2007 Oscars Recap

Hey everyone! The 79th Oscars has come and gone, and I must express relief that it's all over. After the past several years of boring ceremonies, my expectations were sufficiently lowered for this one. What I didn't expect though is that they would go 45 minutes over. I only padded my DVR for 30 minutes. So yep, I missed Best Actor, Director and Picture. Thank God for Youtube. The fact that they cram these three awards into the last 15 minutes is telling. I think saving best picture for the end is one thing, but 3 of the 7 most anticipated awards happen in the last 15 minutes of a 4 hour show? Something is out of whack. I also just don't understand how the producer of this show could have so underestimated the length of the show. No one's speech went on for 45 minutes, so did they just never do a full run through? Fire this man at once! And finally, once again, we have too many sound awards, too many songs, and too many montages/tributes. Enough already!

As for what went well, I thought Ellen was a good host. I enjoyed her tone and opening monologue. She wasn't too mean, too political or too bawdy. She was light and that was refreshing. That said, I still long for the return of Steve Martin.

And now for how I did on my predictions. I predicted 16 awards - what I thought should win and what I thought would win. For the would wins, I got 10 out of 16 - or 63% accuracy. For the should wins, I got 7 out of 16 or 44% accuracy. I was happy to see that Marie Antoinette picked up the Costume award, Pan's the Art Direction and Arkin the Best Supporting Actor. Those were all in the Should but not Will category! I can't take too much credit here. I think this was the most predictable year in decades.

And now for my own awards of the night:

• Best Use of Color: Emily Blunt
• Best Dressed: Reese Witherspoon once again, Cate Blanchett as always, Rachel Weisz (sans the necklace) and Gwyneth Paltrow's art deco gown
• Worst Dressed: Cameron Diaz and Meryl Streep
• Best Dressed Men: George Clooney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Peter O'Toole (I adored his smoking jacket)
• Best Fashion Analysis Ever: Randolph Duke
• Worst Excuse for a Human Being - Much Less a Correspondent: Ryan Seacrest
• Biggest Trends: Neutral colors, Beaded dresses, Long straight hair
• Belle of the Ball: Helen Mirren - she had more shout-outs than Jack Nicholson
  
• Biggest Mystery: Where was Rachel McAdams? Ryan Gosling brought his mom and sister - the jerk!
• Worst Trend: Prepared, read speeches. These people are in the entertainment industry! Why can't they memorize a few lines - and yes, I'm specifically talking to you Alan Arkin. And a bazillion others. There wasn't a speech of the night that knocked my socks off. Forest Whitaker was MUCH improved over the Golden Globes, even if he did use note cards.
  
• Biggest Upset: Alan Arkin beating Eddie Murphy. Now if only Peter O'Toole could have pulled off the upset for Best Actor, I'd have really been happy. Tell me again how Lawrence of Arabia doesn't have an Oscar??
  
• Biggest Headscratcher: Happy Feet winning the animated award
• Biggest Attempt to Boost Self Esteem: The Gospel Choir that marched down the aisles at the end of Ellen's opening monologue singing about how great it is to be nominated. I can only imagine what the Brits must have been thinking during this bit of bizarreness.
  
• Most Overplayed: A tie between everyone telling us how this is the most international/diverse telecast EVER and them telling us how great they all are for being environmentalists. I wonder how many private planes were flown to this ceremony? And something tells me JLo did not arrive via Prius.
• Biggest Disappointment: The opening montage. While I admire the idea of having Errol Morris document the nominees' reactions to being nominated, I thought this was a huge letdown. I went back to last year's Oscar entry and was reminded of how much I loved that opening montage of all these characters from movieland intermingling. It was magical. This year's was frustrating. I didn't know who 90% of the people were - they weren't identified, and I can only take so much self-congratulation!
  
• Most Overdue for a win: Scorcese - you know it's a bad year for movies when you're thrilled Martin Scorcese wins for one of his tier two films.
• Most Overexposed: Jack Black - somebody lock this guy away for a couple of years.
• Funniest Presenter: Jerry Seinfeld - give him the host's job next year. Or put him back to work in some fashion. His riff on trashing movie theatres just may have been my fav moment.
  

Oh well, here's hoping 2007 is a better year for cinema.

-sunday