The Academy Awards came and went last night. Of course, I was watching the 3-plus hour broadcast. What else was I going to do? Watch Maryland lose a must-win game?
On Monday, the broadcast was almost universally panned for being completely uncompelling and unfunny. I would agree that James Franco and Anne Hathaway were not the greatest hosts. But really, what could they do? Comparatively, they were worse than Billy Crystal and Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, but I tend to not really care so much about the hosting. Though I must agree that when given an opening, neither host was particularly witty. But the show is about the awards anyway, right?!
I missed the boat again on the AMC Oscar Showcase, which may be the greatest idea ever for a movie theater chain, leading up to the broadcast. I was able to see 4 of the 10 nominated films though before Sunday night. All of the movies I saw were really good movies, and I could see why most of them were nominated. I agreed for the most part with the field of movies (except maybe Winter's Bone. Anyone heard of that?). For my money, Inception was the best movie I saw in the last year. It was super entertaining, the acting was good, and it made you think. Perhaps it made you think a little too much, which is why it had no chance of winning. I also saw True Grit, King's Speech, and The Social Network. I really enjoyed them all.
I was glad to see The Social Network win a few awards, especially for adapted screenplay. Obviously, it struck a chord with me since everyone I know is addicted to Facebook. So that was cool. True Grit has a great story with some great acting and was not a typical, cookie-cutter Western. There are a lot more layers to it than pointing a gun and shooting. And the King's Speech was a great movie about a relatively unknown story about King George V (or VI, I can't remember). This one also struck a chord with me since I had just been to England for my first international trip 7 months ago, and you know, I felt connected or something.
The issue is that all of these movies were good, and unfortunately there were no upsets at the Oscars. Colin Firth won for King's Speech (he did deserve it). He was like 1000 to one on Bodog to win. All of the preshow winners pretty much ended up winning. Which means if you pay attention to any of the pre-coverage, not much was left to the imagination. Melissa Leo won Best Supporting Actress for The Fighter, but really I thought the 14-year-old girl from True Grit was good enough to win. I realize I haven't seen The Fighter, but how awesome of an upset would that have been? Also, to see Inception win Best Picture out of nowhere would have been great. Or even The Fighter or something. I'm not saying that the winners didn't deserve it. But everyone loves an upset. Like March Madness. Everyone wants the 12 seed to beat the 5 seed. Perhaps the Academy needs to watch more college hoops. Create a little drama. Shit, isn't that what these people are paid to do?
Until the Emmys...
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