The Oscars! (Melissa Leo Day.)

So, Melissa Leo Day (otherwise known as the Oscars) happened last night! Let's get right to the fashion.

Melissa Leo did not win. This was not a surprise (it was Winslet's year and everyone knew it), but by the time it happened I felt like it was for the best, because as awesome as I think Melissa Leo is, I did not necessarily want to see her dress again.





The color suits you (-ish), I support the covering o' the shoulders, and I like the full-but-not-crinoline skirt - but did you look at this dress before you left the house? It's four sizes too big in the middle! Also, it's from 1986, but if you didn't notice the sizing I figure it's pointless to explain eras of fashion, since judging from this picture from the Independent Spirit Awards, you seem to be fashion-era-impaired:



By the way, who told you to blow out your hair? Because that person is your enemy.

The good news is, your jewelry rocks my socks:



"Yes, hi, I'd like something to set off my hair - green glass? Lovely, I'll take it. And maybe a matching neckla - IS THAT A SPIDER? GIVE IT TO ME."

The jewelry singlehandedly takes you over to Awesome.

There was actually a lot of Awesome on the red carpet last night, one way or another!

Marisa Tomei found a stunner. It has approximately 543,292 pleats, and looks amazing. I did spend most of Mickey Rourke's cutaways trying to figure out how she sat down, but that's my issue, not hers.




I did not love the cut of Freida Pinto's dress - I loved the color, LOVED the embroidery, but something about the proportions of the neckline vs. that one sleeve is just weird. Also, on a several-thousand-dollar dress, I would like my sheer sleeve to have the seam under the arm and not right along the top, okay, dress people? That's just sloppy.

The good news: I'm pretty sure she wins the This is How to do Subtle Fancy Makeup Award:



(That dress costs thousands of dollars! FIX THE SEAM.)



Sophia Loren wakes up every morning and thinks, "I am going to be FABULOUS today." Or, she wakes up and thinks, "Today I wish to look as though I am in the midst of being consumed alive by an enormous chiffon cephalopod!" Both of these things apply here.




Tilda Swinton is just better than you, all right? We all know it. It's okay.




Tina Fey, who (with Steve Martin) delivered the only three watchable minutes of the show, picked the perfect dress for her, in that she is clearly wearing it like it's a tee shirt, which is how you sell formalwear. Ask any underage hostage in the Bryant Park tents, they'll tell you the same thing.





Marion Cotillard, who won last year in a dress so fitted you could see her lungs and got hugged by eight million people, decided this year she was going to go as Odile the Evil Swan, because when your dress is ten feet in diameter no gross people can try to hug you. I approve.




Rachel Weisz also stopped by, for one of the afterparties, to remind you that she is the best choice for Catwoman in the third Batman movie, and by "you" I mean Christopher Nolan.




However, the best dress of the night hardly got photographed, and I had to turn to Getty's dutiful backstage pictures to get any evidence of it. Megan Mylan, who won for short-form documentary, showed up in one of the most beautiful dresses I've ever seen, and by far the best dress that walked the carpet last night:



It's got a boatneck front, and the straps turn into two teardrop cowls, lined in cream, that meet in a V at the back, with a small train.

Another angle, that shows the drape of the cowls:



If you have noticed a correlation between this dress and my ideal prom dress, give yourself a cookie.

However, as lovely as it is, it's still second-best. No dress has ever come close to deposing what I consider the Best Oscar Dress of All Time:



I am serious. This dress is a feat of engineering, it's memorable, and it perfectly encapsulates the personality of the person who wore it. It's not a dress with a Bjork in it: it's Bjork in a dress. Also, it's shaped like a giant swan. Best Oscar dress ever. I'll throw down about it.