2020 Oscars Open Post: Hosted by Brad Pitt’s mystery speechwriter

Alia Shawkat at the 'Apocalypse Now' reunion in Hollywood

Here is our 2020 Oscars Open Post, hosted by Alia Shawkat aka Brad Pitt’s Mysterious Unknown Speechwriter. People didn’t pull Alia’s name out of thin air – Brad and Alia were hanging out together a few times last year, and we were told that they were “friends” or something. Perhaps she was researching his “voice” to better write his awards-season speeches. We do know with relative certainty that Brad isn’t writing his own dang speeches, and Alia is as good a guess as anybody. There’s actually a genuine hope that Brad Pitt gives a shout-out to his speechwriter tonight, when he wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Anyway, I have no idea what to expect from this year’s Oscars other than… expect the expected. All four acting categories are almost certainly locks, and the biggest dramas will likely be Best Director and Best Picture. Will Parasite and Bong Joon-ho pull through? Will Academy voters go for a war movie like 1917? Or will they reward a love letter to 1960s Hollywood? We’ll see.

CB and I will be tweeting throughout the red carpet and awards show, and you can follow us here @Celebitchy and here @KaiseratCB. We’ll have full fashion coverage from the Oscars tomorrow, along with an Oscar recap and probably whatever other Oscar dramas come up. Come and join us bright and early!

26th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards - Media Center

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red and Backgrid.

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87 Responses to “2020 Oscars Open Post: Hosted by Brad Pitt’s mystery speechwriter”

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  1. JustMe says:

    Let’s see if Brad shows up with Jen and breaks the internet

    • fos says:

      Who gives a shit about those two at this point?

      • Jane says:

        me me me!

      • fos says:

        Hahhaha, OK then.

        Maybe they’ll even start trying on a baby or something.

      • Ah-ha says:

        His team did a Page Six thing the other day about how he’s only seen Jen as a friend a few times since she broke up with The Jiggling Eyebrow. He is just not that into her but they were so cute together. I do believe he came up with most of the materials in his recent speeches. His emails revealed during the Sony hack showed he’s very articulate on paper as opposed to spontaneous speech, unless an assistant wrote them, which I don’t believe as he seems to take himself fairly seriously as an intellectual.

      • Carmen says:

        He may take himself seriously as an intellectual but nobody else does.

  2. Silver Charm says:

    TBH I’m more looking forward to Joaquin Phoenix’s speech than whatever dad jokes coming falling out of Brad’s pie hole. Even if it was a mess at the beginning of award season, Joaquin has something to say.

    • kerwood says:

      I have a feeling that the second Joaquin Phoenix uses the word ‘racism’ or ‘diversity’, the band will start playing. LOUDLY.

  3. Snazzy says:

    Mindy looks fantastic in that yellow dress

  4. Justwastingtime says:

    When did Antonio Bandaras start dating Melania Trump?

  5. Kebbie says:

    Laura’s dress is breaking my heart. Why? I love her so much though and I’m happy she’s seeing so much success lately!

  6. Kebbie says:

    Janelle Monae’s dress and makeup is incredible. Just perfection across the board.

  7. JustMe says:

    Why da FAWK is Blac Chyna there??

    • LuLu says:

      Exactly what I was wondering. WTH?

    • Reece says:

      I third this. Da Fook?

    • Beatles says:

      So, no one’s going to believe me being a random person on here but I have 2 journalist colleagues who worked the red carpet, she apparently crashed it. It’s the crazy Obama-era Salahi couple White House state dinner crashing all over again.

      They’re trying to figure out exactly who all was involved and if she had help on the scene. But from what was visibly witnessed, she somehow got on-property (through the hotel, the parking garage underneath, or retail complex all attached maybe) then sneaked onto the carpet in the early moments of the opening of the carpet when the event managers were busy coordinating the actual stars estimated times of arrivals. (The gatekeeping people are mostly functionaries and apparently got her confused with something else or where so assured by her confidence they assumed she was invited, invitations themselves weren’t checked for talent until inside the Dolby because there’s 3 levels of floors in the lobby in there actually and it’s more space to do so, it backs up the carpet too much otherwise.) Photographers had already begun pouncing on her before officials knew what had happened, so the cat was already out of the bag, and the organizers on scene decided the least embarrassing course of action for them was to let her through then shuffle her off quietly.

