-82nd Academy Awards Review-
-82nd Academy Awards Review-
It's the day after the Academy Awards and just like sports fan are gathered around the water cooler in heated debate and discussion after the Super Bowl, it's time to discuss what is Hollywood's version, the Oscars, so named for the statuettes that are given to the award winners. It was quite a night, filled with some surprises and plenty of moments that weren't so surprising, but pleasant anyway. This certainly won't be a full review, but just a few quick and general thoughts regarding the Oscars.
First of all, let's discuss the big award of the night. I don't know what I expected from the Academy, the same academy who ignored "Star Wars" in favor of "Annie Hall", which is a good movie but certainly years later, which film is remembered better? I think that'll be the case here. Avatar is a film that I expect will be remembered very strongly, as long as they don't overdo it as they did the case with Star Wars (those prequels...*shakes head sadly*) and seeing as how most people didn't see the Hurt Locker before it came out, I doubt that'll change too much, despite the big Oscar win. I think it'll definitely get an Oscar bump after winning, but let's not take anything away from the Hurt Locker at all, even if it wasn't my personal vote for movie of the year (neither was Avatar). Hurt Locker was a film that realistically explored the difficult issue of the Iraq War filled with a number of amazing performances throughout the movie, from its taut and tense opening sequence to its gripping conclusion. Definitely worth watching. But, I was hoping, against all odds, to see a different movie rewarded on Oscar night. Up In The Air was a great film. But, lots of great films win best picture and lots of great films don't.
I have to admit I didn't enjoy the comedy stylings of Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, who trust me, I usually enjoy, but last night, I was not impressed at all. One such comedy bit featured banter such as -
Steve Martin: I really enjoyed the Hangover.
Alec Baldwin: Me too. Four guys who can't remember anything after a night of binge drinking.
Steve Martin (repeats): I really enjoyed the Hangover.
Get it? See what they did there? It earned a chuckle, but that's about it which summed up their performance pretty much. I was pleased to see that the Hangover at least got a mention during Oscar time as comedies are generally ignored when it comes to the Academy Awards. Comedians are good enough to host the Oscars, but not to be nominated for the actual awards. Not to say that the Hangover deserved to be nominated, but it's good to see something other than drama get a mention there.
Which also brings me to the fact that they did a tribute to horror movies. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see this as horror movies have been a staple of the movie industry for years, but get absolutely no recognition come Oscar time. It was interesting to see that Kristen Stewart mentioned that horror films have had no presence for about 37 years, but in the Oscar Montage to horror, they clearly show scenes from Silence of the Lambs, which swept the Oscar Awards in the early 90's. So, is Silence of the Lambs a horror movie? It's a question certainly worth asking, but glad to see horror films which have helped out the industry and its stars for years.
I was also really glad to see a tribute to John Hughes, the seminal director of such classics as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Pretty In Pink", "Some Kind Of Wonderful", "The Breakfast Club" and so many others. Getting to see some of the moments in the montage reminded me of how much I loved those movies and how much they had an impact on me. To this day, some of those are still some of my favorite movies and ones I love introducing to people who have (for some unknown reason) yet to see them. Seeing Molly Ringwald at the Oscars was definitely a highlight for me.
Another highlight for me was seeing Up's wonderful score from Micheal Giacchino get rewarded with Micheal Giacchino finally getting the award after doing so much amazing composing work over the years. This year in particular, he not only composed the score for "Up", but also for "Star Trek", giving him the honor of composing for two of the year's biggest blockbusters. I first noticed Micheal Giacchino as he composed the music for one of my favorite shows of all time, "Alias", and then continued his collaborations with J.J. Abrams to also help score another one of my favorite shows "Lost". I'm glad to see him finally starting to see the recognition he deserves.
While Micheal Giacchino got to score two of the biggest blockbusters of the year, Sandra Bullock had the dubious honor of being nominated for Best Actress of the Year at the Oscar Ceremony and Worst Actress of the Year at the Razzies (which honors the worst in cinema each year), winning both of them, for 'The Blind Side" and "All About Steve" respectfully. I think Sandra will deal with it though as she showed a great deal of class in accepting both awards, although it's the one acting category that I was least sure of as I had a friend recently make a great recommendation for the actress in "Precious" to receive the Oscar, whereas I've heard a number of rave reviews for the other actresses involved. I'll have to reserve my opinion until I've seen all of the films. I've seen enough of "All About Steve" to know she deserved that one though.
