From the important to the ridiculous, yeah, I’m blogging my opinions on the Oscars.
Final tally:
- Moulin Rouge: 2
- Lord of the Rings (“The Hobbits”): 4
- Black Hawk Down: 2
- A Beautiful Mind (“The Schizophrenic Mathematician”): 4
The beginning started off with two voices doing intros. The guy was Donald Sutherland–who was the woman? (Later note: Glenn Close)
First on stage: Tom Cruise: Yeah, he’s wearing braces. Hey, Sean, you’re not the only one!
A short film with a bunch of people talking about how wonderful the movies are. I really have no idea who most of these people are, but I’m sure they’re famous to a bunch of people who are more in touch with pop culture than I am. Laura Bush? Really big sigh. I sure don’t care what she thinks.
Whoopi Goldberg enters from the ceiling, ala “Moulin Rouge” (aka “ADD: The Musical!”).
The new theater looks pretty cool. I wonder what you have to do to get into the boxes–be so important that you get a good seat, but not so important that you have a shot at an award?
Best supporting actress: Jennifer Connolly, for “A Beautiful Mind.” Never saw it… but then, I didn’t see many movies last year. I did read the book, though.
30 minutes in, we’re welcomed by the president of the Academy. What, nothing before this mattered?
Will Smith gets stuck with the job of explaining the technical Oscars, but at least they give him good words to work with.
Best editing winner: Pietro Scalia, for “Black Hawk Down.” Another one I never saw.
Best makeup: if LotR can’t win this, it can’t win anything. Oh, good, it did. Finally, one that I saw!
Reese Witherspoon: good dress.
Cameron Diaz: bad hair.
A look at “In the Bedroom.” Didn’t see it. Looks really, really depressing.
Gah! I’m caught up with live, so I can’t skip past any more commercials. I’ve barely watched a commercial since we got ReplayTV.
Ben Stiller can’t just give an award. It always has to be about him. I am so willing for his 15 minutes to be over. I just do not find him to be funny.
Best costume design: Go LotR! Unfortunately, it’s probably going to be Moulin Rouge–and yep, they win.
Whoopi starts to introduce someone who sounds like it ought to be Woody Allen, but it won’t be, because he never comes to these things. I can’t think of anyone else who fits that description, though. Wow… it is Woody.
Woody has more hair than Ron Howard. There is a god.
Woody introduces a montage of film clips about NYC, put together by Nora Ephron. Every film I thought of that ought to be there was there. Maybe not the clips I would have picked, but good job, nonetheless.
Jodi Foster, presenting best cinematography. She looks gorgeous, as always.
Best cinematographer: Rob Hahn, for “The Score.” Nope, wrong universe. Rob, you wuz robbed! Actual winner: LotR. Hey, that makes two!
Mimes? There are mimes at the Oscars? I guess that when you have a captive audience, you can make them watch mimes.
Back from the commercials, and Whoopi is dressed as a maid, to present a look at “Gosford Park.” Haven’t seen this one, either (big surprise!), but it’s on the list of films that I want to see that I won’t get Tom to in a million years.
Helen Hunt: bad hair, bad tan, so-so dress, to present best documentary. A short film is shown of clips from documentaries, done by Penelope Spheeris.
Whoops, no, the award will actually be presented by Samuel L. Jackson. Helen was just introducing the clips.
Best documentary: “Murder on a Sunday Morning.”
Best documentary short subject: “Thoth.”
Cameron Diaz: hair is still bad, dress is so-so, presents the award for best art direction.
Best art direction: “Moulin Rouge.”
Whoopi gives the technical Oscars an entire 30 seconds or so. And for those who hadn’t previously noticed, there’s a new category for best animated feature–about time, imo.
Best animated feature: “Shrek”. Too bad, I thought that Monsters, Inc. was better. I thought the clips of each of the movies pre and post-announcement were cool. I’d like to see what the alternate versions of each of the post-announcement clips looked like, but they’ll probably never be shown.
Halle Berry (so-so dress) presenting for sound direction.
Best achievement in sound: “Black Hawk Down.” Wow, “Pearl Harbor” was actually nominated for something?
Best achievement in sound editing: “Pearl Harbor.” Double wow… I was amazed that that turkey was nominated; I never thought that it would actually win anything.
Marcia Gay Harden (now, that’s a dress!) presenting best supporting actor.
Best supporting actor: Go, Sir Ian! No, it goes to Jim Broadbent, for “Iris.”
To honor LotR, Whoopi comes out with fake furry feet. God, I loved that movie. Cam was showing off his bootleg DVD at SXSW, and I seriously considered trying to figure out how to, ummm, separate him from it.
Ian McKellan and Maggie Smith introducing Cirque du Soliel. I guess they were the mimes I briefly saw earlier, but I still object to the concept in general. I can put up with this, although it seems to have little to do with the movies in general, because it seems that we’re being spared musical numbers for each nominated song–yay!
