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75th Oscar
Won by an unconverted touchdown: Bear 6 Giant 0
Four days into war and with the worst terrorist threat since 911, this Oscar was still reasonably well attended. Steve Martin did a creditable job starting the evening with just the right dose of humour.
The very first award was to my liking: Spirited Away winning best animation. It should be hands down but as this was an American show, one cannot be absolutely sure. Anyway, this, together with numerous other results that followed, went a long way in restoring some of my faith in this institution.
The usual parade of stars followed, announcing and giving out the relatively minor awards. Chicago chalked up a few, LOTR got a couple, as well as Frida. Conspicuously missing was Gangs of New York. Best supporting actor went to the only one that I havn't seen, Chris Cooper in Adaptation. Although I would love to see the other Chris (Walken in Catch Me If You Can) win, I wasn't in a position to judge. Best supporting actress was to my liking, and seeing an eight-month pregnant Zeta-Jones receiving it from Connery (partner in Entrapment) was a joyous sight.
Then, there was the gutsiest moment, with Michael Moore winning best feature documentary, with promised trouble to come. His denunciation of the `fictitiously elected' administration and the war, while strongly worded, was expected, indeed promised. The remarkable thing was that he had all the other nominees on the stage with him, standing in solidarity.
Susan Sharadon hosted the `In Memoria' portion, in which I noted that two of the Magnificent Seven pass away last year: James Coburn and Horst Buchholz. At the end, Steve Martin made what might have been the cleverest remark of the evening: `later, we'll have a rundown of people who you think have died but actually haven't'. The wisdom of this remark became evident very soon.
The `family portrait' is a wonderful idea and, as the camera rolled along, the faces must have brought `ah's and `oo's all around the world. There are too many to mention but the most delightful surprise was seeing Hailey Mills. There also came Jack Palance, whom I thought was dead!
Peter O'Toole got a well-deserved honorary Oscar, and it's hard to believe that he didn't win a single one out of his 7 nominations. I checked my archived records and found that while both Lawrence of Arabia and David Lean won, O'Toole lost to Gregory Peck in To Kill and Mockingbird, in 1962.
Finally, we came to the meaty part, and here was where I got my faith in the Oscar restored. Almodovar, to my great delight, won best original screenplay with Talk To Her. Next, the adapted screenplay won for The Pianist its first award for the evening. Then, against predictions and against all odds, Adrien Brody won the second Oscar for The Pianist and the win was obviously celebrated by all the other 4 nominees: Cage, Nicholson, Day-Lewis and Caine. Then, the impossible happened: they gave best director to Roman Polanski! For this year at least, nobody can accuse Oscar for sacrificing art for politics.
If you look at the history of Oscar, a large percentage of Best Director winners won also Best Picture. Those that won both Best Director and Best Actor would have an overwhelming probability of winning Best Picture. Now, with Director, Actor and Screenplay, The Pianist did not win best picture, showing that Oscar can still surprise you any day. I for one don't find that result objectionable. I compliment Oscar for being gutsy enough to give best director to Polansky. Having conferred The Pianist with these honours, it is not inappropriate to give a brilliantly entertaining movie, Chicago , the Best Picture award. Movies, after all, are in the business of entertaining.
Final score: Bears 6 Giants 0
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76th Oscar
Closing a chapter on the most glorious history of film-making
Last year, I though I was pretty clever in devising in the summary line the link to the NFL of Chicago's 6 Oscars against Gangs of New York's shut out. This year, I have used the summary line to pay tribute to Peter Jackson and company, who have accomplished a minor miracle, although it took them seven odd years. Jackson is looking tired, particularly during the pre-show short interview, together with Elijah Wood, when he said that after tonight, the book will be closed and everyone have to get on with their own life. At that moment, he has said something that is absolutely honest and closest to his heart. But what a glorious closing!
The pre-show started with 13-year old Keisha Castle-Hughes, looking just as fresh, natural, composed as she is in Whale Rider. The star-studded parade continued with the wonderful family of Tom Robbins, Susan Sarandon and two kids, 19-year old Scarlett Johansson, the beautiful couple of Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Judd Law, Bill Muray, Sofia Coppola, Johnny Depp……
Moving inside the theatre, the parade continued with Sandra Bullock, Alec Baldwin, Ben Kingsley, Tom Hanks, Renee Zellweger and Nicole Kidman, Peter Jackon and Elijah Wood, and finally….Keisha got to meet Johnny Depp, her idol. And this is just the pre-show warm-up.
