Sunday, February 25, 2007

Good show

So, Martin Scorsese and Helen Mirren finally win and it's now officially easier to win an Oscar if you were on American Idol than it is if you were on Saturday Night Live.

I don't have a whole lot to say, I sort of caught the show in bits and pieces between working on a couple of show photo galleries for work. I did catch Ellen's opening monologue and the presentations for most of the major awards. Any time an interpretive dance number started I immediately went back to work (is the show's producer Laura Ziskin responsible for that dumb decision?).

No major complaints on the winners. I was 15 out of 21 with my predictions (missing supporting actor, animated film, foreign language film, cinematography, costume design and original score) and none of the predicted winners really bothered me, nor do any of my non-predicted winners.

Pan's Labyrinth's loss to The Lives of Others for foreign film is ok considering Pan's won three awards overall and this gives some attention to the worthy German film. And although I wish I had stuck with my gut and predicted Happy Feet for its eventual animated film win I'm much happier predicting it wouldn't win only to see it win rather than vice versa.

I liked Jennifer Hudson's emotional speech the best but Helen Mirren and Martin Scorsese (and his longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker) also chose their words wisely.

Al Gore and Melissa Etheridge were in a league of their own, reminding viewers of something considerably more meaningful than a silly awards show. To paraphrase both: they weren't making political statements, they were making moral statements.

Ellen seemed to do a nice job, the original song performances didn't sound too dull and there were classy presentations for several categories (the models for costume design; the screenplay excerpts; etc.).

And, in a nice change of pace from last year, this time the best picture actually won. I can't ask for much more than that.

1 comment:

Larry McGillicuddy said...

Of course, it is even easier to win if you were on Beverly Hills, 90210.