Oscar Roundup 2006

[Qwertz]

Before I start, this year's roundup will be nothing like last year's. This is due to law school being so all-consuming. If this comes off as a bit cursory or conclusory, that's because it is.

Best Costume Design

Nothing real to say about this category. I only mention it because the presenter (I can't remember which one) said that the costumes from Marie Antoinette were "literally eye candy," and I have a long-standing peeve about the misuse of the word 'literally.'

Best Animated Feature

Monster House was better than Happy Feet. But penguins are apparently cuter. Cars wasn't going to win because Pixar took the category in 2003 and 2004, and because it wasn't the box office draw the penguins were. Cars was best, but it didn't have a shot.

Best Adapted Screenplay

I wish I had seen Children of Men so I would have something to say about it. But I didn't, so I don't. What on Earth was Borat doing here? I'm sorry, but situational discomfort comedy, cultural parody and America-bashing do not a quality picture make. Of course Borat's inclusion here is not really a surprise. The Depaahted wins, but that's to be expected, given other awards, and the fact that the other three nominated films (excluding Borat) weren't as widely distributed.

Best Cinematography

The whole slate was stunning this year. Even The Illusionist was well done, though of the four I saw (remember, I didn't see Children of Men) it was the least impressive. Not a lot of variety. The Prestige was particularly nicely done, though the film on the whole wasn't all that remarkable. The Black Dahlia was challenging, but Vilmos rocks rather consistently. Pan's Labyrinth obvious choice.

Best Visual Effects

A year without either a Harry Potter or a Lord of the Rings nets us two mediocre nominees and one clear winner. Poseidon? Gak!

Honorary Oscar

Ennio makes me happy. So many great, memorable scores. Hooray for him. Though Eastwood really should have brought his glasses.

Best Original Screenplay

The Queen was really well written. I didn't see Letters from Iwo Jima, but to be honest, "Written by ... Paul Haggis" isn't really a selling point for me, given last year. (Crash, gak!) I would have taken The Queen over Little Miss Sunshine, the latter reading like every family bonding dark comedy ever written and being peopled with stock characters.

America through its movies montage by Michael Mann

The thing introduced by Will Smith. Hated it! Endless stream of violence, religiosity and conflict. Michael Mann has no idea what America is. There are plenty of scenes in American movies that are emblematic of the American spirit: That scene from The Shawshank Redemption, that one from From Here to Eternity, or Nashville or Pleasantville, or maybe The Right Stuff, or even Apollo 13, I wouldn't have minded that, or maybe if he had picked the climactic courtroom scene from Inherit the Wind instead of all the townsfolk chanting "give me that old time religion." Gak! Michael Mann made a tribute to everything except what makes America great!

Best Film Editing

No surprise there.

Best Actress

No surprise there, either. Mirren was totally locky. She was so locky, Dench didn't even bother to show. Though, Judy's getting on in years and lives far away from Hollywood, so she can't really be faulted for not showing. But seriously, Helen Mirren completely deserved that award. The Queen was a movie about her face, and she pulled it off spectacularly. Now I know last year I was kvetching about the Academy preferring historical characters to original ones, but this was different. Mirren's performance wasn't built around emulating a famous historical person - it was built around convincing us of the inner turmoil of a real, public person that no one really knows. Phillip Seymour Hoffman (who presented this award to many an accompanying "ha!" of irony from me) in Capote couldn't hold a candle to Mirren in The Queen. In the category, no one else even had a shot.

Best Actor

Poor Peter O'Toole. He was devastated. You could tell. But Forest Whitaker was pretty much a lock. DiCaprio should have been nominated for his performance in The Depaahted instead of Blood Diamond. If he had been, he would have been a stronger contender. As it was, he had no shot. Will Smith was good in The Pursuit of Happyness, but Academy likes angry more than dedicated.

Best Director

This was between Martin and Clint. The others were just happy to be nominated. Academy loves Clint, and Martin's never won. Martin won. Hooray for him. I didn't see Letters from Iwo Jima, so I can't really comment.

