Sun. Feb. 24

    Oscar, Oscar, Oscar. The alternative Super Bowl, the post-Super Bowl, gather-round-the-telly event that lifts us out of the February doldrums and transports us to the glamour of Hollywood. Or the night-long event where we keep hoping for slip-ups and faux pas. This year, we've got Seth MacFarlane ("Family Guy," "Ted," etc.) doing the song-and-dance snarky-but-suckup host shtick. Now, suppose you want to watch the big show Sunday Feb. 24 not in the confines of your living room/home theater,  but with other cineastes at a swanky spot high atop Boston, the State Room, with food catered by some of Boston's best restaurants. This is what the Ellie Fund has done for 17 years now: An Oscar Gala that raises money for the Ellie's breast-cancer fight. But you wonder: Is this Academy Awards celebration officially sanctioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences? Yes, it is! And has been for 11 years. (The Ellie Fund is helmed by Eliot and Jeff Popkin - of Boston Event Guide - whose mother died from breast cancer in 1987.)
  One time Massachusetts resident and frequent Boston-area movie-maker Ben Affleck is in the hunt for making "Argo," not directing it mind you, but as producing a Best Picture contender. We don't have too many dogs in this hunt, at least parochially speaking this year. But, hey if we're half as psyched as Entertainment Weekly and "ExtraA" are, we should be having a good time. Other points of interest include: Will Daniel Day-Lewis' potrayal of Honest Abe be tops, as expected? Will an oft-nekkid Helen Hunt secure Best Supporting Actress? Will MacFarlane make any anti-sex appeall jokes aboutr her as he's done on "Family Guy"? Will voters overlook the not-quite-truthiness of Kathryn Bigelow's grim, but rivetting "Zero Dark Thirty"? (At the screening we saw, no one cheered when bin Laden was killed and it's to Bigelow's skill they she makes this not a celebration of American might, but the result of a hunt well pursued.)

     But all this can be background or foreground for you at Ellie. There will be areas where you can watch the Oscars attentively and other places where you can eat, drink and make merry as the Hollywood festivities happen on screen. What you want to do is dress up, eat well. It's hosted by www.BostonChefs.com and that will mean food from Artisan Bistro, Blue, Brassereie 28, Island Creek Oysters, and L'Espalier, among other restaurants that will have catering stations. Booze: Absolut, Avion Tequila and Jameson's will be poured liberally at the open par, allowing you to wickedly indulge yourself. Making you feel better about your indulgence because you know the bucks (300 of them) are going to a good cause. (Punch in the code ELLIE when you register below and save $50.)
  WCVB's Susan Wornick, Kelley Tuthill, Dorothy Kyrsiuk and JC Monahan will be emceeing. The event starts at 6:30 and goes through the Best Picture finale.
 

60 State St. www.elliefund.org