Helen Mirren

Oscar winner Helen Mirren is agast at rumors that she told the Queen of England that she was simply too busy to sit down for a chat with her royal-ness.

From The New York Post:

‘I AM mortified!” says Oscar winner Dame Helen Mirren about reports - in the New York Times and else where - stating that she was “too busy” to have dinner at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II.

Helen tells me she tried desperately to rearrange the shooting schedule for the movie “National Treasure,” but the company was in South Dakota filming on location. “I just could not shut all that down to take three days off to go to Buckingham Palace.”

Uh, did the monarch in the hat and matching purse not see the movie? Helen Mirren is the Queen. Duh.

So the votes have been counted, the little gold bald guys have gone home with the winners and the last of the drunk celebrities have been swept off the floor. Now comes the stuff we really care about…who looked good on the red carpet and who looked like they need to fire their stylist.

This year the fashions at the Academy Awards were all about being bold and taking risks. Some of it worked and some of it flopped. Here is my totally uninformed, uneducated, based soley on what made me go “wow” or “yech” Oscar fashion recap.

Fashion winners:

Helen Mirren not only won Best Actress, but she has to be up for Best Dressed as well. She looked gorgeous in a Christian Lacroix gown. Cate Blanchett was oh so sexy in a Swarovski crystal studded Armani dress that clung to her body like Brad Pitt when she got shot in Babel.

Penelope Cruz is sitting on my fashion fence. I loved the top of her Versace gown, but the bottom is questionable. Somehow it mostly works for her, but I’m advising her to avoid feathers in the future.

Nicole Kidman was stunning, as always, in a bright red Balenciaga halter gown with a big ol’ bow one one shoulder. I wasn’t sold on the bow, but then I saw her face and remembered why she can do no wrong. Gorgeous! Hopefully Tom Cruise was kicking himself just a little bit when she hit the stage.

Kate Winslet was channeling her inner Greek godess in a one shoulder Valentino. She may not have had a snowball’s chance in hell at winning this year, but girlfriend looked fabulous. The hair, make-up, jewlery…just perfect.

So those are my picks for style winners. These were the women who made me say, “wow, she’s so beautiful. Bitch.” Now go visit my post on the fashion losers. You know that’s what you really want to read.

And the winners are…no big surprise. Unless you made a philosophical decision to shun all things electronic yesterday, you probably know the Hollywood love fest otherwise known as the 79th Annual Academy Awards were last night. The orgy of celebrites celebrating themselves was fairly predictable.

The four acting awards went just as everyone predicted with the one exception of Alan Arkin taking the Best Supporting Actor Award and leaving Eddie Murphy looking like he had just been sucker punched (which he kinda was). Jennifer Hudson took home the bald guy for Dreamgirls…duh. And Helen Mirren and Forrest Whitaker finished up their clean sweep of the movie awards season for their royal roles in The Queen and The Last King of Scotland.

There were a few memorable moments in the mostly boring broadcast. Ellen DeGeneres was entertaining in her first date with Oscar and Martin Scorsese finally won for Best Director after being The Academy’s favorite bridesmaid for so many years.

And in one funny moment, former VP Al Gore, who made an appearnace with Leonardo DiCaprio to ask everyone to turn off their lights and drive hybrid cars, was cut off by music just as he “decided” to announce his run for president in ‘08…a joke that was a little too well received by the house full of liberals with checkbooks.