power. Which is fitting, because wind power uses big fans. It’s a visual thing. Check out the shirt: http://www.teehugger.com/product_p/thas1003_thjs1007.htm

From there we move on to Best Actor, and to be perfectly honest, we were shocked by the Academy’s choice. They gave the award to Sean Penn, a man who is best known for playing Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, being married to Madonna, and punching out a photographer. I mean this is shocking on so many levels, because... wait, hold on... this just in: apparently I’ve been in a coma since 1986. Maybe so, but even to someone who has been eating through a tube for the past twenty-odd years, it’s pretty obvious that Mr. Penn is not just a movie star, but also a very outspoken activist. Even if you’re not a big celebrity like Sean Penn, you can learn how to go green like the stars do on Variety.com’s Green Hollywood page: http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=Lifestyle&jump=greenhollywood

The awards for Best Picture and Best Director both went to Slumdog Millionaire, a film that traces the life of an Indian boy from the slums of Mumbai to the stage of a TV game show. But while Who Wants to be a Millionaire can keep your wallet filled with green, it isn’t the best show for keeping your planet green. That award goes to Planet Green’s Go for the Green, hosted by Tom Green. Seriously, for this show to get any greener, it would have to be hosted by a leprechaun. You can learn all kinds of interesting green facts and even play the game for yourself at its website: http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/go-for-the-green/index.html

This year’s trophy for Achievement in Visual Effects went to the crew of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, for taking hunky dreamboat Brad Pitt and making him look like a knobby little senior citizen who ages in reverse. If you’re an actual knobby little senior citizen, you can do your part to save the planet and maybe even feel a little younger in the process. According to ScientificBlogging.com, “Volunteering for environmental protection activities can be physically and mentally sustaining for older people.” (http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/gray_turns_green_older_people_stay_fit_keeping_the_environment_in_shape) If you’re a senior who wants to get involved in saving the planet you’ve enjoyed for so many years, you can also check out Greenseniors: a senior-friendly website dedicated to fixing the environment. (http://greenseniors.typepad.com/greenseniors/)

Now that we’ve rolled up the red carpet on another year of Oscar, it’s time for us all to roll out the green carpet for the Earth. Get ready, paparazzi!