And the Oscar goes to… The 50 carefully curated guests from the Jamaican film and music industries, along with a bevy of fashionistas and foodies whom La Dame McDonald-Whyte deemed worthy. McDonald-Whyte, like quicksilver unbounded by Jamaican social conventions, traverses different worlds like the wind, and is interested only in talent, creativity, wit and style-wherever they are found. And then, like an alchemist, she mixes it all up, sits back and watches the colours of her canvas explode. “Stylish Cinephiles” was the invitation’s clarion call. To be honest, it was a Sunday and I was feeling lazy, but curiosity got the better of me so I pulled out the Spokes seersucker blazer and hightailed it to the festivities.

I spotted chef extraordinaire Colin Hylton, recently back from South Beach Food and Wine Festival; theatre royalty, OBE (Order of the British Empire) and BBC honoree Yvonne Brewster in from London; ex-wives’ club president and furniture doyenne Maureen Shaw; media maven-turned-financier Roland Henry; the erudite Sharon Leach mixing with film and music front-runners like Nicole ‘Sky’ Grey and Luke Flynn, Delano Forbes, Jay Will, Ras Kassa ; Lisa-Gaye Chin of Fromage (go for the bread pudding, steak au poivre and the bacon-wrapped shrimp!) also came out, as well as the exquisitely styled Tifanny Lee, manager at Lee’s Optical, and Best Dressed Foods Brand Promotions Officer Nikolette Williams. The ever-dapper F1RST director Dwight Scott, sporting a grey three-piece, was accompanied by the statuesque Urban Retreat Salon & Spa owner Julene Dixon. Industrialist and mega personality Danville Walker blessed the occasion with his classically genteel wife Sharon. The demure Toni Spence looked ravishing in red, accompanied by her high-wattage fashion-forward sister Jamie decked out in a black two-piece with asset-tight pants. The intermingling of different social circles in Jamaica is always a little uncomfortable at first, and then the energy is electric! Bravo!

Moët & Chandon lubricated the occasion and loosened the tongues. Mouthwatering savouries of lobster mac and cheese, Matthew McConaughey seafood gratin served in clam shells, crunchy, flavourful shrimp kebabs and tender beef morsels were passed throughout the evening. It was Sunday, May 2, 2014 and we were all seated in the Courtyard of The Regency Bar & Lounge of the Terra Nova All-Suite hotel, gorgeously styled by Moët & Chandon courtesy of Production Resource Services (PRS), to watch the 86th Academy Awards HD coverage on two 40-inch screens with external-enhanced sounds.

SO scribe Omar Tomlinson, sartorial in Spokes, handled the Oscars quiz. For my money, the fun but forgettable Gravity was awarded way too many statues. Although most were in very technical categories: Best Visual effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, etc. When it won Best Directing I nearly threw up my lobster mac and cheese. And then I was bracing myself for a Sandra Bullock Best Actress or Best Picture win! I was prepared to throw my Moët & Chandon at the screens. Thankfully, that did not happen and Lady Hussey did not have to have me forcibly removed and banned from the property. What would happen to me if Martin was no longer able to make my sunset mojitos – I would simply die!

The Best Picture nod for 12 Years A Slave seemed the right call. Solomon’s story about maintaining dignity in the face of the unbearable cruelty of slavery was a gut-wrenching film that you can only watch once. But it is largely so well- executed that once is enough. There were so many talented performances, including Alfre Woodard, Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, and Lupita Nyong’o. There was a loud scream in the courtyard when the Oscar winner was announced.

Matthew McConaughey’s Best Actor and Jared Leto’s Best Supporting Oscar wins were well-deserved but also entirely expected as straight guys playing gay guys are de rigueur of these times. Lots of pundits were vying for Chiwetel Ejiofor in 12 Years A Slave, but his acting rang a little false in parts, to me. There was not enough pathos in the performance. Besides, gay, AIDS, and drag are so in right now that nothing short of a scandal would have taken the awards away from Leto and McConaughey. The most mainstream heterosexual actors are apparently all actively seeking gay roles. Last year, in what had to be the most disturbing film I have seen in recent memory, Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Effron had Matt McConaughey playing a newspaper reporter, who, to satisfy a dark fetish, hired a gang of black men to sodomise him. Seeing this romcom heartthrob tied up spreadeagled is not a vision I will forget anytime soon. If the 70s were the age of Black Power, the oughties are surely the age of Gay Power. In 2014, in fashion and in film, gay is the new black.

Best Costume Design for Catherine Martin of The Great Gatsby was dead-on. That film reinvigorated an entire fashion era through Brooks Brothers, Ralph Lauren and other high- end retailers. I was delighted to see that uniquely American high style ricocheting around the world. Bring on the Panama hats and the pinstripe blazers!

