The Results!

     It was a night of anticipation, a year in the making. The 82nd Annual Academy Awards were last night, March 7, 2010, the night when moviegoers and moviemakers alike sit down to watch the best of the best win the trophies: the Oscars! With ten best picture nominations and a female and an African American in the running for best director, tonight was a night of firsts. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosted the event, their opening number being a bash of all the nominees in the highest categories, but did little else the rest of the night.
     It was a three and a half hour tribute to films and the people that make them, a length that was more than unnecessary, being filled for the most part by clips of the nominated best picture films. Unlike most years, this year had only two musical numbers, one being the opening song, sung by Neil Patrick Harris, and the other being a dance set to the nominated best original scores. Overall, the show turned out to be a bit bland.
     An attempt to spruce it up was a tribute to the late John Hughes, and a second tribute the remaining deceased film-makers and actors (a blatant pass over Ms. Fawcett, with a tribute to Michael Jackson). There was also a tribute to the Horror genre... a collage of clips from movies, presented by Twilight's Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner. ("even an unexplained homage to the horror film, a genre that is very much alive." -Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times).
     The awards saw some surprises, such as The Hurt Locker's numerous wins, and some non-sruprises, including the win for best supporting actor and actress. The oddest part of the night, however, was the ending. Due to the lengthiness of the show, and the fact that the best picture award is always given at the end of the night, Tom Hanks walked on stage, opened the envelope and read the winner. There was no, "and here are the nominees for..." It was a rushed ending to allow the producers and director a chance to give their thanks, and no time for Martin and Baldwin to wrap up the evening.
     The complete list of wins by movie is as follows:

•The Hurt Locker:
-Best Picture
-Best Director
-Best Sound Mixing
-Best Sound Editing
-Best Original Screenplay
-Best Editing

•Avatar:
-Best Cinematography
-Best Art Direction
-Best Visual Effects

•Crazy Heart
-Best Lead Actor: Jeff Bridges
-Best Original Song: "The Weary Kind" by Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett









•UP
-Best Animated Feature
-Best Original Score

•Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
-Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique
-Best Adapted Screenplay

•The Blind Side
-Best Lead Actress: Sandra Bullock

•Inglorious Basterds
-Best Supporting Actor:  Christoph Waltz










•The Young Victoria
-Best Costume Design

•Star Trek
-Best Makeup










•El secreto de sus ojos
-Best Foreign Language Film









•The Cove
-Best Documentary Feature








•Music by Prudence
-Best Documentary Short

•Logorama
-Best Animated Short

•The New Tenants
-Best Live Short


"The Hurt Locker" Wins Big at Oscars by Michael Cieply and Brooks Barnes

The Drama of How The Race Is Won by Melena Ryzik

Supersizing The Show (Austerity Is So 2009) by Alessandra Stanley

Oscars! 2009

     Yesterday the Oscar nominations were released, this year introducing the 10-nominee roster for Best Picture. No surprise are the 9 nominations for Avatar including best picture and best visual effects among some of them. What is surprising, though, is that The Hurt Locker received just as many nominations, including best picture and best actor.
     The 10-spot roster for best picture includes the two aforementioned films, along with Precious, Inglorious Bastards,District 9, The Blind Side, An Education, A Serious Man, UP, and Jason Reitman's  Up In The Air.
     The inclusion of UP as a contender for the best Picture is a serious change of pace. Since the movie is also nominated for best Animated feature, I doubt it will be able to win both. In my opinion, the oscars may be making way for Fantastic Mr. Fox, or Coraline to win best Animated feature, and UP will just have to live with two nominations. (of course, I could be wrong... but it seems odd to include UP in both Best Picture and Best Animated Feature categories.)
     Unfortunately, Avatar is probably going to win a great number of its nominations, mainly because of its receipt at the box office. Having crossed the $2 billion mark (and beating Titanic's all-time world-wide record) and on the verge of crossing the $600 million mark (which it could possible surpass by the end of today), Avatar has a good chance of being the pick.
     In another arena, the best original score (another one of my favorite aspects of film following (next to box office counts)) has some good contenders with some of my favorite composers in the running. UP, the score by Michael Giacchino (Star Trek, Lost, Alias,Mission Impossible III, and several other Pixar films) is in the running with another animation Fantastic Mr. Fox by Alexandre Desplat (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Golden Compass, The Queen). Marco Beltrami (3:10 to Yuma, I, Robot, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines) composed for The Hurt Locker alongside Buck Sanders. Hans Zimmer, one of my most recent favorites, (Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Dark Knight, The DaVinci Code, Thelma and Louise) composed for Sherlock Holmes this year. And of course,Avatar's composer James Horner (Titanic, Troy, A Beautiful Mind,Glory) takes his stab at the Oscar.