Did you watch the Oscar last night? Did you pick the right choices? Who made the best acceptance speech?
Best Picture: The Departed
Best Director: Martin Scorsese
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker
Best Actress: Helen Mirren
Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson
Best Animated Film: Happy Feet
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed
Best Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine
I particularly enjoyed 2 speeches: Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren. Forest’s speech moved me and I can see tears on many people’s eyes. I feel that Helen’s speech was very graceful which is fitting for her role as the Queen.
I actually picked 7 awards correctly: Best actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, best director, best picture and best animated film 🙂
you forgot to mention one important category:
Best Documentary: Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
Congratulations!
Al Gore’s film is great fiction.
Did you watch the Oscar last night?
Nope. I had better things to do than indulge Hollywood’s narcissism.
I am sure Susan is happy with the best animated film category.
I’m glad Jennifer Hudson took it for Dream Girls. Granted, she was hyped up, but it is good to see a new face taking home the award for once.
It is getting harder and harder to stomach Hollywood.
Last night was the most pathetic and that is saying a lot.
Lujckily they are too stupid to realize that by hitting America over the head with their propaganda they are making the same mistake the Soviets made and the public will just assume the truth is the opposite of whatever they spew.
They don’t realize that shows like Boston Legal were much more effective for their cause when they were subtle.
I watched a small portion. I ended up quit watching when the MUSIC of Inconvenient Truth also got the Oscar.
The Oscar, year after year, more and more became a leftist political specticle.
Gabor
who were you going to give the best documentary to? and best original music?
have you ever thought YOU are becoming more rightist year after year?
Just once I’d like to see a thread at Susan’s blog proceed as intended – on topic without getting dominated by egoists spouting political diatribe (Chess and otherwise).
I believe that Susan hoped to hear about reactions to the Oscars. Here are mine.
Forest Whitaker’s speech (best actor) will probably go down in Oscar history as among the best ever; he actually had something to say – and the celebs in the audience were spellbound!
(note – I didn’t see his movie; my brother thought FW’s role was too small for best actor, and should have been supporting).
Most entertaining part of the show for me was the sound effects choir – fascinating stuff!
And Ellen DeGeneres was a total bore. I like her, but her presence as an Oscar host was non-existent. This may not be her fault, as the producers of this show may have deliberately engineered the hosting to completely avoid offending anybody, and completely avoid all shreds of contoversy. In this, they managed.
Great to see Helen Mirren winning best actress! Her wonderful performance in “The Queen” made it worth seeing. I recently watched her as a manipulative courtesan in “Cousin Bette” (1971 PBS miniseries based on Balzac’s novel). Good, but she’s learned a lot about acting since 1971.
Anonymous Frank
I generally loathe awards shows (this year’s Grammy’s were a snooze-fest), but last night’s Oscars was uncommonly enjoyable. From the Errol Morris candid mini-doc about the Nominees, to Ellen Degenereris’s warm and funny opening monolouge, to Jack Black, John C. Reiley and Will Ferrel’s schtick, to the cool Pilobolus shadow tricks, to the review of the “Best Costume Designs,” to the various musical performances, to the mini-docs about the writing processes, to the “okay is Al Gore gonna’ make that Big Announcment” joke with Leonardo DiCaprio, the the review of Enrico Morricone’s work (did Clint’s stint in Spaghetti Westerns teach him Italian?) to Ellen’s patter with the “Audience” to the back stage camera work… it managed to hold my interest for most of the four, long hours.
… the actual awards giving, well, that was pretty boring. Thank you speeches are, by and large, really monotonous and dull.
As for which movies and participants got awards, there were some suprises to me. I would have thought, for example, that best supporting Actress would have gone to Kate Winslet- but the result was pleasing. I would, too, have thought that Djimon Honsou would have received best supporing Actor (this being, of course, the “lefty” Hollywood.) I would have liked to have seen “Children of Men” receive best Cinematography, as the virtuosic camera work in that blew me away it didn’t seem to me to be Pan’s Labyrynth’s strong suit. I also thought “Babel” was much better than “The Departed”.
