2007 Oscars

[starfighter]

    Four wins for The Departed:  Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Editing.
    Three for Pan's Labyrinth:  Cinematography, Art Direction and Makeup.  Loses Best Foreign Language Film to Germany's For the Lives of Others.  Wonder if that will be hitting the nation's cineplexes anytime soon.
    Two wins for Little Miss Sunshine  (Original Screenplay and Alan Arkin upsetting Eddie Murphy for Best Supporting Actor.  Bad timing on Norbit, Ed.) and two wins for An Inconvenient Truth (Best Documentary and Best Original Song.)

      Edit:   I missed Dreamgirls on my list of multiple winners.   Jennifer Hudson pretended she was surprised to win best supporting actress  and the one I forgot was acheivement in SOUND.  After hearing all three songs last night, I assume that meant turning all the knobs to 11.

   
   Sort of an upset with Happy Feet beating out Cars for Best Animated Feature.
    Another long, mostly dull broadcast with a little comedy relief from Will Farrell, Jack Black and Jon C. Reilly singing about comedies not getting any respect.

       What did you think?

[BBQ Platypus]

Tonight's Oscars reminded me of everything I hate about the Oscars.  Particularly notable lowlights:

1.  The "theme."  Apparently the folks running the show decided it would be best to take a page out of the Special Olympics' book and congratulate everybody "just for being nominated."  Awww, how sweet.  This was honestly compassionate of them and was not at all a typical act of masturbatory Hollywood self-congratulation.  Of course, it DOES help soften the blow for problem #2, of which I was constantly reminded throughout the night...

2.  The repeated snubbing of talented individuals over the course of their ENTIRE CAREERS.  The folks at the Academy make themselves feel better about failing to recognize the work of such legends as Peter O'Toole and Ennio Morricone by offering them a token "lifetime achievement award."  I'm not buying it for a moment, and the fact that neither of these men have REAL Oscars only further demonstrate the irrelevancy of the Oscars (both real AND fake).  Sure, they finally gave one to Scorsese, but this wasn't his best film, and it still doesn't help me forget the fact that he SHOULD have three of them already. 

3.  The ridiculous amount of praise lavished upon Al Gore, which at times bordered upon fellatio.  Until tonight, I still had some respect for Mr. Gore as a (relatively) good statesman, and I thought that An Inconvenient Truth was a solid documentary (though far from the best of the year).  But I would've been able to tolerate it, if it weren't for the announcer's idiotic linkage of Hurricane Katrina to global warming (because large hurricanes are not really natural disasters, but are a recent phenomenon brought about by YOU, the consumer, when you bought that SUV).  Oh, which reminds me...

4.  The "winner" for "Best" "Song."  I was actually quite pleased with the quality of the nominees in this category.  The three songs from Dreamgirls were (naturally) superb, and the Randy Newman contribution, while not his best work, was better than ANY of last year's nominees.  Really, the only one of the bunch that I didn't like was that Melissa Etheridge...thing (I refuse to call it a song).  Naturally, that's the song the drooling shiteaters at the Academy thought was the best.  I can't even begin to fashion a guess as to what exactly they were thinking (or, more accurately, smoking).  I mean.......did they even LISTEN to any of these songs!?  Or did they just choose to forgo that process and choose the nominee that best suited their political ideology, quality be damned?  I swear, I was THIS close to smashing my foot through the TV when the winner was announced.  I'll even go as far as saying that this is the absolute WORST choice that the Academy has EVER made in its 79-year history.  And that's saying something.  But then again, I suppose the voters wanted to remain consistent with the proud Oscar tradition of shitty, poorly written "best songs" in the saccharine Phil Collins vein.



I was riffing the broadcast the whole way through (except for the rare sections that featured genuine, non-fake people, namely Clint, Morricone, and Scorsese).  Why I feel so shocked and angered by it is beyond me.  George C. Scott was right.



There's more, but who cares? 

[MrTorso]

I really didn't care about the Oscars this year just for the lack of movies nominated that even cared about. I watched from original song on and nothing really mattered to me. The finally gave it to Scorsese but as BBQ says he should have 3 already. I liked the Departed well enough but it was freaking remake. Scorsese has much better original films under his belt that he should have won for.  The way they kept praising the screenwriter was also annoying. At least Scorsese slightly acknowledged the original but would it have been that hard to say Andrew Lau's and Alan Mak's name??

