Katherine the Giant Killer wins the Day!

After terrible fears that Avatar might end up winning the night, taking awards away from the deserving because it is more popular, my fears were dissolved as justice was done. A lot of people are going to be upset, and decry the Oscars for not awarding the most popular movie, but its Best Picture of the year, not most popular. The Hurt Locker becomes the lowest grossing film to ever win Best Picture. 

Now that the joy and satisfaction of seeing James Cameron and Avatar virtually shut-out, now I can do some commentary, with a little more Avatar-bashing, and of course counting how right I was, or not. 

Best Picture: Was really surprised to see it just blurted out like that, they didn't do the suspenseful build-up as usual. But the important thing is I was right! One for One.

Best Director: My cousin who went to film school and has worked as a second unit director on a couple movies argues that Cameron should have won because its really hard to direct something you can't see, you have to have an acute eye for detail. That makes perfect sense and I agree with him completely. But I still argue conforming a location to your shoot is harder than filming it, then building the rest on a computer. Even taking that aspect out, the performances were far better, the film was far better, the subject matter more difficult and complex, and she managed to make a movie that wasn't lost in divisive politics, but make a movie that told a good and interesting story. She deserved it. I'm not going to say the unique opportunity to have the first woman director win, and not have it disputed within the film community didn't have some sway, but if she were a man, or some sort of halfsie (I can't remember where that line is from, I think its Family Guy), she deserved it. Also; 2 for 2. 

Best Actor: It was obvious, not much to say. I liked the bit they did with the former co-stars talking about them. 3 for 3. 

Best Actress: I flipped the coin and lost. I will eventually see The Blindside (about 83% for Ray McKinnon who played Reverend Smith in Deadwood, 15% because of the Oscars, and about 2% because the story seems mildly interesting. Still, won't this sound odd: Speed 2: Cruise Control starring Academy Award Winner Sandra Bullock and Jason Patric. 3 for 4. 

Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress: These were decided when the movies were released. 5 for 6. 

Best Original Screenplay: This was a huge surprise, I was totally expecting Inglorious Basterds, but am relieved and elated that Hurt Locker won out, shutting out Inglorious Basterds, even if it messed with my score. 5 for 7. 

Best Adapted Screenplay: I can't argue too much, Up in the Air was the better movie straight up, and actually having re-watched it today, the whole "relevance to our time" bit came through a lot clearer, and its a sadder, more poignant movie than I thought before. I don't agree, but Precious was a pretty good movie. 5 for 8, I'm getting cold. 

Best Cinematography: Boo, I don't often curse on this blog because it strikes me as unprofessional, but I call it; bullshit. The movie was 60% animated, come on. It was pretty straight forward action cinematography, the calm gaze that The White Ribbon was shot with was the most deserving candidate, event hough I guessed Hurt Locker. Whatever the opposite of a roll is, I'm on it. 5 for 9. 

Best Editing: There was no question who should have won this, and the right choice was made. Maybe this is that empty-net goal that re-ignites a dormant sniper. 6 for 10. 

Best Art Direction, Best Costumes, Best Make-Up, Best Documentary: These were for the most part educated guesses, so I shouldn't pat myself on the back too hard. But yeah, 10 for 14. 

Best Animated Film, Best Visual Effects: The only awards easier to predict than the Supporting Actor and Actress categories. Though the second one qualifies as obvious but unfortunate. 12 for 16. 

Best Original Song: It was so awesome to see good ol' T-Bone Burnett get an Oscar. It was the best and most deserving song, but I also had no idea Doctor John was one of the singers for Princess and the Frog, that's pretty sweet. 13 for 17. 

Best Foreign Language Film: I can't justifiably call this one out, I've only seen one of these movies and made a guess based on how good it was, and the general buzz. Then-again, White Ribbon should have totally won. 13 for 18. 

Best Sound: What can I say, cynicism never got anyone anywhere. Justice was done, you don't steal from Jurassic Park and get away with it! 13 for 19. 

Best Original Score: I sincerely apologize to everyone who worked on Up for snubbing them so badly when I did my own awards, though those nods or their results will never get back to them, so this apology they'll never hear is for an offense they'll never know about and therefore pretty pointless except in its own symbolic way... Anyway, having seen Up again recently, I realized my mistake, and this was the only right choice for Best Original Score. (it might be a different case if Karen O was nominated). Also, nobody likes interpretive dance, remember that scene in The Big Lebowski, that's how all of us feel watching that. Then-again that guy did an impressive robot. 

My final score: 14 for 20. A 70% which is a B- (at least here, grading is different all over apparently). So that's pretty good, not as impressive as I'd hoped but there were a few curve-balls. 

I think I want to try a blogging technique that CBC's Elliote Friedman uses (actually its every monday so there's one tomorrow!), its 30 Thoughts, he'll take on a main issue then have 30 shorter thoughts noted, its a simple but very good and pretty insightful read from one of the best hockey journalists. Which is of course why I'm stealing it. 

30 Thoughts

(Elliote, if you miraculously hear about this, and don't like my theft, I'll change it... nothing like making promises you won't have to keep.)

