Oscars 2010 Review
The greatest moment in award history ended the most tedious Oscars in recent years, with Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin failing to create laughs or atmosphere.
One of the most significant and tremendous moments in film history ended a woeful 82nd Academy Awards.
Kathryn Bigelow's victory for The Hurt Locker ended with her clutching two Oscars for directing and producing her magnificent war movie, becoming the first woman to win the director prize (and only the fourth to be nominated, following Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties in 1975, Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993 and Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003 - shocking statistics, right?).
Back to the start of the mammoth ceremony, where despite Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosting, it was left to Neil Patrick Harris to open the show with an uninspired song and dance affair. The idea of Martin and Baldwin pairing up was a good one; the reality was a crushing disappointment. They looked like they hadn't met before the night, and had only found out their lines a few minutes before. Stilted, flat, and with a shocking lack of comic timing, neither warm nor cutting, bar a winning crack about Christoph Waltz's Jew Hunter hitting the "motherlode" in the room. It wasn't helped by drab set design and sequences that did nothing to celebrate the magic of cinema.
While it's considered too boring to see the best song nominees do their numbers live, we instead got a year-long montage of the scores "interpreted" by dancers with a routine that looked like schoolkids made it up. Did they not have anyone on hand to create fabulous costumes this year? Kudos to Ben Stiller for raising the only laugh of the night by dressing up as a suited and booted Na'vi to present the make-up Oscar to Star Trek - creepy and funny.
The anticipated John Hughes tribute was merely Ally Sheedy, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Matthew Broderick, Macauley Culkin and Jon Cryer solemnly delivering a few words about what the director meant to them. Nice? Yes. Special? Not one bit. Imagine how awesome a fun-packed recreation of classic moments from The Breakfast Club, Home Alone or Ferris Bueller's Day Off would've been, for example. Some of the best unintentional laughs came from an oddly-placed tribute to horror, a genre the Academy ignore yearly, which included Twilight: New Moon and Edward Scissorhands, but not the likes of Candyman.
We all knew Jeff Bridges was going to win his career Oscar for Crazy Heart, and the ceremony couldn't hide this fact by wheeling out co-stars of the lead actors and actresses to waffle on about them. If they had been relevant to the films for which they had been nominated, it would've been a lovely touch, but instead we had Michelle Pfeiffer telling us what a jolly decent bloke Bridges is - he could kill puppies for fun, and that would have no bearing on whether or not the performance was the most outstanding of the year. It contrasted awkwardly with someone like Julianne Moore admitting she had only spent three days on the set of A Single Man with the most deserving actor there, Colin Firth, but at least it was about his acting.
While the ceremony was stodgy, the results were at least a bit shocking. The White Ribbon and A Prophet were dead certs for best foreign film, with the former even being nominated for best cinematography. But no, it went to the unknown El Secreto de Sus Ojos. Precious took best adapted screenplay over Up In The Air and In The Loop, and Avatar only went home with three technical awards. This was The Hurt Locker's night, scooping best film, director, original screenplay, editing, sound mixing and sound editing. Barbra Streisand felt the need to point out there was a woman and an African-American in the nominees for best director, which kind of negates the point of equality. Bigelow's winning speech was humble and genuine, and she looked excited and unprepared for it. The subsequent best film award felt horribly rushed, with a miserable Tom Hanks not even reminding us of the ten films before blurting out The Hurt Locker, and having a confused Bigelow rush back out from the wings. It's sad that the creators of the films, such as District 9's Neill Blomkamp, didn't have that juicy moment of anticipation as their titles are read out before the envelope opens. However, the trio of Jeremy Renner, Brian Geraghty and Anthony Mackie more than made up for it with their excitable bouncing behind Bigelow as she paid tribute to men and women in uniform around the world.
Basically, it was the women that made the night, especially after a petulant Sean Penn hijacked the actresses' moment to bring up his marriage failure. Best moments? Oprah Winfrey's fantastic introduction to Precious star Gabourey Sidibe: "She was a student trying to earn some money to go to college. On Monday she skipped school to audition for a movie called Precious. On Tuesday they called her back to meet the director ... On Wednesday, she got the part. And tonight, she is sitting at the Academy Awards in the same category as Meryl Streep." Sandra Bullock might have been one of the least-deserving recipients of an acting gong, but her speech proved she is a Hollywood darling and true star, despite veering dangerously close to Mean Girls spring fling queen territory. Tina Fey teaming up with Robert Downey Jr, plus an elegant Sigourney Weaver, also had more charisma than anyone else presenting - take note producers.
BEST PICTURE:
The Hurt Locker
Nominees:
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air
BEST DIRECTOR:
Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker)
Nominees:
James Cameron (Avatar)
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
Lee Daniels (Precious)
Jason Reitman (Up in the Air)
BEST ACTOR:
Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart)
Nominees:
George Clooney (Up in the Air)
Colin Firth (A Single Man)
Morgan Freeman (Invictus)
Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker)
BEST ACTRESS:
Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side)
Nominees:
Helen Mirren (The Last Station)
Carey Mulligan (An Education)
Gabourey Sidibe (Precious)
Meryl Streep (Julie and Julia)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
Nominees:
Matt Damon (Invictus)
Woody Harrelson (The Messenger)
Christopher Plummer (The Last Station)
Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones)
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
Mo’Nique (Precious)
Nominees:
Penelope Cruz (Nine)
Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air)
Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart)
Anna Kendrick (Up in the Air)
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
El Secreto de Sus Ojos – The Secret of Their Eyes (Argentina)
Nominees:
Ajami (Israel)
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)
A Prophet (France)
The White Ribbon (Germany)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker)
Nominees:
Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds)
Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman (The Messenger)
Joel Coen, Ethan Coen (A Serious Man)
Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Tom McCarthy (Up)
BEST ANIMATION:
Up
Nominees:
Coraline
Fantastic Mr Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire)
Nominees:
Neill Blomkamp, Terri Tatchell (District 9)
Nick Hornby (An Education)
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche (In the Loop)
Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air)
BEST ART DIRECTION:
Avatar
Nominees:
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
Sherlock Holmes
The Young Victoria
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Avatar
Nominees:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The White Ribbon
BEST SOUND MIXING:
The Hurt Locker
Nominees:
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
BEST SOUND EDITING:
The Hurt Locker
Nominees:
Avatar
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
Up
BEST ORIGINAL SONG:
The Weary Kind (theme from Crazy Heart) from Crazy Heart by Ryan Bingham, T Bone Burnett
Nominees:
Almost There from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Down in New Orleans from The Princess and the Frog by Randy Newman
Loin de Paname from Paris 36 by Reinhardt Wagner, Frank Thomas
Take It All from Nine by Maury Yeston
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:
Up (Michael Giacchino)
Nominees:
Avatar (James Horner)
Fantastic Mr Fox (Alexandre Desplat)
The Hurt Locker (Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders)
Sherlock Holmes (Hans Zimmer)
BEST COSTUME DESIGN:
The Young Victoria
Nominees:
Bright Star
Coco Before Chanel
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
Nine
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE:
The Cove
Nominees:
Burma VJ
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT:
Music by Prudence
Nominees:
China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Rabbit a la Berlin
BEST FILM EDITING:
The Hurt Locker
Nominees:
Avatar
District 9
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
BEST MAKE-UP:
Star Trek
Nominees:
Il Divo
The Young Victoria
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM:
Logorama
Nominees:
French Roast
Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty
The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)
A Matter of Loaf and Death
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM:
The New Tenants
Nominees:
The Door
Instead of Abracadabra
Kavi
Miracle Fish
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:
Avatar
Nominees:
District 9
Star Trek
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