Recapping an evening of terrible hosts, (mostly) great movies and Na'vi.
It's that time again: time for Hollywood to give
itself a collective pat on the back, congratulate its best performances
and fill four hours with occasionally funny banter and long-winded
tributes. And that's almost exactly what happened again this year [Editor's note: Where applicable, some film titles link to our reviews.]
Even though they've been advertising this year's Oscars as "different" because it featured two hosts and 10 Best Picture nominees, it wasn't as different as you might have hoped. Especially the two hosts part. Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were, frankly, painful. Their jokes were forced, easy and dumb. And they were outshone by show opener Neil Patrick Harris (he did a giant Broadway tribute), which is usually a bad sign for the hosts. It's strange that someone would do such a bad job that you might actually think, "I wonder what Billy Crystal is up to this year." Hopefully Jon Stewart will get a callback next year. Or Neil Patrick Harris will actually just get hired to do the whole show—it seems like he's done one of these song/dance numbers at every single awards show, so why not just hand the reins over?
But, finally, 13 minutes in, the Baldwin/Martin pain ended and the winners started to be announced.
The first award was Best Supporting Actor, otherwise known as the "one award you will care about for the next hour and a half." Christoph Waltz won for Inglourious Basterds, which is very deserved. He gave a great performance in a fantastic film.
That went in to awesome clips of the animated films talking about what it's like to be nominated for Best Animated Feature Film. It's really too bad Fantastic Mr. Fox and UP were in the same category—because both were great. And UP won, of course, because the Academy loves Pixar but also because it was basically the best movie of the year.
"The Weary Kind" (from Crazy Heart) won best song, which seems right. It's not often that something not over-the-top and terrible wins (we're looking at you, Phil Collins). That was immediately followed by a nice John Hughes retrospective—and hey, a random Macaulay Culkin sighting! Sadly, this sighting was not immediately followed by the announcement of Home Alone 5: Back in the House and Thirsty for More.
Next up were the awards for Shorts: The awards everyone's been waiting for (not really). The best thing about the shorts is no one has an excuse for not seeing them—they're usually posted in full in the weeks leading up to the awards. It did lead to the night's weirdest moment. The director of the winner for Best Documentary Film Short (Music by Prudence) was suddenly interrupted by a woman who started a rambling list of thank-yous. Apparently they have some history ...
The best presenter of the evening was Ben Stiller dressed as a Na'vi from Avatar, presenting the award for Best Makeup. Which was won by Star Trek. We wonder if the makers of Star Trek were annoyed that it didn't get nominated even though it, like Avatar, is also based on a bunch of previous movies.
Mo'Nique took home the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Precious. And it was deserved. It's rare that there's someone who crackles with that much intensity on the screen. She was simply amazing. In a film that's incredibly hard to watch, her visceral performance makes it hard to rip your eyes away from the screen.
Next, Avatar won for Art Direction. Rightfully so. The artistic design of Avatar was incredible—it truly did take viewers to a new world in a way that hasn't really been seen since the original Star Wars.
After a Paranormal Activity spoof starring the hapless hosts (seriously, whose idea was that?), it was time for a tribute to horror movies. Introduced by the stars of Twilight. Incidentally, Kristen Stewart looks mopey even when she's not pining after a vampire.
A few notes about the horror movie tribute:
1. Jaws. Not a horror movie.
2. Basically this is saying "thanks for propping up the film industry."
3. They spoiled Psycho.
4. The Shining girls are terrifying.
5. We really hope no kids were watching. There was a lot of blood.
Normally we'd gloss over stuff like sound editing and mixing, but the intro to it this year was great—it explained how much went into it and how it's done. Which might have been boring for the people in attendance, but it makes it way more interesting for the rest of us. Hurt Locker took home both trophies.
Query: Should "Academy Award Nominee" and "John Travolta" ever be said in the same sentence? We say no.
Avatar won Best Cinematography. All of that "swoop camera left" and "swoop camera up" in front of the green screen must have been difficult.
Then it was time for the traditional "in memoriam" segment led by ... oh no, James Taylor. It's like the Oscar producers thought, "Who can make everyone cry fastest?"
The next award, Best Original Score, was introduced by dancers who did interpretive dances to the original score nominees. It's really strange to see a dance troupe dance to a score for The Hurt Locker since it's about the response to violence brought on by war. But it was also a reminder that Fantastic Mr. Fox had such a good score. And a great soundtrack. Incidentally: what an incredibly overlooked film—it's really one of Wes Anderson's best, and it's too bad that it seemed to get short shrift by a lot of people. (Though, the clip of the score they chose for the Oscars sounded like that "LOL smiley Face" song by Trey Songz.)
Nonetheless, UP's score is practically guaranteed to make you tear up at least once. That should be a surgeon general's warning. So it won.
Naturally (and deservedly), Avatar won for Best Visual Effects. It must be so frustrating to be the other nominees—you think, "we did a good job," and then you see Avatar.
The Cove won for Best Documentary. Sure, we liked it (well, "liked"; it's pretty disturbing). But it seems strange a movie about dolphins getting slaughtered wins over documentaries about migrant workers and the Vietnam War.
In perhaps the biggest upset of the night, Argentinian film The Secret in Their Eyes won for Best Foreign Language Film. Critics who swooned over The White Ribbon were probably throwing things at their TVs. But it brings up an interesting question: Why do films like this get put in the foreign language category only? So many critics love each of the nominees; it seems dumb they can only get best foreign language and not best picture. Same with the nominees for Best Animated Feature and Best Documentary Feature.
The always-gracious Sandra Bullock won for Best Actress for her role in The Blind Side. Is this the first time an actor has won both an Oscar and a Razzie (she won for All About Steve) in the same year? It's pretty amazing how much momentum she got after the Golden Globes.
Jeff Bridges won for his portrayal in Crazy Heart (see our Q&A with the winner here). Seems about right, though maybe a little predictable (another biopic-type music win). But overall, good for The Dude.
Finally,The Hurt Locker took home both big ones: Best Director (for Kathryn Bigelow) and Best Picture. Weirdly, most people (us included) definitely had an attitude of "anything but Avatar," but Hurt Locker certainly deserves its accolades. It's the first non-documentary movie about Iraq to just show what happens to people in Iraq (as opposed to the polemics of films like In the Valley of Elah) and it also happens to be incredibly intense and exciting. And Bigelow's direction was spot-on; her actors delivered incredible performances and she told a remarkable (and difficult) story without resorting to petty cliches or annoyingly political axioms.
With that, the Academy Awards are
over for another year. The ceremony, as always, was too long, with way
too much filler. But the right movie won, and it was an unexpected
blessing to not have to hear James Cameron give a speech. So with that, we bid you farewell until next year.
