Sunday, February 25, 2007

Oscar Watch: the show is over... til' next year

Well, it's all over but the drinking. I expect that Eddie Murphy will want to throw a few back. Despite all of the rumors I had already heard, Alan Arkin's win was a big surprise. The "upset" came early on, making me think there would be more. Alas, the big categories went pretty much as expected.

Highlight: Melissa Etheridge thanking her wife, Tammy Lynn Michaels when she accepted her Oscar for best song ("I Need to Wake Up" from An Incovenient Truth).

Lowlight: Melissa's sad girl-tux.

Highlight: Accepting his honorary Oscar, Ennio Morricone's moving, emotional speech in Italian.

Lowlight: Celine Dion's performance of the new Ennio Morricone song, "I Knew I Loved You."

Highlight: Ellen Degeneres. You want details? I loved it when she consoled 8-time nominee Peter O'Toole: "You know what they say. Third time's a charm."

Lowlight: The winner of Best Costume Design accepting in yet another sad girl-tux.

Highlights: A coherent Forest Whitaker and a standing ovation for Martin Scorsese.

Lowlight: The dancers were kind of hit-and-miss.

Highlight: The mini-Dreamgirls production featuring J-Hud as an Oscar winner. Surprising that she joined in on "Listen," which was Beyonce's song in the movie.

Lowlight: My prediction score of 11 right - out of 24 categories. That's horrendous!

If you weren't keeping track, the big winners of the night were The Departed (4 wins), Pan's Labyrinth (3 wins), Little Miss Sunshine (2 wins), An Inconvenient Truth (2 wins), and Dreamgirls (2 wins). Babel, Letters from Iwo Jima, The Queen, The Last King of Scotland, Marie Antoinette, The Lives of Others and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest all took home 1 Oscar.

Well, we've got 10 months of movies until the 2007 nominees are announced. I've already started my Geeky spreadsheet to track the great performances. Here's hoping that this year's films are happier all-around!

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