4:59 PM: time to get started with my annual live Oscar blog. First update? I had lunch too early today and am already hungry.I got the festivities started by listening to some soundtrack music. So far I’ve played Brokeback Mountain, Munich, and Memoirs of a Geisha. I made a point to watch all five Best Picture nominees, to make me an educated viewer. I’ve also seen a few other nominees like Narnia, Kong, Syriana, Walk the Line, and Corpse Bride. (Did Goblet of Fire get any major nominations? I don’t think so, but I saw that one too.) The one thing I learned in my Oscar prep is that although this year’s Best Picture nominees are not big, flashy blockbusters they are instead all very good, serious, solid, important films. I like all five of them…all five of them are worthy contenders…but I’m rooting for two or three of them over the others.
The one I’m not really rooting for is the one everyone assumes will win tonight. Brokeback Mountain is the odds-on favorite as Best Picture, but of the five it’s the one I liked least. The acting is good, the Wyoming (and Canadian) scenery is gorgeous, but I just never got involved with the story. I was ready to disregard watching guys kiss in order to get swept up in a tragedy of a forbidden love, but it didn’t happen. Maybe I’m a closet homophobe; or maybe the film simply did not live up to its reputation as a “brilliant, unforgettable, classic masterpiece”.
6:05 PM: Good Night and Good Luck is a great movie with an important timely message. It almost feels the only reason George Clooney made it was so he could film David Strathairn reciting Edward R Murrow’s final message. With the news media so bottle-fed, with the White House actually caught bribing commentators, this is a legitimate enough reason. But the claustrophobic setting, with all the action taking place on TV or movie screens, the film seems slight, and betrays its TV script roots.
This leaves the three I’m rooting for — Munich, Capote, and Crash — and I’m still juggling which one I really want to win.
6:18 PM: Tom Whatshisname [O’Neill] from TV Guide Channel is blathering on about how Jon Stewart is a risky choice as a host, and then, like every two-bit newspaper critic, is reciting the examples of David Letterman and Chris Rock as East Coast outsiders who bombed at the Oscars. Pardon me, but I distinctly recall Chris Rock making Hollywood movies. And for my money the worst host of the Oscars was not Letterman, it was Whoopi Goldberg — another movie star one would not consider an outsider.
Relax. Jon Stewart is not going to bomb. The TV critics are too used to seeing Stewart sitting behind a desk, blurting our snarky and frequently bleeped political commentary. Apparently they’ve forgotten Stewart used to be a stand-up comic, hosted his own entertainment show, and has also appeared in a few movies. Stewart will do fine. You know how I know? Because he’s smart and he’s funny.
6:28 PM: yay! My first Joanism of the night. Ms Rivers introduced Lee Majors by calling him Larry McMurtry and congratulating him on the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain.
6:45 PM: Keira Knightley paints dark circles around her eyes and looks great. I have naturally dark circles around my eyes and I look like the hellspawn kid from The Omen remake. (And it’s not lost on me how the only thing sinister about the kid, at least in the trailer, is the dark circles. Thanks a lot. …No, I take that back. He can also cue an orchestra with his neck.)
7:42 PM: too bad. Oscar management forced E! and TV Guide Channel to end early, meaning I’m stuck with nothing but ABC’s coverage of the pre-show. Soundtrack update: Geisha is over and now I’m listening to James Newton Howard’s King Kong.
8:01 PM: now that was a sweet opening animation. Can’t wait to get a high-def telestream of it.
8:29 PM: Ben Stiller was practically funny again. I haven’t seen that in a long time. Nice to see Kong get a much deserved win for special effects. And since Andy Serkis had so much to do with Kong’s success, as well as memorably portraying Gollum from Lord of the Rings, why can’t the Academy make mention of this? I agree it’s a bit early to create some new acting category. But in the old days, they used to give special unique awards for Shirley Temple and Judy Garland; why can’t they give Serkis one for his unique contribution.
8:34 PM: first Best Song performance — pee break!
8:56 PM: jeez, the orchestra had the playoff music going before the Costume Design lady even started her speech! And Will Ferrell and Steve Carell are coming up, possibly to amass their L’s.
8:28 PM: yay! a Stephen Colbert cameo.
It doesn’t seem fair to have March of the Penguins in the Best Documentary category — it already found an audience. And it wasn’t very nice of the filmmakers to ridicule their actors by carrying them in effigy. Bad form!
And most remarkable of all, a Best Song nominee I almost like! “In the Deep” from Crash. And, as far as I can recall, the first time a nominated song has been sung by a supporting player from The West Wing.
9:56 PM: I should be outraged that some upstart stole an Oscar from John Williams. But the Brokeback score is haunting. Then again, come on, he’s John Williams!
10:00 PM: the Academy sure is defensive about people watching movies at home than on a big screen. I’ve got news for them. I don’t know how nice their personal screening rooms might be, but around here my DVD player and 36″ screen provide a hell of a lot better movie-going experience than the dark, soiled theaters around town. A bright in-focus picture, no jitter, no blown out speakers, no babies, and no cell phones.
10:26 PM: and I have even more reason to disregard the useless Best Song category.
10:35 PM: did Joel Hirschhorn’s “In Memoriam” card say he was “composer” for The Towering Inferno? For the record, he wrote the theme song. John Williams wrote the score — and the main title theme. The same is true for The Poseidon Adventure.
11:24 PM: sweet. A nice distribution of awards to Brokeback and Capote. Munich deserved more recognition. But I am very happy to see Crash win. As I said above, Capote and Munich and especially Crash have really stuck with me. I’ve been mulling them in my mind since I saw them weeks ago — even more so than with Brokeback, if you’ll allow me to pick on it one last time — which means I’m very glad to see Crash get the big prize. Unlike last year, this is a surprise win that makes sense and with which I heartily concur.
