My thoughts on the Oscars

As an avid lover of film, I chose to stay up all Sunday Night to watch the 82nd annual Academy Awards. ( For those of you who find it weird that I stayed up all night to watch it, Norway is several hours behind Hollywood-time, so there you go. )
The show being broadcasted on NRK, which do not show commercials, meant that there would instead be a studio discussing the events of the show during it course. On several occasions, I'd sort of preferred the commercials, though...
( there were people in the studio, btw... the studio itself didnt discuss the movies )

As usual, there were one movie who did stick out from the bunch, this time "The Hurt Locker". Kathryn Bigalow became the first female director to ever win the "Best Director" award. The movie won 6 trophies altogether, also winning for Best Motion Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Sound Mix and Best Sound Editing. Not as many as last years big winner, Slumdog Millionaire, but definitely enough to be considered this years Academy Award Favorite.

In my opinion, The Hurt Locker was not a bad choice for either of those awards, although I was hoping for "Inglorious Basterds" for both Directing and Film. Quentin Tarantino's movie not only had a vast diversity in it's brilliant cast ( Mike Myers, Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz to mention but a few ), but some of the scenes stood out as just pure magic.

Christoph Waltz won, not surprisingly, for his magnificent portrayal of Hans Landa in the Quentin Tarantino movie. Best Supporting Actor was the only Oscar for Inglorious Basterds thought. Another big favorite that also took home the Oscar was Mo'Nique, for Best Supporting Actress. She was absolutely breath-taking in Precious, and deservedly took the little golden geezer back to her home.

I've seen all the 10 movies which were nominated for best film, and I must say that I did like the fact that they raised the numbers of nominees this year. There were a lot of great movies competing this year, and by having only 5 nominees movies I predict movies such as Up, Up in the Air, An Education and District 9 probably wouldn't have been found amongst the them. This does not mean they are not good movies, though. It's differcult to rank such diverse movies as Inglorious Basterds vs. Up, Precious vs. Avatar or An Education vs. District 9.

Out of the 10 movies, there were actually no movies I really disliked. Up in the Air was one I really enjoyed, and especially the performances from George Clooney and Vera Farmiga. ( I'm still puzzled as to why Anna Kendrick was nominated, but maybe I was just annoyed by her character, more then the actual acting... )

Sandra Bullock was also a favorite for Best Actress ( who would've seen that coming? ), and won her first Oscar. Her role in The Blind Side was a great one, though, and in my opinion - and obviously the Academy's opinion - her career best.
Carey Mulligan and Gabourey Sidibe, for An Education and Precious respectively, were also strong candidates, though.

Jeff Bridges finally got his award, and he gave an emotional acceptance speech. It was weird to see "The Dude" emotional. I was very happy for him, although I can't wait to see Colin Firth's performance in "A Single Man", which from the clips I've seen seems like a fantastic job by the Englishman.

Other then that, other highlighs/weird moments were:

- Ben Stiller dressed as an Avatar handing out the Oscar for Best Make-Up ( in which, as Stiller himself pointed out, Avatar wasn't nominated )
- The Kanye-moment of the Oscars, as Elinor Burkett took the mic from Louie Psihoyos as he held his acceptance speech for the Best Short Subject Documentary
- Barney Sti.. I mean, Neil Patrick Harris opening the show. Wasn't a great song... but, come on... it's the Barnacle!


Anyway, here are a few clips from some of the movies that were nominated ( or had actors/actresses nominated for their parts in ).

Precious ( 2 wins, 6 nominations in total )




The Hurt Locker ( 6 wins, 9 nominations in total )




Up in the Air ( 6 nominations )




Crazy Heart ( 2 wins, 3 nominations in total )




An Education ( 3 nominations )




A Single Man ( 1 nomination )




And a little bonus:

From last years Oscars, Ben Stiller doing an amazing impression of Joaquin Phoenix ( as he was when interviewed by David Letterman ).