The host Billy Crystal himself was honoured an introduction, which came from none other than Sean Connery. We're then in for quite a treat as the film rolled, with Crystal materialising completely unclothed, Terminator-fashion. The numerous spoofs of this year's movies are fantastic and the cameo appearance of Michael Moore an added bonus. Then, Crystal , now in real person, showed why he is considered by many as the best Oscar host ever. This he accomplished splendidly with the opening musical numbers, one to each of the nominations of best movie: Old Man River ( Mystic River ), Maria (for "Sofia" - Lost in Translation), My Favourite Things (LOTR), Old Turkey Buzzard (Sea Biscuits) and Come Fly with Me (Master and Command). Most marvellous are the lyrics in Old Man River, in tribute to Clint Eastwood: "…most men your age, are dead or dying" while Clint keeps rolling along.
As usual, the award started with best actor in a supporting role. A not-pregnant Zeta-Jones announced Tim Robbins who is not only a most worthy winner, but also a most gracious one. After paying tribute to his fellow nominees, when thanking the rest of the cast in Mystic River , he did not forget to mention the more minor roles such as Lawrence Fishburne.
Next, Angelina Jolie handed out the first of the 11 Oscars that went to LOTR over the rest of the evening. The only thing I want to say is that unlike for most other Oscar presentations, the faces of the behind-the-scene winners in LOTR are familiar, from watching the detailed "making-of" appendix in the extended DVDs of Fellowship and Two Towers .
In between various people handing out various awards to LOTR throughout the evening, the following happened.
Robin Williams did his usual stuff, and handed out the best animation to Finding Nemo, which not even the reckless booker would dream of betting against that evening.
Crystal did two clever, entertaining sketches, one on celebrates' favourite movies and an ad-lib on what people in the theatre were thinking while the camera zoomed in on each one. While this was all very enjoyable, the best was Hilary Clinton's best movie "Kill Bill".
When the camera zoomed on to Renee Zellweger upon announcement of her win in best actress in a supporting role, we saw her happy reaction, as she carefully took a small piece of paper out of her small purse, names of people she wanted to thank. Although I think that the only other nominee that I have seen, Marcia Gay Harden, actually was better, I was happy that Zellweger won. Harden had won before, and Zellweger's performance in Chicago last year deserved winning the Oscar over Nicole Kidman in The Hours.
Much less controversial than Michael More last year, the winner of best documentary did make reference to going down a rabbit hole (of wars), which drew some small commotion. Crystal showed his stuff again by his easy humour "can't wait for his tax audit”"and a saying-nothing comment "let's go down the rabbit hole together".
The five nominated best songs were performed in two separate slots. It was wonderful to see LOTR winning both song and original score, particularly the latter, as its music is just divinely beautiful.
Talking about beautiful, when Charlize Theron came out to present the best foreign film, I still secretly suspected that maybe it was really a different person that played Aileen Wuornos in Monster. As I did not expect Twilight Samurai to win, I can't say that I was disappointed. Also, in all fairness, I have not seen any of the other nominees. And yet, Twilight Samurai is such a wonderful film and I just hope that more people get to see it.
This year, tribute was paid to Catharine Hepburn and Gregory Peck, two of the greatest stars that ever graced the silver screen.
Excitement mounted as the "major”"awards started to be announced. Judd Law and Uma Thurman presented best cinematography, a rare LOTR-free category this year, to Master and Command. My personal favourite here is Girl with a Pearl Earring. Except for the one I have not seen, all the other three nominees (Master and Command, Cold Mountain , Sea Biscuits) have their main attraction in grandiose scenes: snow-clad mountain, roaring ocean, expansive grassland. This makes Girl with a Pearl Earring stand out, with its subtleties and superb handling of light.
Coppola father and daughter paired up ("the only 65-year-old man and 32-year-old woman in Hollywood not dating each other", quipped Crystal) handed out the best adapted screenplay award to LOTR, then Sofia herself became the recipient of best original screenplay from the hands of Oscar-winner couple Tom Robbins and Susan Sarandon. This win should be among the most predictable as voters would want to give her a well-deserved recognition in Lost in Translation and yet the best director award absolutely must go to Peter Jackson, who, with commendable composure and grace, received it later from Tom Cruise. "He's wearing shoes" quipped Crystal again, to the delight of people who have watched the "making of" appendix of Fellowship and Two Towers over and over again, like myself.