[Blueguy]

I heard more than one reference to Infernal Affairs and the creators last night. 

Anyway.  I thought it was ok.  I'm just so tired of casually starting the music over people's acceptance speeches.  They want to provide us with 45 minutes of crap like performances of the nominated songs and pointless movie montages, but the whole point of the damn show is the awards and they cut these people off.  It really sucks when multiple people win.  The first person gives his speech and anyone else who won has no chance of saying anything.  I can understand cutting people off if they get a bit long-winded, but this is just getting stupid.

Glad to see Pan's win a few awards, but very surprised it didn't win for best foreign film.  Glad to see Scorsese finally won, but I would have preferred to have seen Letters from Iwo Jima win the best pic. 

[AmandaGal]

I just watched for the fun of it.  Everyone knows it's pointless and I don't really get caught up on who wins or who should have won.  "Marky Mark" Wahlberg was there...who can take it seriously 

[Miss Marf]

The Oscars felt really weird this year. The producers, for one, seemed to be trying to cram everything under the sun into the program and I thought it made the show feel disjointed. I, too, wish they would cut out the fluff and just let the winners speak.

I agree with everyone about Scorsese and The Departed. I also think it's crazy Pan's Labyrinth didn't win Best Foreign Film, but I'll reserve judgement until after I get to see The Lives of Others. Although, I do think it was nuts that Children of Men lost to Pan's Labyrinth in cinematography.

[KissKissBangBang]

I could only watch five minutes of it (The people who died last year segment). Could not watch anymore than that without barfing!


Watched Three Stooges shorts instead.     

Oscars = ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[homerjayla]

I didn't watch it. I was trying to look for a movie at the video store and there wasn't any.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

you want to talk about politcal ideology screwing the oscars up?  lets talk cars vs happy feet.  I saw both of these "films".  Cars = great movie, happy feet= big consumer commercial for R and B music mixed up with some liberal views on the enivroment and religion.  Gah it makes so pissed, happy feet didnt even deserve to be nominated.  so angry

[Pak-Man]

Cars should have won. So do we have any Rifftrax Fodder in the winners? :^) I'm not familiar enough with The Departed to make the call, but there has to be SOME Riffable Oscar Winner out there. :^)

[AmandaGal]

I've never seen Happy Feet but I enjoyed Cars.

Personally, I think all the best picture nominees are rifftrax fodder...but I think all movies are rifftrax fodder.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

you could probably do the departed, it has a bit more language than we are used to but other than that and a few murders that are a tad extreme it should be too big of a problem

[J-Proof]

I tuned in at jsut the right time - Right as they announced the Best Actress in a Leading Role =)

But having started at that point, and watched it through to the end, I was very happy with how the ceremony went! Marty won, Departed won, Whitaker won - all of which I really wanted to see. And Marty's acceptance speech was awesome =)

[starfighter]

    It took me awhile before I went to see Happy Feet but I really was impressed by it.  All three nominees were worthy of the Oscar.

   Sarcasm,  why is it a liberal thing to care about the environment?  Even Bill O'Reilly came down on the side of global warming last night on 60 Minutes.  The closest thing to a political statement in Happy Feet was about how over-fishing the oceans is dwindling the food sources for these penguins.   It's not a liberal or conservative statement at all to notice this or to acknowledge the levels of mercury in fish due to industrial pollution.

[sarcasm_made_Easy]

Sarcasm,  why is it a liberal thing to care about the environment?  Even Bill O'Reilly came down on the side of global warming last night on 60 Minutes.  The closest thing to a political statement in Happy Feet was about how over-fishing the oceans is dwindling the food sources for these penguins.   It's not a liberal or conservative statement at all to notice this or to acknowledge the levels of mercury in fish due to industrial pollution.

No i agree with you, it is everbodys problem, personally I like the taste of fish, the concept that is getting harder and less safe to eat fish actually makes me very angry.  However there is a big difference between argument and propaganda.  Which do you think the movie about the sad starving penguins, and the evil penguin imprisoning humans is? 

On a more important note, the movie sucked.  It was a BAD movie.  Thats why i am angry.  hollywood has been making propoganda for years to support their views.  Its not like its news to me, but i dont think it should have Cars or monster house.  Hell as long we are on the thought, Cars had a liberal view kinda.  Big business ruining poor defenseless small town america.  However I REALLY REALLY like Cars, and its message also.