Here's My Take On The Oscars...

ok, so I've been lazy and should have posted my predictions before they actually happened, ok? A lot of the nominations I don't really care about this year (not so much don't care, but don't really know the films, yet). I tried to see most of the major nominees this year, and probably did better than ever before, but I still missed out on Walk The Line. I'll try and catch up with this real soon, as it's apparently a rockin' good time.

Foreign Language Film:
Always a good crowd. Congrats to Tsotsi. But Michael Haneke's flick should have been nominated. Bad Oscars. Different language to entering country is one of the many problems that Oscar just has to fix.

Animated Feature:
Only saw Wallace & Gromit so shouldn't really comment, but WAY TO GO. Although Park has more trophies than Miyazaki. Hadn't connected this to Corpse Bride until I saw Helena sitting there. Interesting the way this year (not sure if they've done it before) but they had the multiple nominees sitting in groups together. Bashing distance?

Visual Effects:
King Kong was probably deserving but it was a fairly tight race this year. The Star Wars snub was odd (but it wasn't an altogether ILM snub). Next Oscar problem is the bizarre way they pick and choose who gets nominated in these multiple people categories. I guess it makes it harder when they have twenty supervisors on the blockbusters these days.

Sound Editing:
Again, it's fairly common for the most successful blockbuster of the year (or was it?) to get a number of the technical awards (T2, Jurassic Park etc.) and nothing substantial. I personally would have given it to Richard King for War Of The Worlds, but what the heck was Memoirs Of A Geisha doing in here? Don't you know only films with explosions and crashes can come in here?

Sound:
Ditto above, although Walk The Line winning would've been nice.

Makeup:
Great to see Howard Berger get his first Oscar (and the first for KNB), but again the mulitple people categories were screwed as Nikki Gooley missed out on Oscar. And these categories should be increased to five nominations if there are enough films available (i mean, what about Sin City, Land Of The Dead sheesh?). Kinda odd to have two fantasy films and a boxing film. Oh well, better than those wasteland years when all they nominated were old age makeups.

Song:
It's Hard Out Here For A Pimp was far and away the most deserving nomination here. And congrats for the performance too, being able to censor yourself and not loose your artistic integrity.

Score:
Again, the most deserving wins (Brokeback). Nice to see some new names in the nominations as well as the ubiqutous John Williams.

Costume Design:
One of my least favorite categories, as it always seems that period films get nominated. Fuck, costuming is soo hard, in any film. I would have given it to Brokeback for those damn shirts. And why don't fantasy films ever get nominated? They don't even have research to fall back on. The fact that all these technical categories are voted by the members of each skill makes it even all the more bizarre.

Art Direction:
Again, the safe play with Memoirs. Would have given it to Good Night & Good Luck, but at least Kong and Harry Potter got nominated.

Editing:
zzzzzzz. I'm sorry. Crash won this. Whatever. When the hell's Mark Goldblatt going to win an Oscar?

Cinematography:
At least it was an Aussie (Dion Beebe for Memoirs). Boring as hell acceptance speech though. Would have given it to Good Night. Nice to see The New World in here though.

Adapted Screenplay:
Ok the big guns now. Brokeback won, and probably deserved to win in this category, although the two overriding factors were, it's McMurty, who is really highly respected and two, it's a consolation prize.

Original Screenplay:
A Best Picture must win in its Screenplay category. I think people must think that to have a great film you must have a great screenplay. Bullshit. I like Crash. But it ain't all that. I would rather given it any of the other nominees for the following reasons: Good Night (it's well written and would have been a consolation prize for one of the genuine best films of the year), Match Point (it's a return to form for Woody), Squid and Whale (Baumbach is a talent to watch out for) and my personal choice, Syriana (how Gaghan distilled all that research into a coherent film is anyone's guess).

Directing:
Thoroughly deserving for Ang Lee, this was a consolation prize for not getting Best Picture. Bitter sweet. There were never any other contenders in this category, surely?

Supporting Actress:
Nice. The lovely Rachel Weisz. Thoroughly deserving (haven't seen the flick yet, I just like here), although everyone in this category is excellent.

Supporting Actor:
Not to diss Clooney as he gives his best performance yet in Syriana, but, again, this was a consolation prize for not getting Director or Screenplay. Would have given it to Gyllenhaal in a perfect world.

Actress:
Again, not to diss Reese, WTF? This was supposed to be Felicity Huffman's night?! Although, again, it's yet another case of someone getting an award for a body of work. Go back and watch Freeway or Election or Twilight. She's bloody good.

Actor:
What? No barking? Thoroughly deserving for Hoffman. Maybe I can now pitch my film idea, Hoffman VS. Hoffman, where PS. Hoffman and Dustin Hoffman play gay fathers fighting over the custody of their child (BTW, Dusty, please stop with the hamming, you do it every awards show). This is probably the only major category, though, where I wouldn't have been unhappy with anyone winning it. But Scotty T was always the one.

Picture:
The biggest upset controversey of the night. I don't wann be mean, as I really liked Crash, but, WHAT THE FUCKING HELL HAPPENED HERE? It was Brokeback's time. It was time for people to pull their heads out of the sand and realise what a profound and important filmmaker that Ang Lee is (Hulk notwithstanding). Good Night would have been my second choice. But now I realise the truth. If anyone ever got to see the vote count for this it would have been: Crash (1001), Brokeback (1000), Good Night (750), Munich (400), Capote (250). But that's not to diss Capote, a fine first film. Clearly people were divided over the themes raised in Brokeback and as I understand it, it's a bit of an East Coast-West Coast thing. People clearly aren't ready. Oh well, that shouldn't mean people shouldn't keep trying. It's not like this is a competition or anything?