THE LADY IS A CHAMP: BIGELOW BECOMES FIRST ...
Cinema Retro
UPDATED Click here for complete list of Oscar nominees and winners By Lee Pfeiffer Kathryn Bigelow made history with her win as Best Director at the 82nd annual Academy Awards, becoming the first female to be nominated for (and win) Best Director. Her film The Hurt Locker also won Best Picture, defeating her ex-husband James Cameron's over-blown, over-hyped and over-praised Avatar. That film - once considered a shoo-in to sweep the awards - came away with only three Oscars in technical categories.Sandra Bullock was a surprise winner for Best Actress for The Blind Side. Jeff Bridges, considered the favorite to win Best Actor for Crazy Heart, fulfilled the predictions. Mo'Nique won Supporting Actress for Precious and Christoph Waltz won Supporting Actor for Inglourious Basterds. Cinema Retro doesn't jump on the "Trash Oscar" bandwagon when it comes to analyzing the merits of the show. Let's just face an obvious truth: expecting a short, fast-moving Oscar ceremony is about as useful as awaiting a Best Actress acceptance speech from Pamela Anderson. The shows are predestined to be cinematic equivalent of a Tolstoy novel, so they can only be judged by the degree of entertainment and boredom that occurs within the three-and-a-half hour running time. As usual, I'll provide my observations in a random manner: - Whoever thought of teaming Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin (co-stars of the very funny and very mature comedy It's Complicated) as co-hosts deserves a medal. They were genuinely hilarious, but it was frustrating to see how little time they had on stage in the course of the show. At the end of the evening, Martin quipped, "The show was so long that Avatar now takes place in the past." The barbs between Martin and Baldwin were always on target and very funny. These guys should get an act together and take it on the road.
- The show was indeed long, but curiously not boring for the most part. The Academy's decision to double the number of Best Picture nominees to ten, but nominate only five directors, meant that this was a transparent ploy to stir up some interest and controversy. There is virtually no chance of any of the "orphaned" five films winning Best Picture. Thus, we had to sit through extended introductions and clips from these "also-rans" that bogged down the pace.
- The decision to showcase the nominated musical scores in a big dance number was another mistake, primarily because the production was badly choreographed. Disparate performers ranging from elegantly dressed women to guys dressed like street people engaged in awkward dance routines that resembled the kinds of entertainment you see in subway stations. It wasn't bad enough to recall the memory of Rob Lowe dancing with Snow White, but it was a colossal waste of time.
- There was also a bizarre and superfluous tribute to the horror film genre because Oscar has routinely ignored those movies. Unfortunately, the piece was a pointless collection of clips that gave short shrift to genuine horror classics in favor of the awful slasher films that have diminished the genre over the last couple of decades. Even more bizarre was the inclusion of sci-fi and thriller movies like Aliens, Jaws and Marathon Man that didn't even belong in the montage.
- There was an extended tribute to the late director John Hughes by Brat Pack members who made it big in his films. It was touching but a bit over-blown. Hughes made some fine movies, but even John Ford and Orson Welles didn't get this kind of tribute.
- Frustratingly, the Academy decided to relegate honorary awards to genuine legends to a few brief clips from a ceremony that had already taken place. Thus, movie fans were deprived of seeing anything but a glimpse of the presentations to Lauren Bacall, cinematographer Gordon Willis and producer/director Roger Corman.
- The speeches were mostly heartfelt, classy and brief. However, there must be a special place in hell for some of the windbags who talk so long that their co-winners are cheated out of saying a simple "Thank you."
- The lack of giants in the film industry is becoming woefully apparent in recent years, though Barbra Streisand showed up as a presenter, as did Tom Hanks. Sean Penn was also on-hand, looking like the traditional unmade bed and making an incoherent comment prior to presenting the Best Actress award. For the most part, the dresses were conservative and there were no over-the-top successes or disasters. Most of the presenters were spared that embarrassing "spontaneous" patter, but they were also largely devoid of charisma or wit. Ben Stiller broke the trend a bit with an amusing appearance as an Avatar character.
- Both Oprah Winfrey and Forest Whitaker appear to have each lost half their body weight and consequentially looked years younger. Jeff Bridges, a class act, sported a Buffalo Bill look that suits him well and he made for a dashing figure.
- It's a nice touch to have each Best Actor and Actress nominee introduced by someone who has worked with them previously, but it does add significantly to the running time.
- James Taylor performed a subdued version of The Beatles' In My Life as the backdrop to the annual tribute to artists who have passed away in the previous year. It was a very moving sequence and reiterated that many of these great talents will be missed for decades to come.There is already controversy about this segment, however, as Farrah Fawcett seems to have been unintentionally omitted from the tribute.
- The most bizarre moment of the evening came in relation to the win by the documentary feature Music By Prudence. The film's director/producer Roger Ross Williams had just begun his emotional acceptance speech when an unidentified woman barged on the stage, virtually pushed him aside saying he wouldn't allow a woman to speak, and began her own rambling thank you speech until she was drowned out by music. Audiences were completely perplexed. Turns out the woman is Elinor Burkett, one of the film's producers who has had a long-running feud with Williams. She was not supposed to be on the stage, but that didn't stop her. She later told the press that Williams' 87 year old mother tried to block her way! (Click here to watch) The moment was a throwback to those glorious days when Oscar ceremonies provided crazy unscripted events, though I still favor the time when David Niven responded to a streaker running behind him by saying the man will always be remembered for "his shortcomings."
- Since there probably hasn't been a great Best Song nominee since George Burns was a Star of Tomorrow, it's a terrific idea to glide through this once-vaunted category by playing only a few snippets of the nominated songs.
I watched the program at the famed Players club in New York on the big screen and the general consensus among the audience is that it was one of the better Oscar broadcasts in recent memory. However, everyone agreed the dance production was awful and should have been trimmed to make more time for Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin's antics. Lastly, of the eighteen categories I predicted winners for, I had fourteen correct, missing only Actress, Sound Mixing, Adapted Screenplay and Music. If only I had such useful foresight beyond useless movie trivia... (I'm still wearing a "Win With Al Gore!" presidential button.)
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