Oscars Watch Party

Everyone who loves the movies seems to have an Academy Awards ritual. From watching all the films nominated for Best Picture before the awards, to stopping time on Oscars Sunday afternoon to watch the red-carpet arrivals, to serving movie theater snacks in front of the TV, we’ve got our things. 

Lifelong friends Julia Humphreys, Laura Cox Harvey, Lisa Margraves, Rachel Hudgins, Catherine Randall, and Sarah Porter take it a step further. The women became friends in elementary school and at summer camp. For 37 years, they have gathered to watch the Academy Awards together. 

It started when they were all college students: Lisa, a student at LSU, was visiting the others at UT in Austin for Presidents’ Weekend, back when the Academy Awards were broadcast on a Monday (they transitioned to Sundays in 1999). “It was accidental,” Julia says. “Sarah, Catherine, and I lived together, and Lisa was still there on a Monday night, so we watched the show together. We had so much fun!” So much so that when they moved to Houston after graduation, Julia says, “We were like We’re doing this. We picked up La Madeleine, and then it was off,” Julia says. 

“When we started,” Laura says, “we were taking shots and having fun. There are definitely some fuzzy memories.”

They vote on what movies and actors they think will win awards. (Photo: Rachel Hudgins Photography)

Through marriages, careers, eight children, losses of parents and spouses, and empty nests, their Oscars gathering is still going strong. 

Julia explains: “At first, we always met in one of our homes. Now, maybe we’ll go to someone’s farm or beach house. But we’ve never rented anything or gone anywhere exotic.” These days, with three of the friends living in Houston, two in Austin, and one in New York, it takes a little more effort to get together. 

Still, they make it happen. “Maybe one person has missed once,” Julia says. “Or someone will come for one night because they have a new job or whatever, but it’s pretty tried and true. I’ve never missed.” When Covid precluded travel, the group had a NOscars weekend, watching the show from afar. And Laura remembers missing when her twin boys were babies in the NICU: “I couldn’t go, but I was on the phone with them!”

Rachel, a professional photographer who Julia says is notorious for not taking photos (“The weekend is really not documented,” she laughs.), travels the farthest, coming to Texas from New York. “Often there’s overlap with Rodeo season,” Julia says, “and Rachel likes to come for that, and her mom lives here, so that’s a good excuse. She gets the award for traveling.”

Instead of La Madeleine, the grownup version of the friends’ Oscars watch party includes a “giant” charcuterie board to be nibbled on alongside requisite Grapefruit Margaritas, made from an Ina Garten recipe. Of course, because the night is about movies, there’s lots of movie theater candy, specifically big boxes of Junior Mints, Nestle Buncha Crunch, Milk Duds, Skittles, Hot Tamales, and Whoppers.

“At some point,” Laura says, “things evolved to us cooking nice dinners and drinking good wine. We grew up.”

Julia says, “Now we’re like the Golden Girls and we sit around in our sweats and eat too much cheese.”

As for guests, there are none. “No spouses ever are invited, nor are children,” Julia says. “The game is locked. They are welcome any other weekend.”

Charcuterie and pink grapefruit margs are de rigeur. (Photo: Rachel Hudgins Photography)

She’s not kidding about “the game.” The group competes with one another to pick the winners. “It’s all for bragging rights,” Julia says. “There are no awards, you just know you are superior that year.

“We’ve made up categories of who you think is going to win versus who you want to win, because that’s often very different.” The final winner is determined by who picks the winner for Best Live Action Short Film and Best Film Editing. “These are the dark horses, the ones that are not obvious,” Julia laughs. “How do we know how to judge film editing?”

She adds, “We’ll just totally guess the winners. Somebody might like the color of an actor’s dress and say I’ll vote for them!”

Julia is the ballot-maker and the keeper of the travelling “Oscar box,” which includes shot glasses and a giant stand-up Oscar statue. “You know how cute she is,” Laura says. “She’s the coordinator of all that stuff.” Everyone has a monogrammed clipboard to which a ballot is attached. Before the show starts, they’ll determine their picks. In the early days, they would have watched some, if not all, of the Best Picture-nominated movies. “But there have been years when the only thing I saw was Finding Nemo,” Laura laughs. “Or maybe Toy Story 3,” Julia says.

“It’s really not about the show, because you know that can drag on and on,” Julia says. “It might be all about Jimmy Kimmel.”

Or it might be about the countless inside jokes the group has amassed over almost 40 years.  “We have things that somebody said 20 years ago that we still laugh about,” Laura says. “Nothing we should put in print.” She says the thriller Silence of the Lambs is, ironically, one of the movies that makes them laugh the most. “Lisa rented it from Blockbuster back when you had to rent movies, and she forgot to return it. So she wound up owning it and we would watch it all the time, and then it just started to make us laugh,” Laura says. “That’s the best part of getting together – the belly laughs. You just can’t beat it.”

An annual Oscars watch party brings friends Sarah Porter, Julia Humphreys, Catherine Randall, Lisa Margraves, Laura Harvey, and Rachel Hudgins together every year. (Photo: Rachel Hudgins Photography)

Even though the friends text regularly throughout the year, the Academy Awards is the one thing that pulls them all into the same room. “What makes it all so perfect is it’s not a holiday, but we make it one,” Julia says. “We make it work. It’s not about the movies, it’s about being together.

“These are safe friendships. They know where all the bodies are buried, and they love you anyway.”

The 98th Academy Awards will be broadcast on ABC Sunday, March 15, at 6 p.m., with Conan O’Brien hosting. The nominees for Best Picture are: Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, and Train Dreams. If you are interested in attempting to pick the “dark horses,” nominees for Best Live Action Short Film are: Butcher’s Stain, A Friend of Dorothy, Jane Austen’s Period Drama, The Singers, and Two People Exchanging Saliva. Nominees for Best Film Editing are: F1, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, and Sinners.  

To celebrate like Julia, Laura, Lisa, Rachel, Catherine, and Sarah, whip up a pitcher of pink grapefruit margaritas, grab your favorite movie theater candy, and settle in.

Ina Garten’s Pink Grapefruit Margaritas

1 lime, cut in wedges, optional
Kosher salt, optional
1 cup ruby red grapefruit juice
½ cup freshly squeezed lime juice (4 limes)
1 cup orange liqueur, such as Triple Sec
2 cups ice
1 cup white tequila

If you like a salt rim on the glasses, rub the lime around the edge of the glass and then dip the rim of each glass lightly in a plate of kosher salt. Set aside to dry. 

Combine the grapefruit juice, lime juice, orange liqueur, and ice in a blender and puree until smooth. Pour into a large pitcher and stir in the tequila. If you’re not serving the margaritas in salted glasses, stir ¼ teaspoon of salt into the pitcher of margaritas. Serve ice cold. Makes 4.