Rhyming Oscar nominations announced

Up for Best Vest: Sandra Bullock in Gravity

Best Nest

Christian Bale's hair, American Hustle

Bradley Cooper's hair, American Hustle

Jennifer Lawrence's hair, American Hustle

Jeremy Renner's hair, American Hustle

Radagast the Brown's hair, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

Best Chest

Amy Adams, American Hustle

Hugh Jackman, The Wolverine

Ryan Gosling, The Place Beyond The Pines

Tom Hanks, Captain Phillips

Adele Exarchopolous, Blue Is The Warmest Colour

Best Breast

[Award amalgamated into Best Chest category]

Best Guest

Jasmine Francis (Cate Blanchett), Blue Jasmine

Frank Chambers (Josh Brolin), Labor Day

PL Travers (Emma Thompson), Saving Mr Banks

Muse (Barkhad Abdi), Captain Phillips

Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), Iron Man 3

Best Quest

The Quest For The Negative, The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty

The Quest For The Dwarves' Gold, The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug

The Quest For Enormous Amounts Of Booze, The World's End

The Quest For Treasure, A Field In England

The Quest For A Joke, Anchorman 2

Best Vest

Matt Damon's vest, Elysium

Channing Tatum's vest, White House Down

Hugh Jackman's vest, The Wolverine

Robert Downey Jr's vest, Iron Man 3

Sandra Bullock's vest, Gravity

Best West

The Wild West, The Lone Ranger

[Rhyming Oscars cancelled for stupidity]

Saturday Playlist #21: Oscar's Greatest Songs

The Oscar for Music (Original Song) this year went to Randy Newman for Toy Story 3's 'We Belong Together'. Anyone remember how that goes? Thought not.

But despite having rewarded some totally forgettable songs in the past, not to mention some proper ear-rape (if there was any justice in the world James Horner, Will Jennings and Celine Dion would currently be doing multiple life sentences for 'My Heart Will Go On'), there have also been some songs so good that not only have they taken the little gold-plated fella away but they've also entered the public consciousness to the point where we often forget they were written specifically for films.

So sit back, strap on the leg-warmers for the Fame / Flashdance double bill and bust a cap in someone's ass or whatever it is Eminem does, as you...

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO

SATURDAY PLAYLIST #21:

OSCAR'S GREATEST SONGS

The Oscars: A Photographic Odyssey

Despite being almost perversely determined not to enjoy the Oscars, I did attempt to actually enjoy myself last night. I stayed up till 5.30am and everything, armed with a laptop and a mobile phone and ready to blog the shit out of those Oscars. Unfortunately they were as predictably tedious as I tediously predicted, and innumerate technical failures during the evening caused me to use language that would have made Melissa Leo blush.

Nevertheless, here's a vague representation of the evening via the magic of the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music's on-board camera.

First things first: provisions. Almost everything you see in this picture had been consumed before anyone set foot on the red carpet.

This cat spent vast swathes of the evening showing me his arsehole. I wouldn't normally share such a private moment but, unbelievably, the cat's name is Oscar and I felt like he was making an erudite comment on proceedings.

There were some serious bow tie issues as far as horizontality was concerned. I was pleased to note that Mark Ruffalo and Jude Law had the same problem.

Several times during the evening our live stream froze. On the first such occasion we had to stare at AR Rahman for something approaching six minutes. After four we noticed that his ears were unfeasibly massive.

With the excitement building to almost bearable levels, we made our predictions on a handwritten form that felt like completing a complex tax declaration in a foreign country:

And then my laptop crashed, my phone chose to connect to the internet only when Natalie Portman appeared on screen and the live stream stopped and started more often than Colin Firth in The King's Speech. I managed to squeeze a few tweets out, and if you were lucky enough to miss them, here's the one that got retweeted the most and therefore wins the Oscar for Best Tweet by The Incredible Suit:

I'm not sure I understand it myself and I wrote it, but then it is 6.09am and I could do with some kip. Goodnight.

Everyone's Excited About The Oscars

It's the Oscars tonight, hooray! And when I say "hooray!" I mean "oh God, the Oscars. How I hate them and everything they stand for." Yet despite my curmudgeonly view of this annual orgy of self-congratulatory pizzle, I shall be attending an Oscar party, if only because it gives me an excuse to wear a bow tie for the first time since the sixth form summer ball. With any luck the evening won't end the same way as that one did, because that would be horrific, painful and socially awkward for everyone involved.