I would like to state, though, that whoever had the idea that “Hey, special effects aren’t very interesting to watch, so we need some people out in front of the screen so that we can’t see any of the clips!” should be taken out and shot. Or at least should never work in Hollywood again. Throughout this piece, I kept wanting the Cirque to get out of the way so I could see the clips! Sheesh.
Kirsten Dunst (good, but not great, dress) and Toby Maguire to present the award for visual effects.
Best visual effects: “LotR.” Well deserved, imo.
Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal give the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award to Arthur Hiller.
Ben Kingsley (no tux, just a suit–why? And please, notice that I’m snarky about everyone’s clothes, not just the women’s) introducing a tribute to movie music. Okay, why couldn’t the Cirque be out in front of these clips? And with John Williams conducting the orchestra, it feels rather self-referential that so much of the music he’s conducting was written by him.
Sandra Bullock (interesting dress–I think I like it. Great hair.) and Hugh Grant present the award for original score.
Best original score: “LotR.”
Denzel Washington is giving an award to Sidney Poitier (I think I spelled that right). Or was he just introducing Walter Mirisch? Nice clips talking about how much African-American actors owe to him for being the first. He comes out and accepts his honorary Oscar.
Oh, good, Whoopi did a John Ashcroft joke.
Hugh Jackman and some blond Australian nobody are giving the short film awards.
Best live action short: “The Accountant.”
Best animated short: “For the Birds.”
Josh Harnett (in a bad tux) introduces the medley for best song. This was what I commented earlier that I was hoping we could avoid, but at least they’re just lumping it all together so I can skip past it. I should probably watch it so I can blog any train wrecks, though.
Tom is surprised that Enya actually sounds like that without studio effects. I’m not convinced that she’s not just lip-synching. Oh, cool–John Goodman is singing. I spent the whole song, though, hoping for the incredibly unlikely chance that Billy Crystal would show up to join him and Randy Newman. It’s a shame that Paul McCartney thinks that it’s necessary to dye his hair. Must be ’cause he’s got a young babe now.
Tom’s comment: “Wow, they’re doing one big medley of all the best song nominees? Toilets must be flushing all over America as we speak.”
Jennifer Lopez (wow–J Lo’s got a good dress for once!) presenting the original song award. I think that that’s the same hairdo I wore at my Bat Mitzvah 28 years ago, and it didn’t look good on me then, either.
Best original song: Randy Newman, for “Monsters, Inc.”
Yeah, right, it was going to end by 8:30. I think we’re a long ways from over.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke present the screenplay awards. Bad dress, Gwyneth, bad dress!
Best adapted screenplay: “A Beautiful Mind.”
Best original screenplay: “Gosford Park.”
John Travolta and Sharon (“What woman wouldn’t want to put her husband in a cage with a komodo dragon?” says Whoopi) Stone present the foreign film award. Great dress, Sharon!
Best foreign film: “No Man’s Land” from Bosnia. I’m surprised; I thought that “Amelie” was a shoo-in.
Kevin Spacey comes out to do the usual tribute to those in biz who died in 2001, but instead asks for a moment of silence for the 9-11 victims. What color ribbon is Kevin wearing, anyway? [IMO, we ought to have a ribbon to protest against the CBDTPA]
I’m glad that George Harrison was recognized as a movie producer.
A look at “Moulin Rouge.” Love it or hate it, it was an amazing spectacle. And if you saw it, you either loved it or hated it.
The titles say that Barbra Streisand was to present the award for best actress, but she instead introduces Robert Redford. Ah, Redford… I saw “The Sting” again recently. Jeez, that man was (and still is) gorgeous. Again, I suspect that he’s dyeing his hair, and he doesn’t need to, either.
Russell Crowe comes on the present the best Actress award. While I wasn’t a big “Moulin Rouge” fan, that was one of the worst clips to show, imo.
Best Actress: Halle Berry for “Monster’s Ball.” She freaked out at first, but then recovers. She is just so damn happy that I’m happy for her.
At this point, my battery starts to give out (what, only four hours?
A look at “A Beautiful Mind.” I think this is the last of the five nominated pictures.
Julia Roberts presents the award for best actor. Funky dress. Why aren’t there better dresses this year?
Best actor: Denzel Washington for “Training Day.” The pundits like to find themes in what wins, and I think that this year’s theme is “Year of the African-American,” between Sidney Poitier, Halle Berry, and Denzel Washington. Long overdue and well-deserved.
Tom disagrees with me about Julia’s dress and thinks that it’s fabulous, but I don’t think that armpits are the feature that a dress should show off.
Local boy Mel Gibson shows up to present the award for best director. Why can’t these guys wear tuxedos? Again, it’s not just the women who are dressing badly this year.
Best director: Ron Howard for “A Beautiful Mind.” Tom says, “It makes up for the one he didn’t get for Apollo 13.”
Tom Hanks presenting the award for best picture, four hours and ten minutes after the show started. Gonna be a lot of tired people on the east coast tomorrow, I suspect.
Best picture: “A Beautiful Mind.” Ron Howard is one happy guy.