Oscars!

[emmagrant01]

We downloaded an "Oscar ballot" at film.com and went through it to make our predictions. We weren't sure about some of the categories.

Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy
Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean
Animated Feature: Happy Feet
Make-up: Pan's Labyrinth
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson
Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth
Art Direction: Pan's Labyrinth
Foreign Language Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Film Editing: Babel (him), Children of Men (me)
Actor: Peter O'Toole (him), Forest Whitaker (me)
Actress: Helen Mirren (me), Meryl Streep (him)
Adapted Screenplay: Borat (him), Children of Men (me)
Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine
Directing: The Departed
Best Picture: Babel (me), The Departed (him)


I'll update as the night goes on to see how well we did. :-P (Ones we got right are bolded.)



[7:40] Oh, I loved the opening film. That was fantastic! It's cool to see Ellen hosting this. For some reason I thought she'd hosted the Oscars before. I adore her, though. She's so funny. :-) Best joke of the night: "Jennifer Hudson's here. America didn't vote for her on American Idol, but she has an Oscar nomination. And Al Gore's here. Of course, America voted for him and..."

[7:47] Art Direction: Pan's Labyrinth. Woohoo! The Grants score one. :-D

[8:03] The musical number with Jack Black and Will Farrell was hilarious! Make-up: Pan's Labyrinth. Score 2 for us. We didn't have a pick for animated shorts, as we had no clue about any of them. But having the kids present that was a cute idea.

[8:15] The sound effects choir was amazing!! We didn't have a clue about sound editing, and didn't have a prediction.

[8:23] Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin -- we got that one wrong.

[8:44] Animated Feature: Happy Feet. That makes 3 we've gotten right. Woo!

[8:53] Adapted Screenplay: The Departed. We were both wrong, which is probably for the best. ;-)

[9:23] Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean. Got it. And yay for John Knoll!

[9:31] Foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others. Even the filmmaker seemed surprised!

[9:35] Supporting Actress: JENNIFER HUDSON OMG!!!

[9:44] God, Gael is hot. ;-)

[9:49] Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth. Yes! Oh, teary Al Gore, I love you! You'll always be my president! On another note, MDH just asked why the presenters get more time to talk than the winners do. Good question.

[10:02] Does Clint Eastwood speak Italian? I only understood a little of that, but the translation seemed about right. Oh, the GM robot commercial was changed. Whoa. I still like it, though. ;-)

[10:14] Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine. We totally guessed on this one, actually. :-D

[10:31] Every mention of gay marriage on TV brings us that much closer to it being simply accepted, and that makes me happy. :-)

[10:44] Film Editing: The Departed. We were both wrong.

[10:49] The memory montage always makes me cry. :-( Are they going to finish this up in the next ten minutes? I think there's only four awards left.

[10:54] Actress: Helen Mirren. Yay!

[11:04] Actor: Forest Whitaker. That was my guess, and he totally deserves it. But I feel for Peter O'Toole, I have to say.

[11:08] Directing: Martin Scorcese for The Departed. As soon as Coppola, Spielberg, and Lucas walked out to present, MDH laughed and said that even the people who booked the presenters knew Scorcese had to win! It's a lifetime achievement award, and he totally deserves it.

[11:16] Best Picture: The Departed, which MDH correctly guessed.

So between the two of us, we got 11 out of 15 right. Not too shabby!

Comments

[remey.livejournal.com]

Pan's Labyrinth was pretty damn powerful..

[liesbyomission.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I just saw it last night, and it was very moving.

[remey.livejournal.com]

yepyep. i cried - :(

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see it!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

The Life of Others is brilliant, but nobody seems to have sen it...

[doro-chan.livejournal.com]

I wanted to see it too, but didn't have the time. And for some reason my friend and I never manage to rent it.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

It won, so someone saw it! ;-)

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I know, isn't that thrilling?

[florahart]

Ellen's done the Emmys, but not the Oscars. And I am glad to watch her because she just always makes me feel happy, with her very funny but really never mean stand-up. :D

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the Emmys. That's what I was thinking of. I love her self-deprecating style. It's so refreshing after years of hosts that mocked people. :-)

[daybreaq.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought she had done the Oscars before as well until I heard someone mention the Emmys ... and I thought,"Oh yeah, same diff."
Ellen does this "I'm just an ordinary dork," bit which allows her to have fun with people without mocking them.
I was a bit disappointed Eddie Murphy didn't win. Still, I'm thrilled Jennifer Hudson won as she was the one I most wanted to win. I did wonder a bit if she was faking her surprise a bit since she *was* considered the favorite going in; but I speculate that perhaps she started to think she wasn't going to win when Eddie didn't win. I do think the awards given prior to the Oscars and the overall pre-Oscar "buzz" sometimes ends up backfiring and hurting a film or individual's chances of winning an Oscar sometimes. And I do think "Dreamgirls" in general was a bit of a victim of too much positive pre-Oscar buzz. Sometimes, there's the feeling that the film is too overhyped and other worthy films aren't being noticed enough. I think the fact that it didn't even get a nomination for "Best Film" or "Best Director" is a sign of that. I also read prior to the Oscars that "Norbit" might end up hurting Eddie's chances; but I also read another article that stated "Norbit" was really the film Eddie *should* win an acting award for (but that that would never happen) because as silly as *that* film was, it was a great acting performance. As soon as I heard Melissa's song on the show, I knew it would win because the Academy loves a "message" song. The performance of the Dreamgirls' nominated songs on the show was pretty fantastic though ... even though I think the new Oscar eligible songs were the weakest in the film. I think Jennifer was just so completely loveable in this pre-Oscar period, she was pretty much the only one who didn't suffer from the Dreamgirls' pre-Oscar buzz backlash.
I guess it's cool to see the awards spread out and several films get recognized. Still personally, I just adore "Dreamgirls."

[tm-nicholas.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Alan Arkin did that great of a job in Little Miss Sunshine... Steve Carell did a much better job.

Happy Feet was awesome, as was Pan's Labyrinth.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the Academy voters seem to base their voting decisions on something other than the nominated performance, don't they?

I only went to see Happy Feet for the OOTP trailer, and ended up loving it!

[doro-chan.livejournal.com]

[9:31] Foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others. Even the filmmaker seemed surprised!

It was his first longer film. And I heard the research took him years.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I have no clue what it's about!

[doro-chan.livejournal.com]

It's about the Stasi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi), the Eastern German secret police. It had very much influence on the people's life because everyone was suspecting everyone (I am living in former Easter Germany now, and a lot of people tell you stories about it). Basically, a Stasi agent is put in charge of the surveillance of a writer.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow! That sounds really interesting. I was in some cities in that part of Germany in the early 90s, and had a chance to talk to people about it. It's hard to imagine now that things were really like that. (And of course, still are in some places.)

[daddybear716.livejournal.com]

I didn't think Hudson was going to get Best-Sup, was very happy for her. She looked great! The DreamGirls montage was fabulous!!!! I'm so glad they finally learned how to make a Broadway musical into a great movie. But they go and leave out the woman who played the 4th Dream... go figure.

Melissa looked great and loved that she very matter of fact thanked her wife. That's how it should be.

[supasass.livejournal.com]

I really loved Pan's Labyrinth and was a bit gutted it didn't win best screenplay or foreign film (although I hadn't seen the other films)I felt it had so many layers and so much emotion. I hope everyone sees it after the Oscars! xxx

[glasshouses.livejournal.com]

I doubt Clint speaks Italian, he was looking at the teleprompters. He didn't wear his glasses and flubbed the whole thing up from the beginning.