Best Picture

The Depaahted wasn't bad. I actually rather liked most of it, despite the ambiguous ethics. I didn't like the end. I won't spoil it, but I will say that it is a typical ending for both a Scorsese film and for Asian cinema in general. (Note that Infernal Affairs was from Hong Kong, not Japan.) Sometimes that kind of ending is justified, but in this case it just wasn't. DiCaprio was excellent, which isn't something I say easily. I wasn't partial to Mark Whalberg's performance, though. He didn't win the supporting actor award. (I can't say I agree with Academy's choice in that category, though.) The Depaahted was, I think, mis-marketed as an action picture. Sure, there was a lot of action (too much blood, I think), but it should have been billed as a character drama, because that's what it was. It was quite well done, which is to be expected from Martin. Still, I probably would have picked The Queen. That character wrestled with something and came out the better for it in the end. Leo and Matt didn't come out the better for it at the end of The Depaahted.

And the best for last:

Al Gore

Several things made me throw up a little. The obvious Best Documentary Feature was only one of them. See, here's the thing. When one film (Dreamgirls) is nominated more than once in the same category, it tends not to win. It washes itself out of the category. My pick for best song, and my prediction, was the Randy Newman song from Cars. The Dreamgirls songs were second through fourth. Melissa Etheridge was dead last and I totally whiffed. I really disliked the song and had to mute it halfway through. Musically, it was aggressive and grating. Lyrically it was obnoxious and offensive. Yuck. The audience managed to draw my ire when they tried (unsuccessfully, thankfully) to applaud after Etheridge mentioned her wife. They wouldn't interrupt Scorsese to applaud his mention of his wife, so why should they interrupt Etheridge when she mentions her wife? (NB: Tammy Lynn Michaels is technically not Etheridge's wife, as the two were not married in Massachusetts.)

But that was just the beginning. Now I expected An Inconvenient Truth to win. The Academy have never purported to be fans of such trivial things as, say, reason or science. But then, Documentary film, despite all its assertions to the contrary, has nothing to do with the truth. Remember the genre was invented as Soviet agitprop. In at least that sense, An Inconvenient Truth is the "best documentary," in that it adheres best to the true meaning of documentary filmmaking - to manipulate people into believing something they wouldn't otherwise rationally believe in.

What I didn't expect was that the Academy would constantly refer to Gore as "Vice President Al Gore." Normally I'm not one to feel sympathy for Dick Cheney, but isn't that his title? Where's the "former?" Or "ex-?" I also didn't expect the continuing jokes about Bush "stealing" the presidency from Gore. The post hoc confirmation that Bush would have won anyway seems to have somehow eluded the Academy for, what now, six years? Get over it, the joke is old. But perhaps the most unexpected thing was when Gore and DiCaprio announced that the Oscars had "gone green." Considering Al Gore's concept of 'reduced carbon footprint,' this means even less than it would if it had been said by someone who actually wanted to reduce CO2 emissions. The website Al and Leo mentioned is less a description of how Oscar went green than it is an instruction manual for ruining your life.

Encourage community leaders to build bike lanes and sidewalks, as well as cycling and pedestrian-only streets

*Scream*

Turn off your screen saver! Modern computer monitors do not need this function to stay in top form -- it's simply a waste of energy.

What?! If you want to save energy, this isn't going to do it. What are they going for? Does the monitor use more energy if its displaying a mostly black screen versus your desktop? Or is the processor using less energy displaying your desktop instead of calculating vectors for all those stars? This is perhaps one of the most computer-ignorant things I've ever read on the Internet. If anything, they ought to have encouraged us to set our screen-savers to turn off the monitor, a very simple setting in Windows XP.

Farmers: cut down on pesticide use.

...

Anyway, we're supposed to be talking about the Oscars, not environmentalism.

But that's exactly the problem!

Jokes about Al Gore running for President, accusations of global warming complicity, unfounded scientific conclusions made by unqualified politicians; these are things that do not belong at the Oscars. What ever happened to celebrating excellence in filmmaking?

In general, one of the most unpleasant Oscar ceremonies to watch in memorable history. Though no single moment was worse than Michael Moore's 'speech' four years ago. Ellen was only occasionally humorous, but mostly lacklustre.

If I think of anything more to say, I'll say it. But don't count on it. I'm busy.

-Q