      It’ll be interesting to see if they acknowledge she actually crashed it or if they try to save face and say nothing or act like she was on the carpet for some other reason. They’re still very humiliated by the screw-up with the best picture winner a few years ago, and some nobody pranksters broke into the show itself a few years back too- 2016 IIRC and actually got charged for it. They know this kind of stuff doesn’t look good for them. It’s amateurish.

  8. Soupie says:

    Don’t hate anything yet except Billie Eilish’s Gucci. Janelle Monae… perfection. I like Sandra Oh’s dress but it’s over the top for someone who is not nominated… or is she? I like the bodice drape on Laura Dern’s dress but I’m not wild about the skirt or the color.

  9. Guest2.0 says:

    Billy Porter’s outfit!! Omg…

  10. JustMe says:

    Rebel Wilson looks amazing

  11. Justwastingtime says:

    Selma Hayek’s jewelry is tragic… all that money and she wears that?

  12. Rapunzel says:

    Billy Porter!! My God, he’s fabulousness personified.

  13. Kebbie says:

    Natalie Portman’s cape is incredible.

  14. Heylee says:

    I’m watching because I’m really hoping the Sussexes present something!! Weird what excites me these days…

  15. Soupie says:

    OK this is ridiculous. Blac Chyna at the OSCARS. In ho trash? Whatever. Why am I not surprised?

  16. TIFFANY says:

    If Parasite loses best picture, something something the Oscars are a joke, something something Joaquin Phoenix was right about white people something something.

  17. Soupie says:

    What the hell is that monstrosity Charlize Theron is wearing? Same with Saoirse Ronan.

    • Sidewithkids says:

      Lol. Thank you. Some are saying Charlize Theron looks good and I’m like nope, that outfit is bad plus I don’t know what it is but she looks off to me. Saoirse Ronan never knows what to wear it seems.

      • Soupie says:

        I will say that when Seacrest interviewed her right before show time, the dress looked much better. From the waist up since they didn’t show the whole dress. On the red carpet it looked ridiculous, like it couldn’t decide what it actually was trying to convey.

  18. Olenna says:

    Regina King for the win!

  19. JoJo says:

    I hope Al Pacino wins, he deserves to have more than 1 Oscar (1993 Scent of a Woman) for his career.The Oscars usually has one upset.

  20. Bettyrose says:

    Better Call Saul S4 finally dropped on Netflix today. But Oscars, sure. I love 90s nostalgia. That year Titanic & Goodwill Hunting, packed with little known actors, competed for artistic genius vs big budget brilliance? Meanwhile tv was crap? I wore a fancy dress to an elegant party that year. This year? Binging. Thx tho.

    • Kebbie says:

      Total opposite for me. I couldn’t figure out why Netflix kept pushing Better Call Saul on me when I was trying to watch Marriage Story, the last nominated movie I hadn’t seen yet. I can binge Better Call Saul whenever. The glamour of the Oscars? Love it. Always. I’ve been gobbling up the red carpet coverage all night and now the actual Oscars.

  21. kerwood says:

    See what happens when you add a few women, Black and queer folks!!!!

  22. JustMe says:

    Well Brad finally remembered he had kids and got his Oscar…can he go away now

    • Soupie says:

      I don’t know, I kinda teared up… and I’ve been very critical of Brad these past few years. It sounded genuine to me. Nobody’s ALL bad.

    • Ah-ha says:

      Good, genuine speech. And he’s dared to get political. DM commenters won’t like him anymore…

      • Sidewithkids says:

        Lol. He didn’t write it. So it’s prob not that genuine. I too hope he goes away but most importantly leave Angie alone.

