Oscars

And they're over...

Crash wins Best Picture of 2005! When was the last time the Academy pulled a real surprise and a good one on top of things? Crash edges out Brokeback Mountain and draws a riot of cheers, partly also because, as Jon Stewart noted in the beginning, half the audience was in one way or another involved in Crash.

In terms of my predictions I was 16/24 and 7/8 in the big 8 categories. If we consider the 2nd chance (could win) predictions, only 2 wins appear as surprising on my list. Brokeback Mountain, Crash, Memoirs of a Geisha and King Kong have 3 wins each, the first two dueling in the big categories, Geisha winning the visual awards and Kong the audio ones..

What else was there to note tonight?...

There were basically two awards this year, where last minute campaigning seems to have changed the results. One is obviously the big winner Crash where the power of a true message outweighed the catchiness/trendiness of Brokeback Mountain's theme. The other one was in the other best picture category - foreign film. Here, last minute rallies by jewish protesters might have swayed the balance against a Palestinian movie which, according to them, glorifies suicide bombers. The flip side is that Tsotsi, the winner, is an extremely deserving movie who could have won without the controversy surrounding Paradise Now.

Obviously, one of the most memorable wins was that of 3 6 Mafia for Hustle & Flow's It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp. Great stage performance of the song and well... the love for the song just could not be matched even by Dolly Parton's... presence. As Jon Stewart put it: "For those of you keeping track - Martin Scorsese - 3 6 Mafia: 0 - 1".

Two of my mis-predictions came from Memoirs of a Geisha who indeed won Art Direction and Cinematography as many were predicting. In retrospect the wins are not undeserved, as the visuals are the main reasons to see the movie.

As for the predicted wins, George Clooney is the Hollywood prince, loved by everybdoy and always full of wit and sarcasm. Still the most eligible bachelor in the world, he grabs all the attention when he shows up. I also heard this morning on the radio the key to his immense success with women: "He has mischief in his eyes.". The acting queen of Hollywood is now officially Reese Witherspoon (who incidently is reported to make $29 million for her next movie) who is as genuine as it gets, although she can shorten her speech as she gets to be too much alike Julia Roberts.

In the end Stewart tried to liven the ceremony, but did not quite succeed. His opening monologue was as witty as we'd have expected, including the clip about him being selected after all the usual suspects refused to host the ceremony. Also, the fake promotional ads for some of the movies/candidates were hillarious and a fresh touch. Ben Stiller presenting visual effects, the makeup presentation as well, all were funny, but, as Stewart pointed out, could not shake the feeling of an overall jaded audience, that knew what was going to happen, been there done that, including the "surprised" speeches by Rachel Weisz or Reese Witherspoon... Come on, you knew you'd win. Of course, Brokeback Mountain also knew they'd win, but this time not everyone agreed. I'd like to rewatch the reactions at the end of the ceremony, but particularly the Brokeback reactions, not the genuinely surprised and finally excited reactions of the Crash group.

The curtain has fallen... time to start 2006.