That Said, “The Departed” was still a good movie, despite it being basically a pumped-up genere picture, and I’m happy to see Scorsese get the best Director. His acceptance speech was one of the more human and unabashedly emotional the night- he seemed even more jittery, nervous and excited than ususal. Man that guy’s got eyebrows.
I am generally considered to be a little left of center politically, but I, too, thought the double whammy of “An Inconvenient Truth” and It’s song getting the nod, was a bit much. I find Al Gore’s presentation (I saw it long before the movie came out) to be right on the mark with respect to the science, and I think he is absolutely geninuine in his concern about the issue. (That is, he is now political to serve the issue, and not vice-versa.) However, AIT was not, to my mind, a great documentary. Informative and necessary, yes. The best movie? No. Similarly, the Melissa Ethridge song strikes me as a bit preachy and, for her, conventional. I would have chosen one of the three “Dreamgirls” songs. (Randy Newman always writes the same song.) It is the typical pattern of the Academy to vote for the documentary that most reflects a political point they want to make, rather than the most compelling film. I recall Roger Ebert, a few years back, singing the praises of a film about the Waco debacle that was highly critical of the Justice Department’s handling of the case, despite the fact that he disagreed with many of its political insinuations. He (and I) wish the Academy might, from time to time, deign to the do the same.
Other than that, what else is there to complain about? Ellen Degeneris? Other than her existence, she was as neutral and all-embracing as can be- not once making reference to her sexual orientation. (Though Melissa Ethridge did.) … and if her presence on the stage is a seen as a political point in and of itself, people need to get a life.
One could just as easily made a montage of the winners speeches in which they thanked God and family and made positive reference to the troops. There was also the fascinating montage in the show of movies which themselves made cultural/political points that were all over the map (note, for instance “Taps” in the mix). Hollywood is left-of-center, to be sure, but it is not, by stretch of the imagination, monolithic. Any one of us, no matter our political stripe, can think back to Hollywood films that stirred our own political consciousness. (“Reds”, “Rambo”, “Rocky IV”… to keep it within the “R”s, anyone?) Which Hollywood stars have become elected officials? Schwarznegger, Grandy, Sonny Bono, and Reagan? They all shared a political party and it wasn’t the one that Al Gore is in.
Brad Hoehne
>>However, AIT was not, to my mind, a great documentary. Informative and necessary, yes. The best movie? No.
ok, so which of the nominees did you think was the best documentary?
and which original music nominee did you think was best?
“ok, so which of the nominees did you think was the best documentary?”
Probably “Jesus Camp”. I also thought “My Country, My Country” (shown on a news channel a while back, anyone remember which one?) to be quite moving. Both of these were more compelling to me than AIT. Every year, the Academy neglects to nominate a documentary which blows away all the Nominees. This year, it’s “The Road to Guantanamo” which should be seen by people on all sides of the Political Spectrum (as should AIT, for that matter). I also liked “Wordplay” more and thought that “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” was excellent.
“and which original music nominee did you think was best?”
I wasn’t thrilled with any of them, but the one that struck me as being head and shoulders above the rest was “Patience” from “Dreamgirls.”
Brad Hoehne
Found it. Here’s a link to “My Country, My Country”.
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2006/mycountry/
Brad Hoehne
Di Caprio deserves an Oscar for the Departed. I can’t believe the critics don’t recognize his talent.
I missed it.
Darn. What was it all about.
Who is Oscar? and where did he go?
Awards for
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
Academy Awards, USA
1994 Nominated Oscar Best Cinematography
Conrad L. Hall
American Society of Cinematographers, USA
1994 Won ASC Award Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases
Conrad L. Hall
Camerimage
1994 Won Bronze Frog
Conrad L. Hall
Nominated Golden Frog
Conrad L. Hall
Casting Society of America, USA
1994 Nominated Artios Best Casting for Feature Film, Drama
Avy Kaufman
MTV Movie Awards
1994 Won MTV Movie Award Best New Filmmaker
Steven Zaillian
Tokyo International Film Festival
1993 Won Special Jury Prize
Steven Zaillian
Special Mention
Max Pomeranc
For a talent of the future.
Young Artist Awards
1994 Nominated Young Artist Award Best Actor Under Ten in a Motion Picture
Max Pomeranc
Outstanding Family Motion Picture – Drama