First Oscar Thoughts

So... what a night. It was actually a good show. Too many inbetween bits (Leo and Al should be ashamed, but more about that later) and whatnot, but overall I was impressed. Again, it probably goes more to the fact that there weren't any wins that I disliked (although Santaolalla's win was dubious indeed and Emmanuel Lubezki's loss was disappointing). Ellen was great I though. Sure, she was a bit "safe" but I'd rather safe than mean spirited (Chris Rock) or Comedically-challenged (John Stewart for the most part). She was funny. I hope they ask her back next year. I mean, the crowd liked her and, well, the three others I watched it with seemed to like her. LOL. We totally should be the berometre of Oscar hosts. That vacuuming bit killed me.

In terms of my predictions I did alright. I got the entire Big Eight correct - that would be Picture (The Departed), Director (Scorsese), Actor (Whitaker), Actress (Mirren), Supporting Actor (Arkin - I knew this would happen for sure), Supporting Actress (Hudson), Original Screenplay (Little Miss Sunshine) and Adapted Screenplay (The Departed). Sure, they were all pretty easy predictions outside of Arkin and maybe Original Screenplay, but really. Whatever.

I'll go through them all tomorrow, but out of the rest of them I didn pretty shit, actually. Song, Score, Editing, Cinematography, Costume, Foreign Language and the shorts.

Now, sorry again, but this is another Inconvenient Truth rant. But this one's smaller. I can deal with it winning Best Documentary Feature, even if I don't agree with it. But jesus christ, Al Gore WAS NOT AN ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE. How come four (or was it five?) people got up to accept the award that one man (David Guggenheim) won. It was ridiculous. Al Gore didn't win it. He shouldn't be up there. It's insulting and offensive. We have people (producers, mainly) who are banned from even being nominated and aren't allowed to get up on stage, yet this man (however noble he is) just walzes up to the stage and gives a speech as if he had won. And then to have Leonardo DiCaprio and Al Gore come out purely to give us another lecture about climate change? They didn't even present a freakin' award afterwards.

(okay, this isn't as short as I was intending.) Surely thank Al Gore, considering without his powerpoint presentation there would indeed be no movie (that's because Guggenheim didn't actually bother to make a movie, but just filmed a man giving a speech - are the directors of the Oscars eligible for next year's show?!?!), but his name isn't on the ballot. Isn't on the envelope. He shouldn't be there. And, seriously, stop telling me I can do anything. I can change some lightglobes and walk to and from work (oh wait, I already do that. Thanks heaps), but stop trying to make me believe that if I flick a switch I will single handedly change global warming. I won't. I know that. You know that. So shut the fuck up, wanker.

There. /rant

I did love the opening nominees montage (that was amazing) and there was another bit that I really loved, but can't remember. I'll scan through the recording of it tomorrow and check. I loved hearing Morricone's Days of Heaven score TWICE through the evening. Oh man, that Costume Design bit was embarassing. Emily and Anne were laughing during it. Not a good sign when the presenters are laughing at the category. Although it's sort of awesome that Marie Antoinette is now an "Academy Award Winner".

The highlight of the night however was, as I'm sure it was for everyone who merely likes cinema, Martin Scorsese's win. I was so scared that they'd read out Alejandro. Just so good. Mirren's "Here is THE QUEEN" or whatever she said was embarassing. eep. Celine was ridiculous. Abi and Jayden were precious. Marty shedding tears for Thelma was lovely. And... er, there was more. blahblahblah. Kinda happy it's over though.