A somewhat flamboyant Adrien Brody awarded the best actress Oscar to an appropriately excited Charlize Theron, who made a commendably honest and straightforward acceptance speech, after Kidman's slightly awkward one in praise of the arts last year, and the cheap stuff with which Halle Berry insulted the audience's intelligence two years ago. Sean Penn's win did not appear to be too well received by Bill Murray. Anyway, the completely no-surprise win of LOTR's in best picture, in a clean sweep of all 11 Oscars it was nominated for, marks a perfect closing a chapter on the most glorious history of film-making.
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77th Oscar
Compared with the preceding two years, the 77th Annual Academy Award Show was really bland. Hope that reporting in a Memento style will make it less boring.
"The Fockers" (Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand) presenting Best Picture is the blandest. It's depressing to see two great stars looking like zombies. Most favored Million Dollar Baby's (4/5 odds) beat close contender Aviator (even odds). Seems like substance won over form. Julia Robert looked just as disinterested, giving out Best Director to 75-year-old Clint Eastwood (his second), who called himself "just a kid" compared with Sydney Lumet (80), to everybody's delight. Jamie Foxx, most favored (even odds) but followed closely by Eastwood (7/5 odds), received the Best Actor statuette from the hands of last year's Best Actress, Charlize Theron.
Gwyn Paltrow and Samuel Earl Jackson, equally no-nonsense, presented Best Foreign Language and Best Original Screenplay to The Sea Inside and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind respectively, two good wins. As the camera swept the team for Eternal Sunshine, a glimpse of Kirsten Dunst reminded us that she is part of the cast.
After receiving her second Best Actress Oscar from the hands of Sean Penn, Hilary Swank delivered a sincere and graceful acceptance speech.
A serious-looking Prince handed out the Best Song Award to one of the 5 songs performed earlier at different intervals. The one I enjoyed most was the last one, Beyonce and Josh Groban’s divinely beautiful duet of the theme song from Polar Express. Before that, Tony Banderas sang the entry from Motorcycle Diaries, to a beautiful guitar accompaniment. Equally enjoyed was Beyonce singing the theme song of The Choir, with choral backup from a boy-choir. The song specially written for Phantom of the Opera, even performed by Beyonce and ALW himself (at the piano), wasn’t that inspiring. The song from Shrek 2 is forgettable.
This year's "In memoriam" was accompanied by Yo Yo Ma's cello solo.
An experiment this year was to present some awards in the centre of the auditorium, to provide some variety as also to make way for whatever preparations needed on the stage for the next item. These include presentations made by Cate Blanchet, Laura Linney and Jeremy Irons, who showed his quick wits when a rather loud sound from outside was heard in the middle of his sentence. Unperturbed, he finished it, and added "I hope they missed".
Some other awards presented through the evening were Adapted Screenplay by Adam Sadler, Cinematography by Kate Winslet, Sound (two awards, for Mix and Editing) by Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz, Editing by Bloom/Dunst, Short Documentary by Natalie Portman and Score by John Travolta. As in quite a few previous shows, animated figures got in the act. This year, it was adorable fashion designer Edna helping out Pierce Brosnan, appropriately in the costume category.
In the tribute and special award department, late Johnny Carson got a much deserved tribute, while 80-year-old Sydney Lumet, who directed 12 Angry Man plus numerous other movies, received an honorary award. His acceptance speech is among the most graceful heard in Oscar Award shows.
Chris Rock was a pale shadow compared with Billy Crystal and there's no point dwelling on him. The first "important" award was presented by Rene Zellweger and the announcement of the name Morgan Freeman brought a standing ovation, a wonderfully heart-warming sight to behold.
Going now back to the beginning, the half-hour "red carpet" pre-show paraded, as usual, a list of the cliché question to various celebrities. Of particular interest is advice on acceptance speeches. As if to test if that the biggest lies are most likely to be believed, Halle Berry said that the best thing to do with an acceptance speech is to just say spontaneously and naturally what is in you mind. We don't need any reminder of that hypocritical, contrived, rehearsed-to-death piece of trash she insulted the audience with three years ago.
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78th Oscar
Short and simple, and nothing wrong with it
Everything is relative so "short" in this context means less than three and a half hour - "we can all go home to watch desperate housewives", as Jon Stewart quipped near the end of the show.
