IndyMojo: Oscar Night Feedback by Haunted Flower

At my place, we had a party with theme dishes after the best pictures...I learned there are TOO MANY! I have so much food left over, does anyone like soft tacos?? Please come eat these!

Opening with a Neil Patrick Harris musical dance number and some celebrity roasting by the hosts, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin who both shared time with Meryl Streep in "It's Complicated." By now you've seen a run down of the winners, but while many awards were very well deserved, others seemed lacking. In the last few years, Oscars viewership has dropped over and over again, hence the change-up this year with the Best Pictures to make people more interested again. If a few more big mainstream blockbusters make it on nominee list along with the artsy pieces, average people would watch again.

Wow, did they screw up that idea! While "Avatar" took visual categories easily, it lost Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing to "The Hurt Locker". I watched "The Hurt Locker" and while I'd agree that it is cinematically great and had a deep story with danger on the warfront (and an unfortunate cameo by Kate from LOST), it just didn't hold my attention the way I hoped it would after all the hype. I think my husband said it well when he said, "Twenty years from now, what movie will people remember?" and that would definitely be "Avatar".

The artsy war movie won out over the smurf village which will change the way movies are made for years. This is like "Annie Hall" beating "Star Wars" all over again. We did ballots at our party to predict the winners and I forgot the cardinal rule: The Academy loves war movies and period films about all else so "The Hurt Locker" beat "Avatar" and "The Young Victoria" stole the costuming Oscar away from "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" (while that movie lacked a full performance by Heath Ledger, you'll have to admit how visually amazing it is when you see it). Sandy Powell, the woman who accepted the costuming award was actually kind of....rude in her speech since she told everyone that the others should have won but she was all too happy to take the award. AWKWARD.

Probably the most interesting point of the night was when a producer pulled a Kanye and hijacked the mike from the director for "Music by Prudence", the documentary short winner. Here's the link to the story behind that

A big upset for some was the win by Sandra Bullock for Best Actress for her performance in "The Blind Side." Did I think that movie was good enough for Best Picture or anything? No, but I thought it was a great movie still. I think the Academy must have looked at the group this year and since Meryl Streep's award cabinet has to be overflowing by now (16 nominations?? 16?!?!??!), it probably was Sandra Bullock's only likely opportunity. I think she is a great comedic actress (except in the horror that was "All About Steve") and it was nice to see someone else get it. She had one of the best speeches of the night too and was gracious enough to take the time to compliment the other nominees, something that hadn't been done all night and is VERY classy.

The Dude got an Oscar! I swear he and Woody Harrellson should have been sitting together so they could get high together, but seriously Jeff Bridges has had an amazing career and I was very happy to see him win. I haven't gotten to see "Crazy Heart" yet but I've heard so much wonderful feedback about it.

I really enjoyed Waltz's Oscar win for "Inglourious Basterds" and had been cheering for that movie to win Original screenplay but alas, not meant to be. Is anyone else intimidated by Mo'Nique? She's a little scary sometimes! I thought her win was good though.

I was so happy "Up" won for animated feature, I mean it kind of had to because it had a Best Picture nomination but so many people were cheering for "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" instead which was clever, but nowhere near as fun and emotionally impacting as "Up" which makes me cry...a lot.

Speaking of "Up" though, I was sad that "Up in the Air" didn't win adapted screenplay. I knew the actors wouldn't win in spite of their nominations being well-deserved because of the competition of others in their catagories, but I had hoped that the script would get a win. I haven't seen "Precious" yet, but I bet it's still a well-deserved win there.

"The Cove" was a good win for documentary about mistreatment of dolphins. The Foreign Language film win was a BIG upset. I thought it was going to be "The White Ribbon" for sure, it even had a cinematography nod! But if it didn't win I figured "Un Prophet" would be the one so "The Secret In Their Eyes" came out of left field.

What did everyone think of George Clooney? Some people seemed to think he was being a big grumpy-pants, but I was pretty sure it was an inside joke since he knew how often he would be on camera.

ADD A COMMENT

Ragamuffin mon mar 08 2010 at 3:22 pm ·


	I haven't seen Precious or Crazy Heart, yet either...anxious too, tho...heard nothing but good. great review!!

BK mon mar 08 2010 at 8:04 pm ·


	Unfortunately for Clooney, I think a lot of people have trouble appreciating his on-screen talents as they often associate his character's personalities with that of his own personality. I guess that's what you get for being somewhat typecast as the suave, know-it-all, business type.. I thought his performance was great in Up In The Air. I have yet to see Crazy Heart. I honestly didn't feel Avatar deserved best picture. If you strip away the effects there isn't much depth to it's story (I know you can argue that about almost anything). It definitely instilled flickers of emotion at points, but none of it lasted. I left the theater extremely pleased with what I saw, but instead of dwelling on it's message I thought about how hot the female alien was.. Now, I'm sure a lot of that has to do with me being somewhat of a pervert.. but did no one else feel like Avatar was a redesigned Dances With Wolves? I am bias in favor of The Hurt Locker. As an active duty Marine who has been to Iraq, it struck home with me.. not necessarily because of shared experiences, because it FINALLY portrayed nearly perfectly the stresses and rigors of the war in Iraq. For a movie that packs so much action I really thought the complexity of the characters was more moving than the entire film of Avatar. None of the characters are necessarily "likable", and I left the theater undecided on how I felt about them. I truly felt like K.B. successfully made a film about OIF without taking a political stance.

ADD A COMMENT

Indianapolis Blogs

Locals

Channels

Happenings

Blogs

Groups

Forums

Indianapolis Guide

Photos:

Classifieds