I have yet to see Crazy Heart, but I certainly can't be any more happy to see the award go to Jeff Bridges to receive his first Academy Award win after his previous four nominations. When it comes to the Oscars, it's hard to tell whether this is for this particular film or in recognition of the years of excellent acting he's given us. Either way, you can't deny he deserves it. It was such a joy to watch his acceptance speech, which was filled with his natural exuberance that has always made him so fun to watch on screen, probably setting an Oscar record for the uses of the word "man" in his acceptance speech. Definitely somebody worthy to respect in Hollywood as he has shown that you can deliver amazing on-screen performances consistently, remaining married in a loving relationship while raising your kids and not becoming constant tabloid fodder. Congratulations Jeff Bridges. The dude abides.
From the opening award where Christoph Waltz got his much-deserved Supporting Oscar nomination by creating one of the great villains on screen and gave a really great opening accepting speech as well, setting the stage for a great Oscars which including such momentous moments such as seeing Kathryn Bigelow become the first female director to win the Oscar for Best Director. Although I didn't enjoy Barbara Streisand setting up as she said "Tonight we could have the first woman to win the prize, the first African American to win the prize or the man who brought together the biggest grossing movie in box office history" and then completely made no mention of the other two nominees, who were certainly very deserving of their nominations in Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino.
However, the night was filled with too many good moments to let any small things spoil it. I really enjoyed the tributes to each of the individual nominees for the best actor awards as you could tell they really had a lot of respect for the person they were championing and got to set up their personal road to this award. I mean, Gadboury Sidibhe took a day offschool, pursued her dream and is nominated for one of the biggest awards in the industry. Pretty amazing stuff.
Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to the Oscars for giving us another Academy Awards to showcase films and performances that deserve to be recognized. Although it will take some time for all of the award winners to be out on DVD, especially some of the documentaries and short films, I'm certainly glad that we have such a show designed to highlight them.
But, that wraps up another great year of film with a ceremony that was too long as always but very enjoyable. However, with the film industry, the wonderful thing is that unlike sports, there is no off-season. A film that is released next week could be a nominee next year, so keep watch for what should be another great year in cinema. Until then, stay classy.
First of all, let's discuss the big award of the night. I don't know what I expected from the Academy, the same academy who ignored "Star Wars" in favor of "Annie Hall", which is a good movie but certainly years later, which film is remembered better? I think that'll be the case here. Avatar is a film that I expect will be remembered very strongly, as long as they don't overdo it as they did the case with Star Wars (those prequels...*shakes head sadly*) and seeing as how most people didn't see the Hurt Locker before it came out, I doubt that'll change too much, despite the big Oscar win. I think it'll definitely get an Oscar bump after winning, but let's not take anything away from the Hurt Locker at all, even if it wasn't my personal vote for movie of the year (neither was Avatar). Hurt Locker was a film that realistically explored the difficult issue of the Iraq War filled with a number of amazing performances throughout the movie, from its taut and tense opening sequence to its gripping conclusion. Definitely worth watching. But, I was hoping, against all odds, to see a different movie rewarded on Oscar night. Up In The Air was a great film. But, lots of great films win best picture and lots of great films don't.
I have to admit I didn't enjoy the comedy stylings of Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, who trust me, I usually enjoy, but last night, I was not impressed at all. One such comedy bit featured banter such as -
Steve Martin: I really enjoyed the Hangover.
Alec Baldwin: Me too. Four guys who can't remember anything after a night of binge drinking.
Steve Martin (repeats): I really enjoyed the Hangover.
Get it? See what they did there? It earned a chuckle, but that's about it which summed up their performance pretty much. I was pleased to see that the Hangover at least got a mention during Oscar time as comedies are generally ignored when it comes to the Academy Awards. Comedians are good enough to host the Oscars, but not to be nominated for the actual awards. Not to say that the Hangover deserved to be nominated, but it's good to see something other than drama get a mention there.
