Belligerent and Numerous: A Brief Oscar Follow Up

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A Brief Oscar Follow Up

I have mostly nothing to say about The Oscars, except that I pretty much uniformly enjoyed this year's ceremony, much more so than usual, even if the winners were a bit predictable.

Best Bits (In order of Bestness):

Anne Hathaway! God, I love her. Totally being the best part of the intro pretending to be Nixon, getting all choked up at Shirley MacLaine's tribute, and then looking genuinely happy for Kate Winslet when she won. She completes me.
Dustin Lance Black, and that super cute (and political) speech. Definitely the best one of the night.
Sean Penn. Not only did he win, he was sort of charming about it! I was absolutely dreading my mixed feelings of happiness and loathing if he won and then gave a douchey speech, but instead it was all happiness. Good for him.
Tina Fey & Steve Martin. The best presenters by a mile, and genuinely funny.
The part of the opening dance number when Hugh Jackman was all "The Reader... I haven't seen The Reader" and all the crazy metallic dancing guys. Possibly the only time I laughed out loud during the whole show.
No wait, I also laughed when Will Smith said "Boom goes the dynamite."
James Franco watching James Franco. If Anne Hathaway hadn't already completed me, he would do the job.
Kate Winslet winning and being ultra cute and having her dad whistle. I am really glad she finally won one.

Overall this was one of my favorite Oscars ever, even if you factor in the parts where the random Musical Tribute to Music and Zac Effron's really unfortunate looking hair. It's weird, I really didn't care about the awards much as all, but the viewing experience was pretty awesome.

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Where My Opinions Count

(500) Days of Summer - Let's start with the caveat that this movie is nothing but a stacked deck against me. You've got Joseph Gordon-Levitt (seriously my favorite actor in the world), in a funny role of a guy unsure of what he wants to do with his professional life while his love life is in constant turmoil. Oh, and Regina Spektor songs keep playing in the background. If there is such a thing as a movie marketed directly to me, this is it. But y'all, this movie is so good. Not in a traditional storyline sense. Or even in an acting sense (although JGL is on fire the entire way through). It's about the feeling it gives you - liberally borrowing from every cliche available - musicals, old black and white cinema, jumping timelines, everything - all working in concert to give you the feeling of a relationship as it ends, and the things you remember. The overrall impression is so great that I forgive the minor quibbles I have (hammy sidekicks are over the top, Zooey Deschanel is playing her stock character #2, much as she has for the last 4 things I've seen her in). This is my movie of the year, right here. Absolutely stunning.
Push - So much better than I was expecting that I may have wrapped myself so far around that I actually enjoyed it. There are some terrible, terrible parts (the Casio-grade Music of Love that they played every time that Chris Evans and Camilla Belle were in the same room, for instance). But Dakota Fanning was pretty great, and I'm up for anything that gives Cliff Curtis or Ming-Na more work. I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's kinda too bad that it tanked - I could totally be up for a sequel.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Got my nerd on and wrote a whole boring essay on it.
Let The Right One In - A good movie that gets better the more I think on it. Despite being a mildly gory vampire movie, it's surprisingly subtle. They don't try to hit you over the head with anything, it's all underplayed. The mother's soft neglect, the father's hints of homosexuality, even the parallels that can be drawn between particular characters - nothing jumps out at you. That, combined with the natural way that Oskar and Eli's relationship is handled, paints something like a real life picture that just happens to have a vampire somewhere in there. It's more than a little unsettling, especially the way the bullying keeps escalating as the movie continues. Overall, the movie's a little methodical for my tastes (I like my supernatural horror scary, not just ungodly depressing) but it's undeniably a great film.
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - So bad I exceeded the character limit. If you care enough: Go Here
The Hangover - Delightfully vulgar and meandering. That's pretty much my the sum of my thoughts. "Genuinely and shockingly funny" is another soundbyte I could add in there as well. After seeing his Fiona Apple music video, I always assumed Zach Galifianakis would remain an unacknowledged American treasure forever, since the combination of that plus his standup act had still left him in obscurity against all odds. But I am gleefully overjoyed to be proven wrong. May he blossom and go on to larger-scale fame. He made this movie.