If you'd like to have your enjoyment of Oscar night brought down by the blogging equivalent of Marvin the Paranoid Android, you can do so in a variety of thrilling ways:

1. Sit next to me all night and listen to my incessant, foul whining. Spaces are limited.
2. Keep across @IncredibleSuit on Twitter for incessant, foul whines of 140 characters or less. Expect a steady decrease in coherence throughout the night.
3. Keep an eye on the Picturehouses live video stream, for whom I will be appearing in increasing states of distress (and possibly undress), as the evening progresses. That is if we can get it to work. Expect lots of this:

Of course the one mandatory exercise even the most indifferent observer must undertake is the annual attempt to guess which backs will be slapped the hardest on Oscar night, and inevitably The Incredible Suit is no exception. I hauled my Oscar Predict-O-Matic out of the shed, filled it with high-octane fuel (some of which I set aside to drink just before the Best Documentary Short Award) and fed it a gutful of stats, but I'll save the resulting predictions until later on. Suffice it to say that if The Social Network, David Fincher, Colin Firth and Jennifer Lawrence don't walk away clutching stiff little men then I will have wasted some perfectly good isopropanol and the Predict-O-Matic will be on eBay before Monday lunchtime.

Wish me luck, and don't expect too much from me in the way of articulate analysis of cinema as an art form tomorrow. Or any day in fact.

Saturday Playlist #20: Oscar's Greatest Scores

One category in tomorrow's Oscars that I'm actually interested in is the one the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences don't call "Best Score", but just "Music (Original Score)", the word "Best" deemed unsavoury in these modern times when it's all about the taking part, not the winning. Unless it's "Best Picture" you're after.

What better way to prepare for Hans Zimmer being crowned King Of Brrraaaaaaaaaaahmmmm, then, than by casting our hearholes over some of the bestest tuneage to win an Oscar from the last seven decades? No better way, that's what better way.

So sit back, turn up the speaker devices and pray for Der Zimmer as you...

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO

SATURDAY PLAYLIST 20:

OSCAR'S GREATEST SCORES

Oscar Night: Take Your Pick

Come the evening of February 27th, you have two clear choices who to spend Oscar night with.

Choice 1: James Franco and Anne Hathaway

Choice 2: James Franco and Anne Hathaway

Personally I like my women with a little chest hair so I know where I'll be.

Oh Good, It's Oscar Time

The 2011 Oscar nominations are being announced at about 1.30 this afternoon. As anyone who was unfortunate enough to read The Incredible Suit this time last year will know, this particular annual ritual fills me with unimaginable joy and barely containable excitement. There is nothing my heart desires more than watching normally sane people go bonkers over a bunch of overpaid, self-important but otherwise ordinary human beings slapping each other on the back with such force that their sense of humour falls off and they get all pissy when comedians make jokes about their ridiculous lives.

However, this year I am prepared to make an exception. I'm giving the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences a chance. If they agree to recognise, via the medium of nomination, Buried - as we are all painfully aware The Incredible Suit's best film of last year - then I'll show some enthusiasm. I'll display a frisson of excitement. I may even crack a smile.

It's not a ridiculous notion. I don't expect Buried to walk off with every award going on February 27th, but there's no reason why it shouldn't be nominated in any number of categories: Best Actor? Ryan Rodney Reynolds spent weeks in a box acting his little socks off and kept us entertained almost by himself for 94 sweaty, groin-clenchingly tense minutes. Best Director? Rodrigo Cortés' old-school filmmaking has justifiably been compared to Hitchcock (mostly by me). Best Screenplay? Chris Sparling's script drip-fed information at exactly the right pace and gave RyRod some zingers into the bargain. Best Original Score? Cinematography? Editing? Sound Mixing and Editing? Buried can lay claim to excellence in all these categories.

So come back later today and together we'll see just how many Oscars Buried has been nominated for, in The Incredible Suit's snappily-titled Buriedoscarnominationometer:

*** 2pm UPDATE! ***

Fancy that.

Hairy, Barking Beast

Well viewers, the results of The Incredible Suit’s inaugural poll are in! Try to contain yourselves, because this is, for some, more important than the Oscars, the BAFTAs and Crufts all rolled into one hideously gushing, terribly modest, hairy, barking beast.

Yes, following this post, which literally millions* of people read, I asked you to pick your favourite musical from the only five musicals that matter, i.e. my favourite musicals. It’s my blog, remember? Good.

And so I can announce that, in a staggering refusal to agree with me, you, the voting public, have chosen Singin’ In The Rain as The Greatest Musical, Like, Ever!

Upon receipt of the award, Singin’ In The Rain thanked all four of you who made up the record-breaking 57% winning vote, then it gave us a spectacular 20-minute dance routine that had nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of its speech.**

Come back soon for the results of The Incredible Suit’s poll to find The Greatest Film From The 1920s. So far The General is, quite rightly, in the lead, but literally anything* could happen between now and when the polls close. So get voting!

*not literally
**this sentence is approximately 86% more relevant to those familiar with the film. Everyone else should go and watch it now to get full value from this blog. Off you pop!