Oscars 2013

[AndyDursin]

Nice job David, Ang Lee takes it! Someone had to benefit from the Affleck gloss-over.

LINCOLN's expected shunning is now complete except for its one tech award and Day-Lewis' win here in a couple of minutes.

[AndyDursin]

...and in other news, Renee Zellweger beat out Nicole Kidman for the Katherine Helmond Annual Plastic-Face Achievement award.

[Paul MacLean]

I hate to say it, but the only nominated films I saw last year were Brave, Prometheus and Skyfall.

Of course for most of last year I was usually getting home from work anytime between 7:00 and 10:00, which kind of curtailed my movie-going.

[AndyDursin]

I hear you Paul. Trying to get Joanne to movies in the evening for our schedule is tough because 7 is often too early for us and 10 is too late -- and there are no longer any showings inbetween at local theaters!

There are some good ones you'll want to see on video: ARGO and SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK were great, LIFE OF PI was solid, ZERO DARK THIRTY as well. Didn't see LINCOLN either but I'll get to it (hey, my folks loved it).

It IS nice to see a group of AMERICAN movies doing well this year for a change too. Overall the field was pretty good and more balanced than it has been for a while.

[Paul MacLean]

I need to catch-up.

As far as the ceremony, my favorite moment was when the band played the theme from The Artist!

[AndyDursin]

I need to catch-up.

As far as the ceremony, my favorite moment was when the band played the theme from The Artist!

lol. Did you hear the orchestra play JAWS to get the visual FX winners off the stage? THAT was inspired.

[Paul MacLean]

I need to catch-up.

As far as the ceremony, my favorite moment was when the band played the theme from The Artist!

lol. Did you hear the orchestra play JAWS to get the visual FX winners off the stage? THAT was inspired.

That was awesome!

[AndyDursin]

My god. Michelle Obama announcing Best Picture.

Guess someone got their fill from all the donations Hollywood sent them last summer.

[Paul MacLean]

My god. Michelle Obama announcing Best Picture.

Guess someone got their fill from all the donations Hollywood sent them last summer.

Maybe Mr. Obama threatened to send a drone to Hollywood unless they gave her face time.

[AndyDursin]

Affleck looked like he had been to the bar already. Wacky acceptance speech, that's for sure.

Anyway that's a wrap! No huge shocks.

I think Waltz winning again was probably the biggest surprise. I mean, isn't he playing the same role he did 2 years ago? And they gave it to him again?? Kind of odd.

Pretty decent show overall I felt. They got it in in about 3.5 hours. Not the 4 they were carping about on Nikki Finke's site. Speaking of Finke, she's gone off saying this was the worst Oscar show ever. She doesn't remember Chevy? Tired old Billy? Whoopi? Letterman? Franco/Hathaway? Talk about putting your agenda ahead of reality. lol.

[AndyDursin]

Oh, and BRAVE -- did not deserve to win Best Animated Film. That was a joke. Everyone has drunk the Pixar kool aid and overdosed on it, clearly.

[Paul MacLean]

Oh, and BRAVE -- did not deserve to win Best Animated Film. That was a joke. Everyone has drunk the Pixar kool aid and overdosed on it, clearly.

Agreed. That film was a huge disappointment.

For me the best thing about this year's ceremony was McFarlane. And I had no idea Daniel Radcliffe and Joseph Gordon-Levitt could dance!

[AndyDursin]

Totally agree Paul.

The more I thought about it, Affleck was definitely "on" during that acceptance speech. Given the seriousness of the film, I would've liked to have seen him talk about its meaning -- instead he looked like he was coked up (several people have mentioned this) and was bouncing off the walls. Could be "enthusiasm" -- or perhaps some "stimulants." Was kind of strange, that's for sure.

Great movie though, and he deserved it too!

[DavidBanner]

I haven't looked at Nikki Finke's site, but I would guess that knowing her, she's already said nasty things about just about everyone who was there.

Andy was correct about Argo getting Best Picture. It also got awards for script and for editing.

Life of Pi indeed picked up the Directing and Cinematography Awards along with music and VFX. I was not happy to see the VFX guys being drummed off with the music and then having their microphone cut off. Considering what the man was saying and what is happening with Rhythm and Hues, that was in extremely poor taste.

Les Miz picked up 3 as well - for Anne Hathaway, Sound Mixing, Makeup.

Lincoln indeed picked up the award for Daniel Day Lewis and a technical nod for Production Design.

Zero Dark Thirty tied for a sound editing award - which is the first tie I know about in many years. That moment alone was a great one, what with the audience giggling and the presenter correcting them with "That's not a joke - we really do have a tie here."

Skyfall actually got two awards - the expected one for Adele and the other side of the tie with Zero Dark Thirty.

Amour got the expected Best Foreign Film but unexpectedly did not pick up the Screenplay Award.

Django Unchained shocked a lot of people by getting both of its awards. I did not expect it to pick up anything and here we are with a second award for Christoph Waltz three years after his first, and another screenplay award for Tarantino. I appreciated Tarantino thanking his cast, but that's an award that really could have been put to better use.

Anna Karenina shocked me by getting the Costumes prize. But then again, this was a car crash category and they were all really good. Funny to see two Snow White movies in the category, eh?

Silver Linings Playbook wound up with only the award for Jennifer Lawrence. Not only did David O. Russell not get any awards even for his screenplay but Lawrence forgot to thank him to boot.

No sweeps tonight. This was a very even distribution, mostly going the ways we've been predicting here, but with some entertaining sidetracks.

I did not care for much of the scripted "banter", and most of Seth MacFarlane's humor fell flat at the house where I was watching the show. Some of the later jokes got some traction, but I rarely enjoyed his presentation. The Captain Kirk material was just strange.

The song performances by Barbra Streisand and Shirley Bassey were nice to see, but they were also reminders that neither lady is anywhere near her singing peak at this point. Bassey was able to deliver with the end of "Goldfinger" but there were more than a few harsh moments and clangs along the way. Streisand still has some of her voice, but it's much thinner and reedier than it used to be. Further, the facial expressions were causing us to wonder if Martin Landau was onstage playing the part of Streisand... Adele's performance was solid, as usual for her. The throwaway move at the end was great.

I greatly enjoyed Daniel Day Lewis' idea of him playing Margaret Thatcher and Meryl Streep playing Lincoln. Would have been interesting...

The inclusion of Michelle Obama was baffling. Aside from the fact that Nicholson looked toasted when he went up there, that was a really strange choice. Forgetting anything about politics, it was just distracting - and that's the reason it's never been done. It would be one thing to have a remote feed, say at the home of Billy Crystal or Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood. But the White House? That's not only distracting, there's no need to do such a thing. I did appreciate when they had a winner read onscreen from an overseas military base, but even that is unnecessary.

This has been overall a very interesting awards season. The fact that no one movie took more than 4 awards, and that there was so much of a distribution is testament to people liking a lot of the movies they were seeing.

I'll be very curious to see what happens between DGA and the Academy this coming year. If we get another divergence like this year, that will go to the point I was making about the influence the ADs, UPMs and TV directors have on the internal awards at the DGA.

BTW that curmudgeon didn't do so well, did he?

[jkholm]

I thought Lawrence's and Day-Lewis's speeches were really nice but Tarentino came across as quite full of himself.

I had watched Searching For Sugar Man the night before so it was nice to see that win for Documentary (although I wish The Queen of Verssailles had been nominated.)

I agree that Brave should not have won. Wreck-it Ralph was my choice.