Reveling in the Oscars

Watching the Academy Awards is one of the highlights of the year for a movie nut like me. I don't always see all of the movies that are nominated, and in fact I think it was last year that I had only seen one of the Best Picture nominees. This year, however, I "crammed" and saw nearly all of them. I have to say, this year the movies overall were really excellent, each in its own way. I didn't think any "filler" movies were nominated just to round out the minimum number, in any of the major categories.

This year's 78th Annual Academy Awards tonight seemed so uncharacteristically *adult* compared to earlier years. Nobody acted badly or wore bizarre clothes (Lara Flynn Boyle's tutu a few years ago comes to mind). Nobody streaked across the stage or jumped on top of seats on the way to accept their award. The clothes and jewelry everybody wore were tasteful and elegant. Even irreverent host Jon Stewart's humor was more maturely political and less Hollywood than usual. (I will refrain from commenting that possibly much of his humor was over some shallow Hollywood types' heads. That would be prejudicial and unfair.)

Most of the expected people won, including Philip Seymour Hoffman (for "Capote") and Reese Witherspoon (for "Walk the Line"), and "Crash" and "Brokeback Mountain" also did well, as expected. However, how does it happen that the Best Director (Ang Lee, for "Brokeback Mountain") didn't direct the Best Picture ("Crash")? That happens a lot, actually, and it is strange unless you figure that the Academy structures it so that different people vote for the two awards. The acceptance speeches were appropriate and gracious and nobody forgot to thank their spouse...though I think Ang Lee thanked nearly everyone in his movie and his family except his two stars, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. If he thanked them, I missed it.

Probably the most bizarre moments were when star and legend Lauren Bacall was attempting to read the intro to the tribute to film noir and kept stopping and stumbling. No glasses? Teleprompter malfunction? Adult onset dyslexia? Worse? It was hard to watch this elegant, classy, smart woman have such trouble getting through her brief script.

Absolutely the shock -- and delight -- of the evening was when the Best Song award was announced. Presenter Queen Latifah could barely believe it herself and let out a squeal when she saw "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from the movie "Hustle & Flow" on the card. The winners were like little kids who'd been let into the adult party and who could help but be thrilled for them? Can you imagine that song title now being forever on the list of Academy Award-winning Best Songs? Ha! It's worth it almost just for that! I like the song a lot, and I'm not prone to appreciating rap.

Speaking of "Hustle & Flow," I thought Terrence Howard was amazing in that movie. Philip Seymour Hoffman got all the pre-Oscar hype. (Yes, he was fabulous as Truman Capote.) David Strathairn, who played Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night, and Good Luck," also got mentioned quite a bit. (Sad that that excellent movie got nuthin', not even one Oscar. Director George Clooney got the Supporting Actor award for his role in "Syriana" but I bet he'd rather have the recognition for his own movie.) The fact that Terrence Howard, who played DJay, a pimp with a dream, got zero hype or mention by the critics as one who should win, was an unforgivable oversight. DJay was very, very outside his own persona as much as Aileen Wuornos in "Monster" was outside the norm for Charlize Theron, and she won the Best Actress Oscar for that role two years ago.

Tomorrow the entertainment shows on TV and the tabloids and People magazines of the world will be filled with deadly-dreary post mortems of what actors did what to whom or didn't do what for whom, and, worse, what they were all wearing and who looked stunning and who looked dreadful. Sorry, but my attitude about all of that is...who the hell cares?!?!