After a rather clever series of short takes on a parade of recent hosts who declined the job this year (Billy Crystal, Chris Rock, Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg...) Jon Stewart appeared, first on the screen, then in person. Sensibly, he kept the stand-up comedy low-key. Some of his sharper/funnier lines are about a movie on journalist relentlessly pursuing the truth being a "period piece", or "Walk the line" being a remake of "Ray" with white people.
Then came the first "montage", as they call it, a series of film clips paying tribute to certain aspects of the film industry. This first one however was a spoof, on could-have-been gay scenes in westerns. The best is the one from The Big Country, when Gregory Peck woke Charlton Heston up in the middle of the night to "say goodbye" (actually for a fist fight, if you haven't seen this great movie), with Heston sitting up in bed, unclothed from waist up, displaying his enviable physique. Throughout the show, we see a variety of these "montages" introduced by various people - tributes to biopics (Russell Crowe), black and white movies (Lauren Bacall), movies with social messages (Samuel Earl Jackson), epics (Jake Gellamhaal).
Naomi Watt, Jennifer Lopez and Queen Latifah introduced the three nominated songs at various junctures, with Dolly Parton singing one of them (Watt actually introduced Parton rather than the song). King Kong picked up three technical awards - two in the sound department, presented respectively by the Jennifer Aniston/Eric Bana pair and Jennifer Gardner, and special effect presented by Ben Stiller in a silly "invisible" green-effect outfit. Equally silly, if not sillier, are Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell in funny make ups presenting the make up award to Narnia.
Presenter of the awards most of the audience are not interest in included the Luke/Owen Wilson brothers, Terrence Howard and Charliez Theron. Of slightly more interest are animation (Rabbit) presented by Witherspoon and foreign language ( South Africa 's Totsie) presented by Will Smith. Rachel MacAdam appeared on screen to introduce the pre-recorded "science and technology" awards presented in advance Oscar night.
The three "visual" awards - costume, art direction and cinematography - were presented by Jennifer Ainston, Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves and John Travolta.
There seems to be fewer special events (like the "family portrait" a couple of years ago) this year. The usual "in memoria" was introduced by George Clooney. The special honour, to Robert Altman, brought up what to me was the best moment of the evening - Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep's introduction, in which they, among other things, gave an absolutely fantastic delivery of overlapping dialogue (Altman's favourite style), demonstrating to new comers that they still have a lot to learn. Academy President's speech was appropriate in both length and content, and I like his highlighting the "story telling" aspect of a motion picture, which is always the key regardless of what technological advancements we have.
There seems to be certain patterns to this year's award, such as each of the acting wins turned out to be the only win for the movie. Nicole Kidman presented best supporting actor to George Clooney (Sariana), presumably because Cate Blanchett for some reason couldn't make it to the ceremony. Clooney made a politically wise point about it's really not possible to compare different roles. Morgan Freeman presented best supporting actress to Rachel Weize (The constant gardener) whose acceptance speech was nice but not particularly memorable. Hillary Swank presented best leading actor to Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) who was characteristically low key, making a simple, honest acceptance speech. Jamie Foxx presented best leading actress to Reese Witherspoon (Walk the line) who made the sweetest acceptance speech not just for the evening, but probably for the entire history of Oscar.
Often going together, best director and best picture went to two different movies, each of which picked up three Oscars (including screenplay in both cases). " Brokeback Mountain " received best score and best adapted screenplay from the hands of Salma Hayek and Dustin Hoffman respectively. I had been willing to bet with anyone that "I wish I knew how to quit you" would be uttered by someone sometime during the evening. It was slightly surprising to hear it almost the end of the ceremony, from director Ang Lee himself, picking up his award from Tom Hanks. (No, he was not saying it to Tom, but to the statue in his hand). Like many others, Lee's acceptance speech in politically appropriate, including the last "thanks for caring about me" in Chinese to supporters in Taiwan , Hong Kong and the Mainland of China. "Crash" received best editing from Zhang Ziyi and best original screen play by Ulma Truman, two women who both happened to have mortified a whole lot of men with their swords on the screen. Finally, Jack Nicholson (who faked leaving the stage after saying "good night, and good luck", the name of the fourth nominated picture announced), handed Best Picture to "Crash", the surprise of the Oscar night which had hitherto been one of the most predictable.
To recap, this must have been among the most low-key and predictable Oscar nights. In terms of the wins, it was very different from two years ago when one movie swept ALL the 11 Oscars it got nominated for (and I have absolutely no problem with that because the movie was Lord of the Rings: Return of the King). This year, a lot more movies won at least something, and award for the "major" categories are spread just about as much as you can go.
