Hey Britlings!
Award season is finally over and The Toscars was a BIG hit. I want to give a big shout out to all our Brits in LA volunteers who helped out big-time on the night. Valeria, Kellyne, Wilson, Alicia, Claire and Craig without whom none of it would have ran so smoothly. And not forgetting Ewan, Eileen and Nadia, Nadia’s mum, Christine Peake and her son Oliver, 17 who came to be our glamorous Little Master Toscar. He did a great job assisting our very talented host, Jai Rodriguez. We also had a wonderful pre-reception party, sponsored by Hollywood Vodka.
The KMG Dancers opened the show with a jaw-dropping routine to Cinema Italiano from the movie Nine, a subtle reference to this being our 9th Annual Toscars. This got the crowd all warmed up for Jai’s opening monologue, who unlike Chris Rock’s speech was all inclusive, touching on every kind of religion, race, and gender imaginable, but in a very funny but respectful way. There was much laughter through the screening portion of the show. Except for when the last film began to roll, a parody of room. Some familiar faces appeared started to appear on the screen, those of the producers. We had kept it a secret from the other teams as what we thought would be a nice surprise. Unfortunately, a team had to drop out at the last minute, so with very little time we got together and created a very speedy low budget parody called SHROOM – Which you can check out at vimeo.com/155934122. I play a very unrecognisable 5 year old boy, or rather a 42 year old who thinks he’s five, coz he’s shrooming out of his mind! But I can tell you we all had masses of fun! To be fair though because we secured all the judges we decided to opt out of the competition. We put together over fifty members of the Whacademy who voted in the competition, giving most of the awards to Mad Mex: Churro Road (6) and The Short (Short) (4) awards. But it was a very tough year as the standard was really high. But seriously huge congrats to all the participants, nominees and winners. It was a wonderful show!
After the awards we all gathered for a FABULOUS dessert reception in the courtyard and spent some great time with some actual Oscar nominees. Benjamin Cleary and Shan Christopher Ogilvie, who presented the best director award at the Toscars took home the REAL Academy Award on Sunday night for Best Live Action short film for Stutterer. Just put it down to some good old fashioned Toscar magic! But seriously huge congrats to thise guys – they deserved it – not only are they great lads but the movie is really special too – check it out at www.stutterer.com. We’re hoping they’ll come back next year for our tenth ceremony next year and actually participate, but something tells me, they’re gonna be very busy bees.
Oscar nights are only as good as the parties you get to attend and I ended up getting a kind invite to Elton John’s Oscar viewing party in West Hollywood Park, produced by my very good friend Virginia. It was a hugely successful night, raising a record £6.2 millin for his AIDS Foundation. Congrats to Elton, David and the staff. It was a spectacular party and even better…Elton himself performed. I was lucky to snag a seat very close to the stage to record some of it which I live periscoped for some of his fans all around the world.
I saw a lot of Elt’ this week, courtesy of his spectacular secret pop-up concert the day before on the Sunset Strip. It took place in the parking lot of the old Tower Records at Noon and got my notification just a few hours before. There was something really magical to be standing on Sunset Boulevard, watching and listening to Elton on his piano with a full band singing hit after hit, under the lovely California sunshine. And to top it off Lady Gaga came on stage to duet with him on “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me.” It’s for moments like this that I’m truly grateful to be living in the country. In the words of every good president we’ve had: God Bless America.
Have a great couple of weeks all and look forward to seeing you at brekkie or the pub quiz in a couple of weeks hosted by our very own Sandro Monetti.
Cheers!
Craig Young
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