In the happiest moment of the evening, the Dude finally abided.Well, my biggest prediction this year was that I was going to get more wrong than the last few years and I was right about that. I got 13 of 24 which is pretty poor although I did get all the major categories correct (BEST PICTURE, BEST DIRECTOR, BEST ACTOR, BEST ACTRESS, and both of the SUPPORTING ones). I was way off in all the tech awards but hey it was fun throwing those darts just the same. The ones I got wrong:
ART DIRECTION: AVATAR. What I predicted: SHERLOCK HOLMES. I really thought they'd throw HOLMES a bone. Just one.
COSTUME DESIGN:THE YOUNG VICTORIA. I said COCO BEFORE CHANEL because it seemed like the most costumey. I haven't seen either movie actually.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: THE HURT LOCKER
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: PRECIOUS. I said UP IN THE AIR. Seems like a no brainer now.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT: MUSIC BY PRUDENCE. I had picked CHINA'S UNNATURAL DISASTER: THE TEARS OF SICHUAN PROVINCE. This resulted in one of the only surprising moments on the entire telecast: Elinor Burkett pulled what many are calling a "Kanye" Oscar moment mash-up.
MAKEUP: STAR TREK. I thought STAR TREK was going to win one of the 4 awards it was nominated for just not this one. Still it seems deserved.
SOUND MIXING and SOUND EDITING: THE HURT LOCKER won both of these which I really didn't expect. Last year I also chose wrong but made the statement that I should've have known not to vote for the same movie in both sound editing and mixing. Since that's what happened here I guess I really learned nothing.
ANIMATED SHORT: LOGORAMA. I liked LOGORAMA but really thought WALLACE AND GROMIT IN ‘A MATTER OF LOAF AND DEATH’ had the edge. Sigh.
BEST FOREIGN FILM: THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES (Argentina) Another I haven't seen. I'm brobably going to see THE WHITE RIBBON, which I wrongly predicted, this week since it just came to my area.
As for the show itself, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin had their moments. I agree with Jon Stewart that Martin had the best line of the evening:
"Anyone who has ever worked with Meryl Streep always ends up saying the exact same thing: 'Can that woman act? And, 'What's up with all the Hitler memorabilia?"
Some other highlights included a tribute to John Hughes by way of a snazzy montage and a bevy of the actors who came of age in his films: Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Macaulay Culkin, Anthony Michael Hall, Jon Cryer, Ally Sheedy, and Matthew Broderick.
Shouldn't she be wearing pink?
Ben Stiller had a great deadpan presenter bit - he was made up like one of the Na'vis from AVATAR. Pretty funny stuff.
"This seemed like a better idea in rehearsal."
Okay so I'm pretty Oscar-ed out. Stay tuned for more new movie reviews - a slew of DVD reviews and some major new releases (HOT TUB TIME MACHINE!) that are coming your way.
More later...