  23. Valiantly Varnished says:

    Brad got his Oscar y’all so here’s hoping he will now f-ck off.

  24. Kebbie says:

    Hair love won!! So happy!

  25. Guest2.0 says:

    Keanu Reeves and Diane Keaton. They were great together in Something’s Got to Give and I still don’t get in what universe would someone choose Jack Nicholson over Keanu Reeves.

  26. Jojo says:

    Sandra Oh cheering for Bong Joon Ho is a mood

  27. Heylee says:

    Why tho Shia?

  28. Valiantly Varnished says:

    Janelle Monae roasting the Oscars AT the Oscars is a beautiful thing.

  29. Other Renee says:

    Rebel Wilson and Mindy Kaling for the win. Never thought I’d utter those words but they both look totally lovely. NOTE: Other ladies (Black Chyna et al), you do not need to show off your tatas or your nethers to be attractive. In fact, that just makes you look skanky.

  30. Tai says:

    Who was the woman who just sang? What movie was it from? As admitted in the Brad Pitt post, I only saw 2 movies last year but they were goodies: OUATIH and JoJo Rabbit.

  31. Ah-ha says:

    I liked Steve Martin and Chris Rock’s moment.

  32. Sayrah says:

    What’s the significance of Eminem doing this song? It’s 15 years old

    • FHMom says:

      I’m wondering also.

    • Lipreng says:

      Yeah, that was so odd.

    • Sayrah says:

      Just found out he never showed up in 2003 to perform the song and therefore didn’t accept his best song Oscar. He tweeted something about getting another shot to do something and said sorry it took him 18 years to get there.

    • ME says:

      Hey Eminem is notorious for never leaving his house ! It must have been a big deal to him to want to fly to LA to perform at the Oscars. He also has a new album out so the pr is good for him.

  33. Ellen Olenska says:

    Okay, just going to throw this out there on the Lin Manuel Miranda segment. ( and I LOVE Lin) While I realize that popular music being really a driver in movies became a big thing in the very late seventies/ early eighties I was just reminded of a wonderful scene in the finale of The Newsroom where the Dev Patel character comes back and rips the team that has been running the website in his absence who had just posted a list of “ best movies of all time” with none of the movies being older than the late eighties.

    With the exception of deliverance, the graduate and rocky, this just suffers from the same problem. Easy Rider. The Summer Place. Friends/Paul and Michelle, the Elvis Movies…White Nights which was one of the earliest movies to veer into music video style storytelling (and yes that was the 80’s). There are likely a ton I’m not remembering. I just thought it was odd…

  34. Carmen says:

    The only dress I liked was Renee Zellweger’s. She always brings it.

  35. Lolamd says:

    Upset!!! Parasite director won! Woo hoo.

    • Trillion says:

      I was shocked it didn’t go to QT! Parasite is such an amazing, unique movie. I am really happy it’s being rewarded tonight.

  36. Trillion says:

    Kelly Marie Tran has gotten so much more screen time during the Oscars than she did in Rise of Skywalker.

  37. Trillion says:

    shocked at Parasite’s sweep! In a good way!

    • Lipreng says:

      Very happy for them! Loved that Bong Joon Ho let other people make the speech for best film. He seems delightful.

  38. Trillion says:

    Jane Fonda looks amazing. Al Pacino looks like he just rolled out of bed.

  39. jade says:

    Variety said, Brad said Fincher helped him with his speeches.
    I dont think Alia is that funny. But its possible because they have been watching stand up comedians, so maybe he befriended some of them and helped him.

    • jade says:

      Those “funny friends” include to comedians like Jim Jefferies and Bob Oschack, and perhaps most surprisingly, his “Fight Club” director David Fincher, to help him write his comedy.
      “My man Fincher, we trade barbs every week,” Pitt said.

  40. Zantasia says:

    Is there anything else that makes you think she Maeby his speech writer?

    I couldn’t help myself. Loved her in Arrested Development and in Transparent.