Which also brings me to the fact that they did a tribute to horror movies. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see this as horror movies have been a staple of the movie industry for years, but get absolutely no recognition come Oscar time. It was interesting to see that Kristen Stewart mentioned that horror films have had no presence for about 37 years, but in the Oscar Montage to horror, they clearly show scenes from Silence of the Lambs, which swept the Oscar Awards in the early 90's. So, is Silence of the Lambs a horror movie? It's a question certainly worth asking, but glad to see horror films which have helped out the industry and its stars for years.
I was also really glad to see a tribute to John Hughes, the seminal director of such classics as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Pretty In Pink", "Some Kind Of Wonderful", "The Breakfast Club" and so many others. Getting to see some of the moments in the montage reminded me of how much I loved those movies and how much they had an impact on me. To this day, some of those are still some of my favorite movies and ones I love introducing to people who have (for some unknown reason) yet to see them. Seeing Molly Ringwald at the Oscars was definitely a highlight for me.
Another highlight for me was seeing Up's wonderful score from Micheal Giacchino get rewarded with Micheal Giacchino finally getting the award after doing so much amazing composing work over the years. This year in particular, he not only composed the score for "Up", but also for "Star Trek", giving him the honor of composing for two of the year's biggest blockbusters. I first noticed Micheal Giacchino as he composed the music for one of my favorite shows of all time, "Alias", and then continued his collaborations with J.J. Abrams to also help score another one of my favorite shows "Lost". I'm glad to see him finally starting to see the recognition he deserves.
While Micheal Giacchino got to score two of the biggest blockbusters of the year, Sandra Bullock had the dubious honor of being nominated for Best Actress of the Year at the Oscar Ceremony and Worst Actress of the Year at the Razzies (which honors the worst in cinema each year), winning both of them, for 'The Blind Side" and "All About Steve" respectfully. I think Sandra will deal with it though as she showed a great deal of class in accepting both awards, although it's the one acting category that I was least sure of as I had a friend recently make a great recommendation for the actress in "Precious" to receive the Oscar, whereas I've heard a number of rave reviews for the other actresses involved. I'll have to reserve my opinion until I've seen all of the films. I've seen enough of "All About Steve" to know she deserved that one though.
I have yet to see Crazy Heart, but I certainly can't be any more happy to see the award go to Jeff Bridges to receive his first Academy Award win after his previous four nominations. When it comes to the Oscars, it's hard to tell whether this is for this particular film or in recognition of the years of excellent acting he's given us. Either way, you can't deny he deserves it. It was such a joy to watch his acceptance speech, which was filled with his natural exuberance that has always made him so fun to watch on screen, probably setting an Oscar record for the uses of the word "man" in his acceptance speech. Definitely somebody worthy to respect in Hollywood as he has shown that you can deliver amazing on-screen performances consistently, remaining married in a loving relationship while raising your kids and not becoming constant tabloid fodder. Congratulations Jeff Bridges. The dude abides.
From the opening award where Christoph Waltz got his much-deserved Supporting Oscar nomination by creating one of the great villains on screen and gave a really great opening accepting speech as well, setting the stage for a great Oscars which including such momentous moments such as seeing Kathryn Bigelow become the first female director to win the Oscar for Best Director. Although I didn't enjoy Barbara Streisand setting up as she said "Tonight we could have the first woman to win the prize, the first African American to win the prize or the man who brought together the biggest grossing movie in box office history" and then completely made no mention of the other two nominees, who were certainly very deserving of their nominations in Jason Reitman and Quentin Tarantino.
However, the night was filled with too many good moments to let any small things spoil it. I really enjoyed the tributes to each of the individual nominees for the best actor awards as you could tell they really had a lot of respect for the person they were championing and got to set up their personal road to this award. I mean, Gadboury Sidibhe took a day offschool, pursued her dream and is nominated for one of the biggest awards in the industry. Pretty amazing stuff.
Congratulations to all of the winners and thank you to the Oscars for giving us another Academy Awards to showcase films and performances that deserve to be recognized. Although it will take some time for all of the award winners to be out on DVD, especially some of the documentaries and short films, I'm certainly glad that we have such a show designed to highlight them.
But, that wraps up another great year of film with a ceremony that was too long as always but very enjoyable. However, with the film industry, the wonderful thing is that unlike sports, there is no off-season. A film that is released next week could be a nominee next year, so keep watch for what should be another great year in cinema. Until then, stay classy.
0 comments:
Post a Comment