Well, I watched the Oscars last night. I watch the Oscars every year. Some years I have a sincere interest in who wins and who does not. This was not one of those years. Two things I must point out before I begin.
1) I have not seen any of the movies that were nominated in the major categories(except The Dark Knight, but I'm not sure there's anyone left in the world who hasn't seen this film). It's not that I don't want to see these movies...I just, for some reason or another, haven't.
2) As most of you know, I am a theatre snob. The Tonys will always rank about 1000% higher on my Things-I-Care-About Meter than the Oscars. Also, if there are any films that have a strong theatre link, I will always root for them.
Okay, now to my thoughts:
Hugh Jackman - Good choice. Barbara Walters said in her annual pre-Oscars show, that Jackman is like a throwback to the old song-and-dance man. I'd never thought of it that way, but I guess that's true. This guy's got talent. He can act, he can sing, he can dance, he can host. His opening number was good. True he's not as funny as Billy Crystal, but come on...that's a fairly high standard.
The format - For weeks we've seen the promos for the show promising big changes and a new format. I don't know if all that was necessarily true, but I did like the giant LED screens that moved. I also liked the group presentations for the acting awards. It seemed more personal in a way. The poor souls that plan the Oscars still have not come up with a way to trim the show to fit into it's allotted time frame. If it was me, I probably would have nixed the whole cinema scrapbook concept. But that's just me...
Now, on to the major awards. Let me start by saying that there were ZERO surprises last night...
Best Supporting Actress - Penelope Cruz
I wanted Amy Adams or Viola Davis to win for reasons that should be obvious if you read the top portion of this note. I don't have anything against Penelope Cruz as a person, but I've yet to see her in a movie that just blew me away.
Best Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger
This was an obvious choice. And I'm going to say right here and now that had Ledger still been alive, he would have still won. Say what you will, but his performance as the Joker really was THAT good. My theatre snobbery had to take a back seat because Philip Seymour Hoffman was never going to win this award.
Best Actress - Kate Winslet
I really like Kate Winslet. She's insanely hot and a great actress to boot. Still would have liked to have seen Meryl Streep win for Doubt, but I digress.
Best Actor - Sean Penn
Having not seen any of the films, and knowing that Frank Langella was not going to win for Frost/Nixon, I was interested to see if Sean Penn could beat out the emotional favorite - Mickey Roarke. Because of my NRP nerd-dom, I knew quite a bit more about MILK than I did The Wrestler. I like Mickey Roarke, however, and would have thoroughly enjoyed his acceptance speech I'm sure.
Best Director - Danny Boyle
YEAH!!! The guy that directed 28 Days Later won an Oscar!
Best Film - Slumdog Millionaire
So surprise here. Everyone I speak to raves about this film. It'll find it's way to my Netflix cue as soon as it come out.
For me, the highlight of the night was Queen Latifah singing during the remembrance portion of the show. Remember the early 90's when she was just another rapper? She has proven that she is a bona fide songbird. Beyonce, take a seat...
PS - I've heard a lot of buzz about Man on Wire, the Best Documentary winner from last night. There were, I think, like two theatres in the entire Metroplex that showed this film so I'll have to wait for the video release, but I heard Philippe Petit (the guy on which the documentary is based) on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me a few weeks ago and he sounds like a trip. If you are a doc fan, you might want to add it to your list.
No comments:
Post a Comment