Oscars 2010

[ClarkKent_DC]

Gee ... no chatter about the Oscars? 

Not even about these developments:

• Avatar doesn't win best picture.
• Neil Patrick Harris shows up at his fourth awards show in 12 months.
• Sandra Bullock wins Best Actress at the Oscars the day after winning Worst Actress at the Razzies.
• Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin -- fine, funny, likeable.
• The "Kanye West" moment when the director of the documentary award is upstaged by a producer who quit/was fired/sued over being fired jumped up and babbled over his speech.
• The odd tribute to John Hughes. Okay, he was the master of '80s coming of age stories, but is he really SO special that he merits a separate tribute and not just inclusion in the montage of people who died?
• The fact that Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur were left out of the montage of people who died?
• The fact that they've gone back to saying "... and the winner is --" after so many years of playing it down by saying "... and the Oscar goes to -- ".
• Anything else? 

[The Baron]

Didn't see the Oscars this year - I find more and more years go by where I haven't seen any of the nominated pictures.

The biggest noise I heard about the Oscars here on the island was because of the dispute between Cablevision and the local ABC affiliate, as, up until the last minute there was doubt as to whether the show would be broadcast here at all.

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

The back and forth between Tina Fey and Robert Downey, Jr was fun. I'm looking forward to the spring movies starring them...Date Night and Iron Man 2.

I, for one, am glad that the "king of the world" had to sit on his hands.

John Hughes was THE major filmmaker for a prime ad demographic for the telecast. ;) Seeing Molly and Matt together up there was pretty great.

The musical score dance bit by the "So You Think You Can Dance" people...trainwreck city.

[ClarkKent_DC]

That dispute was settled about 15 minutes after the show started. So people in your area missed the opening number with Neil Patrick Harris.

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

I think the show was almost 20 minutes in before Cablevision and Disney came to an agreement...

[ClarkKent_DC]

For my part, most years I haven't seen more than two of the nominated pictures. This time around, I saw District 9, Up, Up in the Air, and Star Trek. Not seeing most of the movies never affected my desire to watch the Oscars or how much I enjoyed the show.

[Batmatt Beyond]

I'm glad Avatar didn't win Best Picture, but other than that I didn't really have any horses in any of the races. However, thanks to the expanded field of Best Picture nominees I saw more of them this year than ever before. If an SF film were to have taken Best Picture, then it should have been District 9, which is a fine example of putting effects in service of a story rather than the other way around.

[The Baron]

ClarkKent_DC said:

For my part, most years I haven't seen more than two of the nominated pictures. This time around, I saw District 9, Up, Up in the Air, and Star Trek. Not seeing most of the movies never affected my desire to watch the Oscars or how much I enjoyed the show.

Interesting. The fewer of the nominated pictures that I have seen, the less I find myself interested in the show.

[ClarkKent_DC]

I usually haven't bought any of the albums nominated for Grammys, but I always watch that show, too.

The one thing Grammy does right that always draws complaints at the Oscars is it presents only about eight awards during the course of the show, with continuous updates as to winners in the categories that don't get on the air.

[ClarkKent_DC]

Alexandra Kitty said:

2. Sandra Bullock wins Best Actress at the Oscars the day after winning Worst Actress at the Razzies. Halle Berry did it before, didn't she?

Halle Berry has a Razzie (for Catwoman) and an Oscar (for Monster's Ball), but those were three years apart.

Alexandra Kitty said:

Anything else? Sill don't get having 10 films up for best picture -- you know most of the films didn't have a chance of winning -- let's not always enable big egos here...

Well, back in the '30s, the standard was 10 films up for best picture, so that doesn't bother me. The main reason go back to that was to give more viewers a reason to watch; the perception was that too often, art-house fare won over popular blockbusters. Funny thing, though -- it still happened this year!

[ClarkKent_DC]

Regarding Up: Ever since the Academy created Best Animated Picture, it's been certain that no animated film has a real shot at winning Best Picture.

But then, again, I saw the other day someone raise this question: How can we call Avatar anything but an animated film?