ossscar: Oscar Night

[MacGuffin]

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
Todd Haynes - FAR FROM HEAVEN

CINEMATOGRAPHY
FAR FROM HEAVEN

MUSIC (SCORE)
FAR FROM HEAVEN

...would bring me joy.  

[aurora]

I can't believe Julianne Moore didn't win from either category

Thats so fucked up

[MacGuffin]

Best Picture:
Chicago - Marty Richards

Best Actor in a Leading Role:
Adrien Brody for The Pianist

Best Actress in a Leading Role:
Nicole Kidman for The Hours

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:
Chris Cooper for Adaptation.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:
Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago

Best Director:
Roman Polanski for The Pianist

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen:
Hable con ella - Pedro Almodóvar

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published:
The Pianist - Ronald Harwood

Best Animated Feature:
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi - Hayao Miyazaki

Best Foreign Language Film:
Nirgendwo in Afrika (Germany)

Best Cinematography:
Road to Perdition - Conrad L. Hall

Best Art Direction-Set Decoration:
Chicago - John Myhre, Gordon Sim

Best Costume Design:
Chicago - Colleen Atwood

Best Editing:
Chicago - Martin Walsh

Best Sound:
Chicago - David Lee, Michael Minkler, Dominic Tavella

Best Music, Original Score:
Frida - Elliot Goldenthal

Best Music, Song:
8 Mile - Eminem, Bass, Jeff, Luis Resto (For the song "Lose Yourself".)

Best Makeup:
Frida - Beatrice De Alba, John E. Jackson

Best Effects, Sound Effects Editing:
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - Ethan Van der Ryn, Mike Hopkins

Best Effects, Visual Effects:
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook, Alex Funke

Best Documentary: Feature:
Bowling for Columbine - Michael Moore, Michael Donovan

Best Documentary: Short Subject:
Twin Towers - Bill Guttentag, Robert David Port

Best Short Film: Animated:
The Chubbchubbs - Eric Armstrong

Best Short Film: Live Action:
Der er en yndig mand - Martin Strange-Hansen, Mie Andreasen

[Victor]

That Micheal Moore -- such a little rascal.

im a total whore, i said i would only watch the oscars for steve, john c, julianne and donnie k, but i wound up watching almost all of it. but yknow, what else am i gonna watch? the war isnt as entertaining as it was a few days ago, its starting to get kind of boring. CNN should kick a few million more upstairs to bush and get him to kick it up a notch.

[MacGuffin]

Loved Adrian Brody and Polanski winning. Loved the Michael Moore 'incident'. Loved Peter O Toole, Olivia DeHaviland and the Oscar family reunion, and the moviemakers who have past away gets me every year, especially with the list ending with Billy Wilder.   Also, Conrad Hall's son accepting his father's award.

Low point: the Spike Lee Pepsi commercial.

[Cecil]

Best Director:
Roman Polanski for The Pianist

cool.

was there a speech?

[sphinx]

not a word.

[©brad]

good
Chris Cooper winning- best speech I've heard in a while. He da man.
Adrian Brody winning shocked the hell outta me. He gave a great speech too.
Pedro Almodovar- wooohooo!
Steve Martin actually telling some funny jokes- esp. his recovery from the Michael Moore incident.
Roman Polanski winning- bet he was shittin his pants.
Peter O'Toole's speech and Meryl Streep's tribute to him was great.

bad
Chicago sweeping awards like sound is stuuupid. Okay, Gangs getting beat by Chicago in set and costume design is absurd. Chicago was on a fucking stage! Set design? Uhh, Gangs did recreate 19th century New York, right? Gangs losing all 10 oscars was a shame.
Michael Moore- err, uhhh.....
Far From Heaven not even winning score was sad. It should have been up there instead of The Hours. (Julianne Moore god damnit!)
The Oscar ceremony was particularly drab this year- all the 'old movie' montages lacked, uhhh, goodness. I thought the show was poorly directed, did it not seem like it took the actors an extremely long time to get to the microphone?

[The Silver Bullet]

I have never been so thrilled after an Oscar ceremony, and considering that most of my predictions turned out to be wrong, that is saying something. In a ceremony that completely redeemed the politically correct tripe of the 74th ceremony, the show that I saw tonight proved that Academy voters not only know good films when they see them, but that they still have the courage to vote for who they truly believe is the best, and not just the most publicized media darling of a favourite [that said, Chicago did indeed blitz the thing. But rightly so].

