JenniferGarnerCouldTotallyBeMyBFF Archives

Dear Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,

You are the Academy Awards. Start acting like them. You set the bar for awards. Clearly not, however, for award shows.

You do not get a bigger fan of movies or Hollywood than me. I live for this stuff. I was so into the Oscars that for years, my mother and I would check into a hotel for the night so that we did not miss a single moment. My children are now fully involved in all the red carpet coverage and love nothing more than to critique all the best dresses. So, what I am trying to say here is that I am not an average viewer.

Guess what, Academy? You are losing me. And if you are losing me, then I assure you that you are losing millions of “regular” people, too.

Here is the thing. Starting your show at 8:30 p.m. EST and then having it run for over 3 hours and 26 minutes is ridiculous. I don’t even enjoy doing things I actually like for that length of time. So, you have a choice to make…start earlier or start cutting.

The biggest night of her life, and were you even awake to see her win?

You film people love nothing more than to talk about editing and stuff on the cutting room floor, so get to it. Average people not only do not care about more than half the categories you insist on presenting on Oscar night, we don’t even have the opportunity to actually see that stuff. Best Documentary Short Subject? Excuse me while I comb through my very large stack of mail, but I don’t believe I received that Academy mailer DVD of those selections in my mailbox this year. Besides the fact that categories like that cause us all to lose in our Oscar pools, it also drags the show out even longer.

Best Sound Mixing (not to be confused with Best Sound Editing, an entirely different category)…really? This is 2013…I think we have managed to master “the talkie”, okay. You know when you give that award? On your Scientific and Technical Award night. Because last time I checked, sound mixing is fairly technical. You continue to do exactly what you already do, which is to have a single Hollywood famous person come on stage and recap that event. Boom. I just shaved a good hour and a half off your telecast. You’re welcome.

Also, you don’t need a separate theme for Oscar night. You know what the theme is: the movies from the past year. Or just movies in general if you want to go with that. Want to highlight movie musicals? No problem. Nothing highlights movies better than a movie montage. Start with a clip of The King and I and finish with a clip from Dreamgirls and then when you get to the big moment, boom open the curtain with Jennifer Hudson belting out the sweeping notes from “And I’m Telling You” and guess what you will have…a water cooler moment. The kind that brings the audience to its feet in the theater and at home. The kind of moment that you had with Barbra Streisand last night that sent Twitter into a tail spin. Hashtag that Hollywood.

Either go big or go home is my advice. Honoring the 50th anniversary of the Bond films?Great. Get all the living Bond men and Bond girls on stage and pull back the curtain after playing a clip montage of all the best Bond film scenes. Standing ovation right then and there. Done.

Can you tell I am a fan of the movie clip montage yet? Well, I am. And so is everyone else. Quite frankly, if we could all live our lives in montage moments complete with soundtrack we totally would. And when I am watching *the* award show for films, I want to see lots of them. If I want to watch live musical performances I will turn on The Grammys or The Tonys.

Also, let’s talk hosting. The host of any event (as Tina Fey and Amy Poehler proved so effortessly on The Golden Globes) is supposed to be the person who moves the show along after a big opening number. And by big, I do not mean twenty minutes. It was practically nine o’clock and not a single award had been given out. Move it along host. This is not about you. It is about the movies. Period.

We don’t need the latest comedian as the host. Let’s class up this joint. Get someone who can do that. Pick someone who appreciates the industry and let them run with it.

Might I suggest George Clooney. Or Meryl Streep. Or Denzel Washington. Someone who can command the stage without stealing all the attention for themselves.

You are the Academy Awards, for God’s sake. You are supposed to be the grownups in the room. You know when a grown up tries to use teen slang and it’s unfunny and awkward? Well, that is how it is when we at home are watching this spectacle. Play to your strengths.

Make all of us at home glad we made watching your show a priority. Don’t make us sorry that you are not a tenth as good as The Golden Globes.

Let them go for the gold. They are really good at it.

You *be* the gold standard.

Sincerely,

Ashley, a Very Unimpressed Oscar Viewer

All the experts say you should never label your children. You know how once you give them a label then it will stick with them forever?

What about labeling your children’s stuff? Like their back-to-school belongings. Their new, adorable Rapunzel backpacks or their slightly used, but still in good shape, passed down from their big sister winter coats, or their totally awesome, mom, you are the greatest peace sign lunchboxes. I am thinking labeling all of those items has to be not only okay, but actually downright smart.

In fact, labeling my children’s, especially my older child’s, items is simply just being practical. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Emma recently attended camp for a week at our local YMCA. At the end of the week, she was given the award for being the most honest camper of the week, and the award just happened to be a tiny, green bead. She was thrilled and so proud of herself, clutching her green bead in her hand as we rode home waiting to show her daddy, until I heard from the back seat, “OH NO!” Yes, you guessed it, she dropped the bead. In the car. It managed to fall right down under her seat never to be seen again. Quite obviously there was a reason she was not given the award for the most responsible camper of the week.

So, needless to say, when Mabel’s Labels offered me a chance to review their Ultimate Back-to-School Combo Pack I jumped at the chance! Clearly, I am their ideal customer…or really my children are!

Mabel’s Labels promise to be dishwasher safe, microwave safe, UV resistant and have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Not that the satisfaction guarantee wasn’t enough to sell me, but some celebrity moms who use these labels include Jennifer Garner and Reese Witherspoon, and we all know that they are totally my ~~imaginary~~ Hollywood BFF’s!

My previous experience with labeling comes from having my father label just about everything in our home with his label maker, including the bottom of my laptop when I went off to college, which certainly did not earn me any teasing at all from my new roommates. This left me a little gun-shy when it came to my own household, so I typically found myself with a Sharpie in hand right around the five minutes before anyone was walking about the door furiously scribbling names on cups, jackets, bags, etc. Having a box show up at my door with a box of adorable, pre-printed labels with my children’s names on them was like some sort of gift from the label fairy.

Obviously, the label is going to work a lot better than the Sharpie.

My Pros:

The ones for clothing do not, I repeat, do not have to be ironed on. For me personally, this is huge, as I am not quite sure where my iron even is most days, much less whether or not it still works!
They came with a very simple instruction sheet on the back cover telling me exactly which labels could be used for certain items. As a label rookie, this was quite helpful to me.
The design is adorable. Brightly colored and unique patterns, along with the fact that they are personalized with my children’s names on them, these will be easy for the girls to remember when they make that inevitable trip to the lost and found.
I absolutely love the box they came in, because it is not too big and will be very easy to store the extra labels in throughout the year.

My Cons:

I think there is a possibility that the labels for the clothes could become unstuck over time, just simply from the girls taking their coats on and off so much. However, I will say that because there are multiple labels provided, I should easily be able to replace them if that happens…as long as the girls remember to tell me if the labels fall off!

WOULD I PAY MONEY FOR THIS? Yes, I would. As you can see from the lunchbox picture above, my Sharpie method is not working for me. I think that having a large quantity of cute and useful individualized labels in varying sizes that can serve a multitude of purposes is certainly worth my money.

Not to sound too much like an infomercial now, but if you want your own Mabel Label’s Back-to-School Combo Pack or any of their other Back-to-School products, they are having an Early Bird Special until July 31st, so act fast readers!

Mabel’s Labels provided me with a product to try for this review, but all of the opinions , photos and references to celebrity best friends used are my own.