Post Oscar musings

Alright, people who had predicted Crash would win Best Motion Picture at this year's Oscars, please raise your hands.
LIARS! haha.

Jack Nicholson, who presented the big award, looked visibly stunned when he opened the envelope to announce the winners and the wild celebrations amongst the cast and crew of Crash accurately summed up their emotions. I'm sure they would've been quietly confident of their chances, but Brokeback Mountain had been sweeping much of the major awards and it looked like the Academy, as was the trend over the past two years, would follow suit. But not so last night. Which is why it's such a fascinating event to watch. I've watched Crash, not once, but twice in theaters. It's a compelling movie and deserves every award it won, if not more.

Coming to my predictions, well, I'd made 10 predictions. And I broke even with 5 right and 5 wrong. Obviously I got the Best picture pick wrong. Also the Best editing (Crash) and Best Cinematography (Memoirs of a Geisha). In hindsight, it was a good decision to stop the predictions with the top 10 categories, cos I would've definitely lost more than five, courtesy Memoirs of a Geisha (which picked up 3 awards).

And ofcourse the best supporting categories - I was rooting for George Clooney and Rachel Weisz, and they won. I am pleased. Although I didn't pick them. Oh well, will just have to wait till next year.

High-points of the Show :-

1) Jon Stewart was brilliantly funny. Sarcastic, subtle, relaxed, he hit the right notes most of the time and kept the audiences in high spirits. He had some zippy one-liners, astute observations and incredibly funny right through the whole evening. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets the job next year too. Good work.

2) Speech given by the Director of the South african movie "Tsotsi" which won the Best foreign language category. It was heartfelt, emotional with an almost unrestrained joy and pride of being South African - " God bless South Africa"

3) Meryl Streep and lily Tomlin, two fantastic actresses, brillantly illustrating the Robert Altman school of filmaking by improvising their act on stage.

4) Philip Seymour Hoffman, while giving his acceptance speech, thanked his mom -"She brought up four kids alone. She took me to my first play, she stayed up with me and watched the NCAA Final Four - we're at the party, ma!" That was touching.

5) Rachel Weisz and George Clooney winning the best supporting actress and actors awards. Both individuals are box-office stars but are also at the same time establishing themselves as serious, thinking actors. Rachel Weisz rightly credited John Lacarre' the superb british writer whose book 'The Constant Gardener' formed much of the base for the movie -"this unflinching, angry story." It's definitely a must read. As are all Lacarre's books. More on that in a seperate post.

6) Kathleen Bird York's powerful rendering of her song "In the deep" from the movie Crash which was nominated for Best song.

7) Keira Knightley. Damn she looks gorgeous. What was she doing sitting next to that old perv Jack Nicholson anyway?Grr.

8) Reese Witherspoon gracefully acknowledging, in her acceptance speech, her co-star Joaquin Phoenix's inspirational performance in the movie Walk the line - "He put his heart and soul into this performance".And the camera closes-up on Joaquin Phoenix and I almost immediately, and strangely, felt a certain sadness in him not winning the Best actor award.

9) Itzhak Perlman's violin medley of original scores.

10) Shorter acceptance speeches. Thankfully this year we were spared the usual laundry list of people to thank ( my lawyer, my driver, my dog..). As a result the show seemed to proceed quicker.

The not-so high points of the Show :-

1) Reese Witherspoon's acceptance speech, except for some parts, as mentioned above. She sounded fake. But it did get better towards the end though.

2) Tom Hanks mediocre attempt at being funny. He really looks wierd with that new hairstyle.

3) Charlize theron's dress...the thing growing out of her left shoulder...

4) What was with the annoying elevator music being played while people were making their acceptance speeches? Very distracting.


Did anybody watch the American Express commercial with Manoj Night Shyamalan? It was pretty cool.

I think that wraps up the Oscar based discussions for this year. I'll probably jazz up the post with pictures at some point. May also try to include some of Jon Stewarts funny lines and memorable parts of some of the acceptance speeches. May have to look around a bit on the internet.

-Nav