Before I go on I'd like to address the subject of my failed predictions. The ones that grate at me are the ones that I changed at the last minute, namely Talk To Her for best screenplay [I had that picked for a month! Until three hours before the show began! I changed it to Far From Heaven!] and Twin Towers, the live action short film, which I changed at the last minute, thanks to Ebert. I didn't listen to Ebert when it came to foreign language film, however, and [what do you know?] he got it right. But no matter. I am just as pleased with my failures as I am pissed off; never have I been happier to get predictions in two of the major categories completely and utterly wrong [Adrien Brody gave the most astounding Oscar speech I'd ever heard and Martin Scorsese shall forever remain the greatest unrecognised American director in cinematic history because Polanski won best director].


This year, for the first time since 1998, I was able to keep myself completely out of reach from Internet, television, radio and carrier pigeon until the show began. It was the first virgin Oscar experience I've had since '98, dammit, and what a glorious experience it was after having deprived oneself of all information regarding the award winners.


I just feel happy after this evening, you know what I mean? The Academy members have proven, I feel, that they're not merely a group of saps who can be bought out and swayed around at the drop of a hat, and that if they have had a dose of bad taste in the past [case study 2001], they've still got it; at least every now and then. An upset is a rare thing, and when the underdog is the cause of that upset, well, it is even rarer. Tonight was the night of the underdog, and the Academy has proven [to me at least] that it still relevant.


The show was not perfect, of course. Steven Martin is no Billy Crystal, and he never will be [although I am not sure that Billy Crystal would have really been the right guy for this year, either]. Martin was good [sometimes very good], but overall he just felt a little, I don't know, detached. His smugness is hilarious to a point, and then it becomes sort of distancing; he never really connects, which would have been fine last year, but there needed to be more between host and audience when the tone for this year was so deliberately somber. I was also pretty disappointed by the usually poignant In Memoriam tribute, which last year was [simply put] beautifully done. This year there were a number of truly important people on the list that did not get the tribute they deserved. It was so nothingy. Bland. Surely Richard Harris, James Coburn and Conrad Hall deserved more than they got! Billy Wilder definitely did.


The worst part of the evening was Michael Moore, and this is coming from someone who agrees with most of what he has to say, and loved Bowling For Columbine. The film is genius and the man is [mostly] right, but his outburst was completely out of line. It was not the time, nor the place for such a demonstration, and the jeers from the audience just added to how disgusting it all was. It was the first time I have covered my face in embarrassment while watching an event that took place six hours earlier on the other side of the planet. It was one of the most disgusting examples of how war fucks up everyone; right or wrong, left or right. No one needed Michael Moore to do what he did. The show didn't need it. I didn't need it. I sure as Hell didn't want it.


However, such things aside, it was the best Oscar ceremony I have seen since, coincidentally, '98 [when Crystal hosted and sang and Hoffman presented that wonderful clip show of every best picture winner up until that point]. The only major mishap [in my opinion] was that the Academy failed to recognise Charlie Kaufmann again [but even then they made it up by recognising Almodovar despite the odds of him winning being slim to none]. All up I am thrilled. Kidman won, and this makes me unbearably pleased. Peter O'Toole proved that he is the most gracious human being alive. Brody delivered an astoundingly resonant speech. Kirk Douglas has still got the touch. And Martin Scorsese shall remain in a league with the Gods.

[©brad]

well put. I have to agree with you on Michael Moore, I thought he made himself look like a fucking idiot.

[Pubrick]

nah, michael moore was good.

the whole thing was pretty ekzellent this year.

[Redlum]

The higlight for me was Chris Coopers accepance - which cbrad4d has rightly highlighted. I haven't even seen adaptation but he's great in everythingelse I've seen him in. Those are the kind of moments that I remember most from the ceremonies.

Ditto, Michael Moore's outburst was really annoying. Having said that I still thought the time limits they imposed were really unfair. Especially to the Lord of the Rings effects people, who were the first to accept. Adrian Brody put an end to that though.

Also lots of great coverage of Jack Nicholson being cool.

[Duck Sauce]

What I saw of the show was pretty dull and predictable. I want to see Moore's speech, but that is about it.

[MacGuffin]

Full backstage videos in the press room of every winner (even Michael Moore):

http://www.oscar.com/oscarnight/press_video.html

[Ghostboy]

Best Oscar telecast in years. Silver Bullet pretty much nailed it up there. But I liked Moore's speech, I thought it was funny. Brody's was a hell of a lot better, though, as far as anti war sentiment goes. And Susan Sarandon's was great...she completely stuck to her script, but her diction was so precise that you could tell exactly what she meant. Brilliant performance.

Eminem winning is the coolest thing ever. That song was so much better than anything else nominated (except maybe the Frida song, that was worthwhile). That made me happy.