THE 82ND ACADEMY AWARDS

All of the little gold men have been given out so sadly, that means the end of another Oscar telecast. I enjoyed the show as always but of course, I have a few comments and gripes. My biggest complaint is that the producers of this year's show had been boasting that this was going to be the year that the show would come in on time and that would be accomplished by cutting away some of the fat. Some of the so called "fat" was moving all the honorary Oscars to a separate ceremony and eliminating the Best Song nominees from being performed on the show. These are two things that actually makes the show special but guess what?

The show ran over anyway. Why can't the producers of this show stop fighting this and just accept this fact: The show is a live telecast. This means that things are going to happen that you can't predict and it also means that it may cause the show to run over three hours. Let's just deal with this fact and move on.

The show started off wasting time by having all of the Best Actor and Actress nominees just standing there on stage and calling off their names, then proceeded to have Neil Patrick Harris (WTF?) come out and repeat his song and dance number that he did, but much better, on last year's Emmy awards. Then, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin came out to do an opening monologue. This was fine and some of it was actually funny but it went on way too long. Then awards were handed out, which is what the show is all about.

Another issue I had was that the non-celebrity winners were unfairly cut off after 45 seconds but the movie stars were allowed to babble on for as long as they wanted. Everybody is a winner here so let's play fair. The "In Memoriam" segment felt rushed and left off a lot of important people (Farrah. Bea.) who had passed away last year. James Taylor singing live during this. . . WTF for? I thought the John Hughes segment was very nice, although Molly Ringwald and Judd Nelson haven't aged well. Finally, why were people bothered with Tom Hanks just opening the envelope and announcing the Best Picture winner? They had been announcing the nominees all night, so why waste more time going over them again?

As far as my predictions, I did all right but I am very glad I was wrong about the Best Picture winner. People came to their senses and selected a film that they won't be embarrassed they voted for in twenty years. This show will be best remembered for honoring the first female Best Director, the first African-American Best Screenplay winner and "White Lady Kanye". Well, until next year.



Here is the complete list of winners at the 82nd Annual Academy Awards:

Best Picture: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, "The Hurt Locker"
Best Adapted Screenplay: Geoffrey Fletcher, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
Best Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, "The Hurt Locker"
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, "Crazy Heart"
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock, "The Blind Side"
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds"
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"
Best Cinematography: "Avatar"
Best Film Editing: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Foreign Language Film: "El Secreto de Sus Ojos," (Argentina)
Best Animated Feature Film: "Up"
Best Animated Short Film: "Logorama"
Best Live Action Short Film: "The New Tenants"
Best Documentary Feature: "The Cove."
Best Documentary Short Subject: "Music by Prudence."
Best Original Score: Michael Giacchino, "Up"
Best Original Song: Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett, "The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart)" from "Crazy Heart"
Best Art Direction: "Avatar"
Best Costume Design: "The Young Victoria"
Best Makeup: "Star Trek"
Best Sound Mixing: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Sound Editing: "The Hurt Locker"
Best Visual Effects: "Avatar"