Lupita Nyong’o’s win was the culmination of an Oscar campaign like no other for Best Supporting Actress. For what was essentially a relatively small but powerful part in the movie, 12 Years A Slave, Nyong’o’s Oscar was all but assured as the drum beat to her victory started many months ago. Herself refers to it as “genius handling”. It is a historic event as it is the first Oscar for the continent of Africa. We at The Regency Lounge succumbed to the moment and gave thunderous applause. Thankfully, at this stage in film history, a black person winning an Oscar does not seem so strange anymore. We have indeed overcome – at least, as far as the Academy of Motion Pictures is concerned.

To my mind, Cate Blanchett winning the Best Actress Oscar was the most deserved of the evening. Marred by the Woody Allen (did he-didn’t he? He did not!) scandal, I was concerned that Blanchett’s magnificent performance in Blue Jasmine would be overlooked. The story of a once-wealthy woman laid bare on the bone of her ass is a story that will ring true to our post-Olint/Cash Plus times in Jamaica. As the unpaid customer credit bills pile up around the Corporate Area, and beyond the trappings of wealth and presumption of position fall around us, we too, will see more sadness, madness and self-harm. Let us be gentle with each other in the descent. Minimise our whispers as there but for the grace of … Lean not on your own understanding but on art, film, friendship, God, yoga or the Buddha. All we have we will one day lose. Spiritual maturity comes with accepting that fact. Fittingly in her triumph, Cate Blanchett thanked her training at the Sydney Theatre Company where she got her acting chops. I have loved this woman since her performance as Elizabeth. If Meryl Streep had an heir (she does not), it would be Cate Blanchette whose versatility and range (almost) rivals her own.

The Wolf of Wall Street came away empty- handed. Tears for Marty and Leo! DiCaprio needs his props as one of the leading actors of his generation. He is so versatile and unique that we need to find a way to give him an award soon. When you think about Titanic, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Romeo and Juliet, The Great Gatsby and Shutter Island, just to name a few – these all show a male acting flexibility that is rare. It is a crime that far less capable actors like Cuba Gooding and Russell Crowe have had the honour and DiCaprio goes lacking.

Overall, it was an evening of foreigners – the Brits, Australians, Italians and Africans and all kinds of funny accents kept gracing the main stage. Hollywood, it seems, has finally become Globalwood.

Hands down the Best Dressed Awards would have to go to Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts. Theron in a black body-hugging Dior with her voluptuous breasts arrested midair as though carved from pieces of Carrera marble. Watts, in an all-white sequinned gown by Calvin Klein, came off as icy yet demure. She simply glowed. Lupita Nyong’o’s baby blue (now renamed Nairobi Blue) Cinderella flow from Prada was a more controversial choice. I thought she looked magnificent and stood out as distinct in the sea of more expected choices. Her deep-black soft skin sat comfortably in the oversized ocean of blue. Herself disagreed and thought that while it was indeed a nice dress, it was not the right fit for her. It needed to be tighter and more form-fitting.

For the men, I was admiring the ageless Tyson Beckford in his classic black tux. Jared Leto’s Saint Laurent white evening jacket with the bright red bow tie, though, and his long mane made him the male standout for the evening. A shout-out to Pharrell with the black tux top-black shorts mash up! I loved his irreverent style. Although his irreverence was probably what cost Happy the Oscar win for best song – too uppity a Negro, trying to dance his way past the conventions. Well, let’s show him. Still, for me, he was a winner.

There was a collective gasp when we all saw the once-mesmerising Kim Novak walk up to the microphone next to Matthew McConaughey for the animated shorts awards. She looked like the bride of Frankenstein. Vertigo is quite simply the best film ever made. It is a film that works on many levels, from the terrific story line to unresolved layers of meaning about appearance, manufactured personality and identity. It is one of the few films that reward multiple viewings. I have seen this movie over 100 times and I know every crevice and curvature of Kim Novak’s stunning face and alluring eyes which manipulated ordinary ‘golly gee’ Jimmy Stewart into madness and mayhem. I cry for a world that would make an actress of that stature feel that she had to mangle her visage so grotesquely to try to appear younger. What have we come to? I am so grateful that the other beauty from that era, Elizabeth Taylor, did not feel the need to reconstruct her face and just got fat and fab clutching the Krupp diamond until she passed away after her umpteenth husband and hip replacement.

The award for creepy-looking male would have to go to face puffed up with a toupee, John Travolta. When I think back to the sex god who simmered on screen, shaking his booty to the Bee Gees, why has he not been allowed to age gracefully? Didn’t we already get enough collective jollies from his performances in Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction? Why need he deliver more, and so badly? Yeesh, the audiences are so vampiric, sucking blood until the actor is left a carcass! Hollywood must find a safe social space for those who were formerly fit and fab to live on with dignity as Nature takes her terrible toll on all of us.

Okay, so although I hate the way she dresses – could we please get a little more lesbian chic and a little less butch dyke? – I have to concede that Ellen DeGeneres did very well as this year’s host. She kept the pace brisk and the evening goofy and light. Still, I hope they will continue to mix it up so that no one gets too stale. Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg remain my perennial favourites as alternates. See y’all at the movies!