So . . . Did the right films win? Did the right actors win? More importantly, who was the most beautiful/handsome?
Here are the results of the evening.
Interesting that all four acting awards went to non-American actors. Wonder if that's a first?
IMDB picks its favorite moments from the ceremony. If you're registered there, you can vote in the poll.
Favorite moment from last night's Academy Awards?
A few other great moments:
1) Jon Stewart: "Oscar is 80 this year, which makes him now automatically the frontrunner for the Republican nomination."
2) Helen Mirren's presentation of the Best Actor Award. "Ambition, amorality, greed, deviousness, usury, venality, remorse, nobility, generosity, decency and good old fashioned cojones. I know these sound like the description to be a successful studio head, but these are facets of the performances of our leading actor nominees."
3) Robert Boyle winning an honorary Oscar. The annual "Will the old guy/gal get through this without rambling on or getting confused?" moment was its usual edge-of-your-seat-thriller. But Boyle handled it very gracefully.
4) Clips of past presenters and winning moments.
Not-so-great Moments:
1) Those awful songs from
Enchanted. THREE?!?!?!?
2) Tom Hank's bad haircut.
3) Colin Farrell's bad non-haircut.
4) The dull opening sequence inspired by . . .
Cars, a mediocre animated film from two years ago. I was hoping for a sequel to George Clooney appearing in bed with Jon Stewart.
5) The tribute to 80 years of Oscars. The entire history of cinema at your disposal, and all we got was that lame exercise? At least they showed Fred Astaire for .76 seconds.
As far as most beautiful, La Reina went on and on about Nicole Kidman's amazing necklace and dress, and how great she looked being slightly pregnant. I won't argue.
But I stuck with my more traditional choice: Penélope Cruz.
And we both thought Helen Mirren looked fantastic.
Considering the lack of time to prepare, I thought the show went fairly well. Not the most exciting, perhaps, but at least it was shorter than usual!
UPDATE: In 1964, at the 37th Academy Awards, all four acting awards went to non-American actors:
Best Actor: Rex Harrison in
My Fair LadyBest Actress: Julie Andrews in
Mary PoppinsBest Supporting Actor: Peter Ustinov in
TopkapiBest Supporting Actress: Lila Kedrova in
Zorba the Greek
So . . . Did the right films win? Did the right actors win? More importantly, who was the most beautiful/handsome?
As far as most beautiful, La Reina went on and on about Nicole Kidman's amazing necklace and dress, and how great she looked being slightly pregnant. I won't argue.
15 comments:
I would have to go for Jon Stewart letting the Czech girl give her speech.
The Enchanted songs were definitely annoying me. Were there no other movies with songs this year?
Most beautiful? Penelope always looks great, and so does Nicole Kidman. I also think Katherine Heigl (sp?} was stunning.
Argh! I missed it. I want my tv back :-( I'm glad Taxi to the Dark Side won.
Liam,
I voted for Bardem, but just to give him some votes. I was happy he won and did like his speech, especially the part in Spanish. The moment with the Czech girl was very special. I don't think I've ever seen them do anything like that before.
Crystal,
I thought of you when Taxi to the Dark Side won, remembering your post. I want to see it.
You're gonna have to get your cable back. I Hate thinking of you without the Sci-Fi channel! How much is it a month?
Thanks :-) Basic cable (not stuff like HBO) is $56. I did see that one can download episodes of Stargate Atlantis at iTunes for just $1.99 each. I tried but my computer seems to be too old or stupid. Maybe I can talk my sister into doing it for me.
Wow,
You guys actually watched this year? Anne, Tessie and I were watching the concluding episode of Pride & Prejudice on PBS. I think it was an A&E adaptation from about 10 years ago. Very good.
Have you seen any of these movies? Like No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood? I was a little bit surprised by Daniel Day-Lewis winning. From clips I'd heard, he sounded like he'd simply lifted his accent from his Bill-The-Butcher role in Gangs of New York.
Interesting that you should mention Rex Harrison from 1964. You might be interested in this radio program - Pictures From a Revolution, about the Academy Awards in 1967, and the revolutionary nature of the films, such as Bonnie & Clyde and The Graduate. Rex Harrison was mentioned, because he was in Dr. Doolittle, a very expensive flop at the box office, but a film that was being heavily banked upon by the studio heads, who were still trapped in an old way of thinking.
Crystal,
I know I'm a broken record, but what about the public library? Ours has lots of TV shows on video or dvd.
Downloading shows. I wouldn't even know where to begin!
Jeff,
Are you trying to tell me that Doctor Doolittle was NOT a revolutionary film?!?!? But he could talk to the animals! Bonnie & Clyde just shot people down.
I love Doctor Doolittle.
I saw Michael Clayton, which was really good.
Yeah, one my friends, who likes Daniel Day-Lewis a lot, also said it was like his Bill the Butcher role. He didn't like the film. One of the reasons I hadn't run out to see it. But I wasn't surprised at all that he won. He'd already won the Golden Globes, BAFTA, NY Film Critics Circle and National Society of Film Critics. Not much suspense on that. Or with Bardem. The biggest surprise to me was that Cate Blanchett didn't win Best Supporting Actress.
We may go see No Country for Old Men. I like the Coens. At least most of their stuff. The last few haven't been too good.
That Pride & Prejudice is great. I bought for La Reina last year. We saw the first two parts on PBS, but, then I've been forced to watch it like 5 times. Luckily I like it. that and the Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thopmpson and Alan Rickman are the two best adaptations, IMHO.
Sense and Sensibility - much better than Pride and Predjudice imho too. Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman ! :-)
I've just asked netflix to sned me an old movie with Emma Thompson and Daniel Day Lewis - In the Name of the Father. Hope its good.
In the Name of the Father is great.
Yeah, yeah, yeah - In the Name of the Father. But what about Doctor Doolittle?!?!?
I'm ashamed to admit that I'm a fan of the Cohen brothers, but haven't seen their past few films. Funny how this grad school thing cuts into your free time...
Garpu,
I don't know if you've missed much. I loved O Brother, Where Art Thou, but The Man Who Wasn't There was only so-so (though it seemed a little better upon a second viewing), and Intolerable Cruelty was flat out bad. And I've never heard anything good from anyone about their remake of The Ladykillers, which I didn't even bother to see.
On the other hand, I did enjoy their very brief segment of Paris, Je T'aime, mostly because I love Steve Buschemi.
For Doctor Doolittle they spent 6 months in Hollywood training some chimps to fry eggs. They got to England for filming and there were some kind of rules against that. They weren't union chimps, or Labour Party members or something. They had to train a whole new set of chimps over there.
(Insert pithy remarks here)
In the Name of the Father was great. Almost everything that DDL has been in was great, with the exception of Gangs of New York. I was a DeNiro man for years, but he just mugs it up and mails it in now. Daniel Day-Lewis is the best in the business, for my money.
As far as Jane Austen-inspired movies go, Anne is partial to Gwen Paltrow in Emma.
Netflix... always wonder how many movies are being made nowadays that I'd really like to see.
Crystal,
Are you happy with Netflix? Are you on a subscription, or a trial period? Do you recommend it?
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