Hooray for Philly-wood! It's time to celebrate the Oscars, Philadelphia-style. Choose your red carpet and be glam as cinema's premier awards showcase arrives this weekend.
Though the TV show will begin at 8 p.m. Sunday on 6ABC, there are live celebrations starting tonight and events planned through late Sunday. If you'd like to do it all at home with friends, you can also offer a red-carpet, tearful-speech spectacular.
Here are some options for local Oscar celebrations:
Homegrown highlights
The Haverford Township Free Library will have an Oscar Night from 6 to 10 tonight, with its own red carpet and potluck feed.
Assistant library director Christine Faris and librarian Cameron Dahl will introduce clips from several of the best-picture nominees, as well as clips from other films that have major award nominations.
"It's to get people in the mood, to let them walk down a red carpet, to know a little bit more about the awards before they watch Sunday night," Faris said. Although the event is free, Faris asks that everyone who wants to be on the Haverford Township Library red carpet bring an hors d'oeuvre. She will provide the sparkling cider during the event at the library, 1601 Darby Rd.
And since there will be a red carpet, Faris also hopes those who come will bring what she called "Oscar glamour" to the event by dressing up at least a little.
"It's Oscar, after all, and no one wants to look bad on the red carpet," she said.
Don't Miss These Best Pictures
AMC Theaters is offering a schedule of best-picture nominees on Saturday. Five films were shown last week, but you still can see the other nominees for one price, $30, at the Cherry Hill 24 (2121 Rte. 38, Cherry Hill), Neshaminy 24 (3900 Rockhill Dr., Bensalem) and farther north, the Hamilton 24 (325 Sloan Ave. Hamilton, N.J.).
10:30 a.m.: An Education
12:45 p.m.: The Hurt Locker
3:15 p.m.: Up in the Air
6 p.m.: The Blind Side
8:30 p.m.: Inglourious Basterds
Information: http://www.amcentertainment.com/bpsEndText
The official fest
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has one official party in each of 50 cities - Oscar Night America Gala 2010. The Philadelphia bash will be 6 p.m. Sunday until 1 a.m. Monday at the Loews Hotel, 12th and Market Streets.
The black-tie-optional event will benefit homeless families and veterans through Volunteers of America Delaware Valley. There will be dinner, an open bar, and live entertainment. Everyone will enter on a red carpet and have the opportunity to be "interviewed" by a Joan Rivers look-alike. The entertainment, too, will be "impersonated" by Prince, Liza Minnelli, Tina Turner, and Cher.
There in reality will be WIP-AM host Glen Macnow, who will be available to sign the book he cowrote with former Daily News columnist Ray Didinger, The Ultimate Book of Sports Movies. (The top movie on the Macnow/Didinger list is, of course, Philadelphia's Oscar-winner, Rocky.)
Volunteers of America will be giving a humanitarian award to Peter Samuelson, who has produced movies like Revenge of the Nerds and Arlington Road, but is being honored here for founding such organizations as the Starlight Children's Foundation and the Starbright Foundation, which aid seriously ill children.
And at 8, since the event is also cosponsored by 6ABC, attention will turn to the Oscar telecast.
The alternative
The theme will be the same, but the entertainment may well be a little wilder at the Traverse Arts Project's Second Annual Red Carpet Party, from 5 p.m. to midnight Sunday at the Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel, 17th and Locust Streets.
"We're looking for a good crowd, a fun crowd," said event organizer T. Desiree Hines, founder and executive director of the Philadelphia GLBT Arts Festival, to which the proceeds of the Red Carpet Party will be donated.
In addition to a buffet and an open vodka/wine/beer bar, guests will get a red carpet photo with Michelle Dupree (also known as Scott Cooper), the recently crowned Miss'd America in the GLBT pageant that has substituted for the departed Miss America contest in Atlantic City. Pageant director Robert "Sandy Beach" Hitchen will emcee the event, and there will be a big-screen viewing of the televised Oscars, with commentary from Matthew Ray and Tom Cardwell, of the Philadelphia Cinema Alliance.
Do it yourself
Jill Santopietro, food editor of the Web site Chow.com, said the expansion of the best-picture Oscar nominees from five to 10 has made her usual Oscar-viewing party a bit more complicated. She's always liked the idea of themed food, based on the nominees.
"The best party I ever went to was about 10 years ago, when we had wontons for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and chocolate fondue for Chocolat and chicken drumsticks to rip apart for Gladiator," she said. Five dishes were just enough.
But 10 seems a bit too much, so she suggests folks who party at home go a different way - offering maybe 10 different cocktails.
"I'd look at a Pisco Sour for Up," since Pisco is big in Peru and the old man in Up wants to go to South America," she said as a for-instance. Since the University of Tennessee plays a part in The Blind Side, she said, maybe a Tennessee Tea - or at least something with Jack Daniel's in it. "Avatar might be trouble," she said, "but someone in a group can be creative."
Having a Sunday-night party, while it may seem unusual, is actually a boon, she said.
"Normally, if you have a Saturday-night party, you come home Friday exhausted from work and then immediately have to go out Saturday morning to buy stuff, then cook it. You are never relaxed, and a good host should always start out relaxed," she said. The Sunday-night Oscars gives the host a chance to precook some things and freeze them on Saturday, so there's no rush on Sunday.
Placing the food, the TV, and the seating is important, Santopietro said. There should be three layers of seating - pillows on the floor in front of the screen, then low chairs or sofas right behind, followed in the back with high bar stools. (There is an instructional video for this at the chow.com site: http://www.chow.com/stories/11518)
Food and drink, she said, should never be near the screen, so no one has to walk in anyone's sight line.
"In fact, you should have food in another adjacent room," she said, suggesting a kitchen hors d'oeuvres setup. "Not everyone wants to watch everything. There should always be a place to have a chat and not bother the people who are hot on seeing every last moment."