"I am a star. I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star. I am a big, bright, shining star." - Dirk Diggler (Boogie Nights)

Celebsturbation 101

Good lord, I can NOT believe that "Crash" won the Best Picture. As compared to the other nominees, I thought it was last. I thought movies that weren't even nominated, like "Walk the Line" and "The 40 Year Old Virgin", were better than "Crash." I thought "Crash" was just a series of cliches strewn together in supposed clever ways. I've said it before, "Crash" is nothing more than a semester's worth of Sociology thrown into a two hour movie. In my opinion, this is the worst "Best Picture" winner of all time.

I just have to remind myself that the Academy Awards, in many cases, is just a popularity contest. I mean, how can someone win Best Screenplay AND Best Director, yet lose the Best Picture. It's logically impossible. You have the best script and the best person behind the camera, yet they don't have Best Picture?

Jon Stewart was good tonight, as I knew he would. I particularly liked how he called out Hollywood for all of it's good and bad traits. We've all seen him call out politicians and pundits to their face, that it was kinda nice for him to subtly poke fun and strike jabs against the people at the show.

Who in the world saw "Three 6 Mafia" winning best song? That was by far the biggest surprise of the night. And Jon Stewart was totally right, that IS how you win the Oscar. Those guys looked genuinely happy, surprised, and gracious to win an Oscar.

...though I have to say that I think their song sucked.

Some people can't stand the early show winners, like the SFX and Sound people, as well as the "not big category winners," such as the directors of the animated and documentary movies, but I always like their speeches the most. The SFX and Sound people are always the geekiest people, while the animated film and documentary directors are always the biggest artists in the room. They're the genuine deal, many of them working without big budgets, and in case of the documentary directors, in adverse conditions.

Hollywood's award shows never cease to amaze me in the sheer amount of self congratulation that takes place. I know, I know, films are important. Films, like all art, exist to shake us and move us. But it's one thing for a critic to sit back and comment on film. It's another when the filmmakers and actors do it on their own.

But even beyond that, I thought it was kind of weird how the show's producers turned the Academy Awards into a commercial against piracy. Yes, yes, I know that in most cases, watching a movie in a theater is the optimal way to watch a movie. But jeez man, there are times I want to watch a new movie without having to have my seat kicked, or without paying 20 dollars for ticket, popcorn, and drink. Hollywood has a real issue on it's hands.

Oh well. As for the other winners...

Philip Seymour Hoffman is a bad ass. It's always good to see true artists win major awards. Though, each of those actors was top notch.

Felicity Huffman acted circles around Reese Witherspoon...and so did Charlize Theron for that matter...Oh well. I like Johnny and June Cash, so I'm not complaining that much. But Felicity is a much better actress.

George Clooney gave a good speech. I think he brought up a good point that Hollywood stars have done a good job at being on the forefront of many major social movements. Artists always find themselves on the right side of history. That's why they're artists. They're able to see things that many other people don't see.

that being said...

His speech certainly teetered in and out of "we're taking ourselves too seriously" mode. Yes, it's true that artists are on the right side of history. But once again, it's always weird when actors and actresses pat themselves on the back like this.

But George Clooney is a rare breed of Hollywood liberal. He's become the poster boy for those on the left that feel that they're being wrongly accused of something they don't feel they should be ashamed of. So kudos to him for sticking to his guns and saying what he said. I don't think it'll play well in the red states, however. But this being the year of "Brokeback," "Capote," "Crash," "Syriana," "TransAmerica," and "Munich," I don't think the entire show is going to play well in "the red states."

I liked all the Daily Show type segments they had during the show. The fake political ads (voiced by Stephen Colbert and Rob Cordry...I think) were really freaking funny.

The show didn't seem too long. I thought that it was going to be longer than it was, but it really picked up steam towards the end.

Oh...probably one of my favorite things about tonight's show was how certain presenters paid homage to their categories by doing little clever sketches. I thought Ben Stiller's "green screen guy," the Animated intro with Chicken Little (and that creepy duck from the same movie? i don't know), and Will Ferrell and Steve Carrel's make up sketches were really funny. They were all very funny. But in a weird way, I think that they probably meant a lot to the people in those categories. If I was a SFX person, I'd rather have Ben Stiller present my category in a green screen suit, than to have someone like Natalie Portman or Brendan Fraser present the award. It kept the show a little lighter than usual.

And I also want to point out an interesting tid bit about those exact presenters (Will Ferrell, Steve Carrell, Owen and Luke Wilson, and Ben Stiller). In a year where so many of the nominated movies were heavy, intellectual type stuff, it was people like those listed above that made the movies fun this past year.

That's about all this stream of conscious shit can go on. I'm tired. PEACE! :-)

matt out

p.s.

I guessed wrong on all but 6 categories. That's about 75% accuracy. I think it'd be fun to see ALL of the nominated performances and movies (documentary and animated films combined), so that I can see how well I can predict the Oscars when I've seen everything on the menu. But that's a level of nerdiness that even this nerd may not want to reach.