Oscar Winners

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the way the Oscars turned out. I wish I could have seen a count of how close some of those votes were, because I think there were some REALLY close calls this year. The Academy could have chosen any of the Best Picture nominees and they would have done fine by me, since they were all really quality films (with the exception of Atonement, which I haven't seen, so I can't vouch for). No Country For Old Men earned their award, but I think the Academy might have picked There Will Be Blood if the tone was a LITTLE more serious. Having people laughing unintentionally throughout a supposedly serious film probably isn't a good sign. I still liked TWBB, but I think No Country better described the feelings of Americans at this point in our history - there will always be good and evil, and no matter what sacrifices we make, evil will still be there in some form.

Transformers was totally screwed in the sound editing and sound mixing categories, losing to The Bourne Ultimatum. You've gotta be kidding me - Bourne didn't have near the impact that giant freakin' robots did when it came to sound. And Transfomers was absolutely ROBBED in the Visual Effects category! I can't believe that some of the "most complex renders in ILM history" didn't hold up against The Golden Compass.

DDL took it down for Best Actor, and he definitely deserved it. His performance is already iconic (they're going to remember him for this one) and the movie just came out a few months ago. Javier Bardem was pretty clutch in No Country, so I guess he deserved his Best Supporting Actor, but I thought Casey Affleck stood a great chance to upset him with his performance in The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford. That's one of those where I'd like to see the final tally sheet. His quiet, almost peaceful, performance was pretty impressive if you ask me.

It kind of sucked that Ellen Page didn't win Best Actress for Juno, but historically the Academy doesn't like giving awards to young people. I guess they think they'll have time to deliver a better performance later in their career, and I think we'll see that happen to Ellen (she just turned 21! Hell of an acting job in Juno for a 20-year-old). I'm glad Diablo Cody got some props for her Juno screenplay; hopefully we'll be seeing some more good stuff from her in the future.

In other news, Eddie Murphy and Lindsay Lohan ravaged the Razzies this year, breaking records in the process. Eddie Murphy is the first actor to ever win three of the four Worst Acting trophies in a single year for Norbit, and Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me broke the record for total number of Razzies with a staggering 8 wins from 9 nominations. Daddy Day Camp was the only film to win a Razzie that was not affiliated with the Murphy/Lohan flicks - it won in the Worst Prequel or Sequel category.