Oscar Recap

My overall score on predictions for Oscar night: I got 8 out of 24 correct. Not great by any means, at just 33%, but I set low expectations, saying I would be happy with 25%, so in essence I overachieved. That correct percentage did include great predictions in the categories of Best Foreign Film and Best Animated Short Film (who knew? total guesses).

In the big categories of Best Picture, Director, Lead Actor/Actress, Supporting Actor/Actress, I did somewhat better, getting 3 out of 6 right.

BEST PICTURE: After winning Oscars for Best Screenplay and Best Director, it would have been a shocker to see another movie win Best Picture. While No Country for Old Men was a good movie, I thought it was the third best movie of the five nominated, especially with the ending it had. I thought There Will Be Blood would win, and liked Atonement the best, but No Country was still a deserving winner.

BEST DIRECTOR: The Coen Brothers were the stars of the night, especially with the short acceptance speeches. No Country for Old Men was a good movie, and the Coen’s deserved the award in a category that I thought could have been a toss up. Once they won the Oscar for Best Screenplay earlier in the evening, I had a feeling they would also win this award as well.

Best Actor in a Leading Role: It was a clear cut winner here, as Daniel Day-Lewis won a very well-deserving Oscar. He also had a great one-liner about being knighted by Helen Mirren, who presented the award after winning for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth last year. The greatness of his performance was evident in all of the nominations that were given to There Will Be Blood, despite winning just two awards for this category and cinematography.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: This was kind of a surprise, but a well deserved award for Marion Cotillard. She was great in La Vie en Rose, and one I should have picked but I didn’t think a foreign language film would get the recognition it deserved and Cotillard for her outstanding performance. I did start to worry that Cotillard was going to hyperventilate once she got on stage during her acceptance speech.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: No real shocker here, as Javier Bardem was a clear cut winner with his performance. I wish I would have remembered more Spanish when I was in Barcelona so I could have tried to figure out what he was saying to his mom during his acceptance speech. I seriously doubt that he was giving her directions to the library.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Having only seen a couple of the movies in this category, it was hard to predict but Tilda Swinton was very good in her role. I still thought Saoirse Ronan was a little better, but that may have been swayed a bit by the fact that I liked the movie Atonement much better than Michael Clayton.

Other Notes:

My prediction for Best Original Song was based on the popularity of the movie Enchanted, and I figured with three of the five nominations coming from that movie it would surely have one of the win. So, in trying to use logic, I went against my true thoughts and it backfired. I actually saw the movie Once, which featured the song “Falling Slowly,” and I really liked that movie for some reason, and the song is great (I even have it on my iPod). I actually cheered when that song was named as the winner and then couldn’t help but laugh at Glen Hansard’s thick Irish accent during his acceptance speech. I did get irritated when they cut off Marketa Irglova before she could say any of her thanks, and was glad they gave her a chance to come back out after the commercial break.

It was nice to see Diablo Cody win for Best Original Screenplay for the movie Juno. It really was a good movie and was hysterical yet serious at the same time. Her choice of dress attire was a little questionable however, but nice to see the Academy honor an independent film with such a big award.

How about The Bourne Ultimatum? A huge fan of the Bourne movies, it was nice to see that movie earn three Oscars, winning for each of the three nominations that it had. Ultimatum actually won the second most Oscars on the evening behind only No Country for Old Men.

Atonement and Michael Clayton both had the biggest disappointments on the night. Both were nominated for seven Oscars each, and they each won just a single award (Michael Clayton for Best Supporting Actress and Atonement for Original Score). There Will Be Blood wasn't much better, starting the night with eight nominations and winning twice (Best Cinematography and Best Lead Actor).

Also, call me crazy but the show would be so much better if they cut out some of the intro joke stuff. Not that some of it wasn't funny, but if I wanted to see a guy stand on stage and tell political jokes, I would watch Leno or Letterman. Funny one liners poking fun at the movie industry and celebrities throughout the evening's show are fine, but you could kill a half hour of the telecast by simply eliminating the needless stunts that try to get a laugh or two.

I would much rather see them cut that junk out and let some of the award winners have acceptance speeches that last longer than 15 seconds. Seemed like all of the winners, especially at the end of the ceremony when you had the big award winners up there, had to rush through their speeches and didn't have time to provide us with those memorable Oscar winning moments. Roberto Benigni climbing on the chairs, Halle Berry's emotional acceptance speech, Cuba Gooding Jr. proclaiming his love for everyone, Kevin Spacey's emotional thank you to Jack Lemmon, Jack Palance doing push ups - those are the moments that make Oscar night special and memorable, but those moments are impossible to come by when they get 10 seconds to say thanks and then they're rushed off the stage (see Marketa Irglova in the Best Song category).