Well, this was quite the night, and I thought I'd check in here with a few quick thoughts on the awards. First, I was happy to see No Country For Old Men take top honors.
After years of faithfully making good films, the Coen Brothers took home 3 of the movies 4 awards. Because of the wide range of films this year, no film took more than 4,
No Country taking home the most. Surprisingly, the movie with the second most awards was "The Bourne Ultimatum," with three awards in Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Editing. It deserved all three.
Atonement walked away with just one, as did Michael Clayton and Juno, while "There Will Be Blood" took home two incredibly well-deserved Oscars in Cinematography (holy smokes that movie had some incredible shots) and of course, Best Actor. Everything was very spread out, fitting for one of the best years of film in, well, years.
On the technical front, this also was a very good show. Jon Stewart proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he's a great host. I hope they bring him back in the future.
A few of his jokes fell flat, but he was one of the only ones on stage with good dialogue (more on that in a moment). I especially enjoyed his parody of Oscar Montages. Someone needed to make a joke about those...
You could tell that the Writers Strike had an effect this year, though. The speeches made by presenters were incredibly generic; I think we've actually heard some of these before. The only two stand-out presenting teams were Steve Carrel and Anne Hathaway (their joke about Steve presenting the wrong category was great) and Seth Rogen with Jonah Hill, bickering about who looked more like Halle Berry. It was fun to watch.
But despite that little setback, this was one of the best Oscar telecasts in years. They moved things along at a fairly good pace. I'd still like them to cut those montages, but what are you going to do? I enjoyed the little flashbacks and interviews, and overall, the acceptance speeches were pretty darn good. I think the best two were Ethan Coen (I think...it could have been Joel) talking about making movies as kids when he got best Director; and Marketa Irglova (songwriter, Once) gave a great speech when Stewart brought her back up. It embodied the hope and dreams that many of these filmmakers strive for when making little movies.
Overall, I was very happy with the winners.
No Country deserved all its Oscars, excepting Screenplay; I still would have given that to P.T.A. for There Will Be Blood, but the Coens screenplay was by no means bad. It was brilliant and riveting, just not as much as
Blood. Tilda Swinton didn't really deserve that Supporting Actress award, but it was a weak race.
The biggest upset was in the visual effects award. Transformers didn't win. WTF? I mean, have you EVER seen effects more realistic? Sorry Golden Compass, but my giant robot can kick your polar bear's butt any day. Otherwise, I really love this list of winners. Well done Hollywood!
And with that, we bring a definitive close to the great year of film that was 2007. Will the 81 st Oscars have as broad a range of phenomenal films? I hope so, but logically, it'll take Hollywood a little while to get back to the greatness of 2007. In any case, this was a fun night, and a very enjoyable show.