1. Speaking of balls, (I mentioned curve-balls above) the microphone stand with the two bulbs and long shaft hanging down... I can't be the only person who noticed that. 
2. Over all the show was pretty decent, I missed a little checking the Canadiens game, but that ended when I changed the channel and the score went from 1-0 for Anaheim to 3-0 for Anaheim (Montreal won in a comeback victory with a questionable call in the shoot-out). But it was fairly entertaining. 
3. Baldwin and Martin were pretty good, but didn't have enough stage-time. It would also be nice to see the comedy get a little more 'blue', the Hitler memorabilia joke with Streep was funny, and the slanket/snuggie cutaway. They were a good call. 
4. Loved seeing Neil Patrick Harris on the show, didn't love, or like, his song. I miss the old Billy Crystal adventure through the nominated movies. Jack Nicholson as Gandalf was hilarious. What happened to that? Who cares about old-timey vaudevillian singing and dancing? We want comedy. I want comedy. I guess I can't speak for anyone else. 
5. James Cameron looked positively miserable whenever they weren't talking about him or Avatar, though he looked genuinely happy when Bigelow won, that was nice. 
6. Then-again (must be my word of the day) he may have been happy and my brother and I were ragging on him because he's the only person I know who liked Avatar less than me. 
7. But again, Avatar was a pretty good movie. 
8. The short speeches were nice, but its rude and idiotic to cut off the second guy when there's two recipients. That happened a few times. Reminds me of the time where Jon Stewart, who despite his mediocre hosting job did the greatest thing by bringing Marketa Irglova back out to say her speech. That's class. 
9. I only say his job was mediocre because it was on network television so he can't make any political or somewhat dirty jokes. 
10. I didn't totally get the Clooney stare thing, but it was still oddly funny. If I did get the "spoiler alert" joke, it was pretty awful. 
11. It was totally awesome to see Christopher Plummer get nominated. 
12. It was sad to see Roger Corman get an award.
13. After seeing the clips of Stanley Tucci's performance in the Lovely Bones (which I haven't seen yet) I'm questioning his nomination. 
14. Meryl Streep is a good sport. 
15. I like that they gave the scores some time, that was great... the dancing, not so much.
16. Where were the clips for editing and cinematography? One of my first Oscar memories is watching the example clip from Black Hawk Down's editing win. Considering these two awards aren't widely understood by mainsteamers, it would have been good to give them An Education (pun!) in it like...
17. They took my idea! They explained the sound awards, nice work guys! 
18. As long as I'm stealing from sports-writers... My Thumb is down to having Keeanu Reeves introduce The Hurt Locker on the Academy Awards Broadcast, was there no one else? Anyone less embarrassing and more credible than him? Rip Taylor? 
19. Sean Penn looked and sounded like he was going through withdrawls. 
20. Glad to see Avatar go home with only two awards (even if one should have been The White Ribbon's). 
21. Glad to see Inglorious Basterds shut out. Somewhat malicious, but glad anyway. 
22. Best acceptance speech award goes to Michael Giacchino for Best Original Score on Up.
23. Best Hockey related moment is a tie between Neil Patrick Harris' opening line "Why couldn't Crosby give up hope" and Jason Reitman's old-school Vancouver Canucks t-shirt from the on-set footage for Up in the Air. Its a tie because those were the only two hockey related moments. 
24. I really wish Baldwin or Martin would have had a gag ready, after the documentary winner was announced (predictably The Cove) they should have turned the camera to one of them eating from a big jar labeled "Dolphin Meat". That would have been great. (also, would have stuck it to those hippies). 
25. Speaking of hippies, I haven't seen it, but if Food Inc. is one of those anti-food pro-organic documentaries, that's bull because organic food is in large part a scam. And shouldn't they realize that to feed a nation of 400,000,000 (that's 400 million right?) people, conventional farming methods aren't enough? I'm sourcing Penn & Teller's Bullshit! on this, but if everything was grown organic, an ass load of people would die of starvation. And all of them would be the poorest people. Its all well and good for rich people to buy organic, pay the extra money and all that, but most people can't afford that. But none of this is Oscar related. 
26. That "ode to horror movies" was a little ridiculous. The reason those movies are rarely talked about at the Oscars is because they are mostly horrendous movies. Jaws, the Exorcist, The Omen, The Shining are really the only great movies that were shown. Also, Twilight was shown, does having vampires make it a horror movie? Because that's a horror movie the same way Paschendaele is a war movie. Since no one will get that reference, its a horror movie the same way The Notebook is a war movie, or a story about alzheimers. 
27. Why was Bradley Cooper there, and not Zach Galifinakis? Galifinakis can be overbearing but he's also hilarious, and in one of the nominated films. Oh yeah, forgot, Cooper is in The A-Team and also isn't fat. (it's not racism but there must be a word for it...)
28. Who the hell was that woman who bum-rushed the stage during the best documentary: short subject award? I'm pretty sure she was involved but the guy didn't seem too happy. 
29. Tina Fey + Robert Downey Jr. = Hilarity, despite the bow-tie.
30. Who was drunker? Tarantino or Colin Farrell?
    
    Fudge it, lets make it 31 thoughts:
    
31. SUCK IT AVATAR! 

We can't all be professional all of the time, all work and no play make Homer something, something.... no wait; no TV and no Beer makes Jack a dull boy.... Not quite there, but I'm close.