And there you have it, the most predictable Oscar ceremony in memory. I'm happy that the best film of the five won, although my passion for
Slumdog Millionaire is dwindling. Eight Oscars seems excessive, but it's nice to see a film rise above the four or less win streak we've had for half a decade. I was sad to see Mickey Rourke lose, but Sean Penn was not as annoying of a winner as I expected. And congrats to Kate Winslet on her win; it's a performance I was not impressed by, but it's about time she won one of these. Ultimately, I am glad to finally call it quits on 2008 once and for all. With the Oscars handed out, I can finally move on to a hopefully more exciting 2009.
- The show was not the disaster I was kind of expecting. Hugh Jackman did a nice enough job hosting, although his presence was at times nonexistent. His musical number at the start was alternately funny and grating, but at least he said what everyone was thinking about The Reader.
- The one thing I feel was undeniably bad was the presentation of the acting awards. It just went on and on with the gushing and the backslapping, to the point of utter smugness. And to top it off, we got no acting clips for the performances. That's usually one of the highlights, seeing which clips they would pick, and I was especially curious to see how they'd present Robert Downey Jr and Heath Ledger.
- Loved Jack Black's comment about doing the Dreamworks film so that he could take all his money earned and bet it on the Pixar film at the Oscars. Very funny stuff, and I'm glad to see someone call Dreamworks out on their sub par films.
- Anyone else think it would have been awesome to ditch that one note Ben Stiller presentation for Cinematography and instead get Christian Bale to present? Now that would have been hilarious!
- I can see why Peter Gabriel wanted nothing to do with the ridiculous Best Song medley. Singing "Down to Earth" and "Jai Ho" at the same time was awful.
So that's a wrap. I did pretty well on my predictions. I believe the only category in which both my prediction and backup failed was in foreign film, but with the announcement yesterday that both
Waltz and
The Class were forcibly inserted into the nominees after not receiving enough votes, I made a personal last minute guess for
Departures. I really hope that next year we get a genuine race for Best Picture. I'd rather be wrong and surprised than right. It's just more fun that way!
And there you have it, the most predictable Oscar ceremony in memory. I'm happy that the best film of the five won, although my passion for Slumdog Millionaire is dwindling. Eight Oscars seems excessive, but it's nice to see a film rise above the four or less win streak we've had for half a decade. I was sad to see Mickey Rourke lose, but Sean Penn was not as annoying of a winner as I expected. And congrats to Kate Winslet on her win; it's a performance I was not impressed by, but it's about time she won one of these. Ultimately, I am glad to finally call it quits on 2008 once and for all. With the Oscars handed out, I can finally move on to a hopefully more exciting 2009.