At a ceremony that celebrated numerous films instead of a lone powerhouse, Crash surprised many with the Best Picture award. It won three awards, as did Brokeback Mountain considered the favorite for Best Picture going in. Also winning three awards apiece were Memoirs of a Geisha and King Kong, though in technical categories. Reese Witherspoon and Philip Seymour Hoffman won the top acting prizes and the sole awards for their respective films Walk the Line and Capote. Unlike most years, none of the acting awards went to performances from the Best Picture. Neither did the Best Director with Ang Lee winning.
In addition to Crash's win, there was one other surprise, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle & Flow as Original Song and that film's only Oscar. With that live performance, somewhere out there is a smarmy producer thinking Hustle & Flow: The Musical.
As for the telecast and John Stewart's performance, I enjoyed this year more than most. He was calm and comfortable. I thought his opening monologue was so-so, but redeemed by many witty one-liners and observations throughout the ceremony. I seem to recall previous hosts largely disappearing after the intro. Stewart stayed center stage with lines like "finger-synching," "dreidel-off," and "Scorsese: zero. Three 6 Mafia: one." His approach was to sustain the comedy. The opening video segment was short and sweet, leaving room for those fake commercial bits later on. Stewart proved he can adapt to any room, even the stuffy Academy.
The tributes to various themes in cinema were also a home run. Why not use the forum to remind us of all the great scenes put on film? The clips and celebration of film Noir, blockbusters, societal issues and biographies were educational. Hit up your netflix list now for some older releases.
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Article comments
1 - Donna
Thanks for making a reference to John Travolta's hair. What the hell was he thinking? I bet he's going gray and dyeing his scalp, YUCK!
2 - El Bicho
"Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep's overlapping dialogue,"
That was a perfect tribute to the work of Robert Altman.
3 - chip
On "overlapping dialogue" not working. Yes it paid tribute to Altman's style, but it went on too long last night. For a director who says he never wants to make the same kind of film twice, was this what they wanted to people to think his films were all like?
Tomlin and Streep probably do it better on film, with some semblance of good writing, than on their own live in front of an audience. Parts were funny and the effect was "cute" but too rambling and babbling. Kind of like an Ellen DeGeneres stand-up performance.
4 - -E
the overlapping dialogue is exactly what all of Altman's films are like. There are times where it is incredibly hard to understand a single voice in his films because there would be far more than two people speaking over each other. I thought it was a pretty genius way to introduce that award to Robert Altman.
Plus, Garner has been in films as well. Perhaps not as well received or known as Aniston, but she's been in them.
5 - SwatBrat
On the Streep/Tomlin intro: Forget their intent to represent Altman's style; I loved it for its own sake! It was the highlight of the night for me: very fluid and well choreographed, which is a whole lot more than I can say for 80% of the other presentation sequences. On a purely visceral level it had me grinning with delight. A+