Last Sunday night, the Oscars began with the hyped up Red Carpet coverage. Thankfully, there were no Bjork-like dresses and no eyesores, but there wasn’t really anything spectacular to see, save Sacha Baron Cohen showing up in full costume to shamelessly promote his upcoming movie, “The Dictator” and spilling his urn of ashes all over Ryan Seacrest’s tux. Sandra Bullock clearly had multiple shots of Botox injected into every inch of her face; it just could not move. And was she wearing pants? I honestly couldn’t tell. Out of the men, I eventually realized that the Santa wearing sunglasses was none other than Best Actor nominee Nick Nolte…wow, he got old fast. Seriously, Google a picture of him from a few years ago and this year: he went from an eternal forty-year-old to a granddad who goes ice-fishing with Eskimos in three years. So the Red Carpet was pretty uneventful.
Now we come to the long-expected opening sketch in which Billy Crystal acts out scenes from the Best Picture nominated movies. He managed to pull it off, and Justin Bieber even made a 10-second appearance to “get him the 18-24 demographic,” we’ll see how that worked out. Then came the obligatory song, and my high expectations of the nine-time host were crushed, it just didn’t work. But overall, Billy managed a good opening to the Oscars ceremony, and kept a good handle on the comedy throughout the show, making plenty of references to the bankrupt Kodak Theatre.
Pretty much nothing about this year’s Oscars was outstanding: there was no Kirk Douglas “You know, …” moment like last year, but at least the host knew how to act and wasn’t completely high, and the ceremony wasn’t such a huge, disorganized mess. The banter between the awards’ presenters was just okay. First time presenter Emma Stone and Ben Stiller referenced Stone’s breakout role in “Superbad” and Stiller showing up in full “Avatar” costume and make-up. I really thought that Robert Downey, Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow had a lot of promise, but it just fell flat like Paltrow’s voice does when she sings. But the greatest moment was when Angelina Jolie and showed off her Twitter famous leg (it currently has 38,000+ followers), and seconds later the Best Writing winner Jim Rash imitated her by standing the same way. There was, of course, the breathtaking performance by Cirque du Soleil, but I forgot about it almost immediately after it ended.
Here are the winners of all the awards that the NWN predicted. I got 10 out of 14 right, not too bad for me.
- Best Picture: “The Artist“
- Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, “The Artist“
- Best Actor in a Leading Role: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist“
- Best Actress in a Leading Role:Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady“
- Best Actor in a Supporting Role:Christopher Plummer, “Beginners“
- Best Actress in a Supporting Role:Octavia Spencer, “The Help“
- Best Writing (Original Screenplay): “Midnight in Paris“
- Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): “The Descendants“
- Best Cinematography: “Hugo”
- Best Editing: “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo“
- Best Animated Feature Film: “Rango“
- Best Art Direction: “Hugo“
- Best Costume Design: “Hugo“
- Best Visual Effects: “Hugo”
Pretty predictable, but after snubbing Meryl Streep 14 times, I just expected the Academy to leave her high and dry again; but at least this year, the nominees would have actually deserved to win. My main bone to pick is that none of the visual or artistic awards went to “Harry Potter.” After eight movies, they deserved some kind of recognition for for being the most popular and most loved series of this generation. It at least deserved to win the award for Best Makeup!
When Streep won her long-overdue award, she gave a touching speech about her loving husband and everything, and Best Actress-winner Octavia Spencer couldn’t get a word out because she was hyperventilating, but the really great speech moments of the night belong to Best Actor-winner Jean Dujardin for randomly shrieking out in incomprehensible French and especially to Best Supporting Actor-winner Christopher Plummer, who at 82 (the oldest actor ever to receive this award) ran up on stage like a little kid and stood gazing upon the 84-year-old golden Oscar, wondering where it had been all his life.
Overall, these Oscars were more fun and more organized than last year, and the nominees were actual good movies, and Billy Crystal will never get old.
