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| Name: Ryan Roe Email: prawnrr-rmv@this.com-yahoo.com Position: Movie / Television / Comic Book / Trivia Geek View Ryan's Personal Profile |
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| Here's my Oscars follow-up! It's about 12 days late, but that's still timelier than Martin Scorsese's directing win. Just think of this write-up as a retrospective, a look back, rather than a reporting job. How did I do in my predictions? In a word: not very well. In fact, I considered leaving this entire page blank except for the words "I sure did lose the Oscar pool." Yep, I had the opportunity to participate in an Oscar pool at an Oscar party this year. As I marked my ballot before the first award, I thought, Hey, I have a really good chance of winning this thing! By the time half the awards had been presented, I was folding my ballot into a paper hat, just so it would serve some useful purpose. Let's see… if half the awards had been presented, that means there were only about three hours left in the show. 'Cause the Oscars are long, haw haw haw. So here's how I did. Or didn't do. I'm presenting the names of the winners here, and where I guessed incorrectly, I'll put my guess in parentheses. Best Actor: Forest Whitaker (I predicted Leonardo DiCaprio) I knew Whitaker’s performance in The Last King of Scotland was well-received, but I just didn’t think the movie made a big enough splash for him to win. Apparently Forest was on fire. Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin (I predicted Eddie Murphy) Yeah, well, everyone else in the universe predicted Eddie Murphy too. Some years ago, my friend Justin predicted that Will Ferrell would someday become the first former Saturday Night Live cast member to win an Oscar. In 2004, it looked certain Bill Murray would take that honor, but he lost out to Sean Penn. This year, guy who used to wear a Gumby costume was singled out as the favorite, only to lose in an upset. Okay then, Mr. Ferrell. Show us what a Spartan cheerleader is made of. Best Actress: Helen Mirren It’s great that she won an Osccar. But I noticed several post-Oscar write-ups that mentioned how hot she looked on Oscar night, which must be just as satisfying for her as winning the award. Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson Best Animated Feature: Happy Feet Every once in a while, an Academy Award is presented that makes me think maybe the whole thing is a load of hooey, and this year, a mess of a movie about a dancing penguin got that award. Did the voters see the same Happy Feet (and the same Cars) I did? What’s going on here? I don’t understand! How did that happen? Somebody help me. I’m cold. Best Art Direction: Pan’s Labyrinth (I predicted The Prestige) Best Cinematography: Pan’s Labyrinth (I predicted Children of Men) I predicted Pan’s Labyrinth for every other category it was nominated in, but not these two, and in these two it won. I’m cool with that, though, because it was a good movie. I also predicted it to win for Best Vomiting Toad, and of course it won in that category. I found the toad’s acceptance speech quite touching. Best Costume Design: Marie Antoinette (I predicted Dreamgirls) Best Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth It’s great that people like the movie. Now if it inspires people to take action, we’ll be golden. Best Documentary Short: The Blood of the Yingzhou District Best Film Editing: The Departed (I predicted United 93) Best Foreign Language Film: The Lives of Others (I predicted Pan’s Labyrinth) The Lives of Others, eh? Didn’t see that one coming! Meanwhile, this one was one of the many, many correct picks my ladyfriend Michal made. Until the night of the Oscar show, she didn’t realize that Pan’s Labyrinth was a foreign language film. Best Makeup: Pan’s Labyrinth The Pale Man haunts my dreams. Best Score: Gustavo Santaolalla, Babel (I predicted Javier Navarrete, Pan’s Labyrinth Best Song: “I Need to Wake Up” from An Inconvenient Truth (I predicted “Listen” from Dreamgirls) This was an upset. I haven’t seen Dreamgirls, so I don’t know how the nominated songs are presented in the film, but Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé’s performances knocked my socks off. I like Beyoncé. I hope she doesn’t go nuts like so many other pop stars of her generation. Best Animated Short: The Danish Poet (I predicted The Little Matchgirl) Best Short: West Bank Story (I predicted Eramos Pocos) I’d like to see the winning film. It’s a musical! Best Sound Editing: Letters from Iwo Jima Best Sound Mixing: Dreamgirls Best Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed (I predicted either Children of Men or Little Children) Best Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine (I predicted The Queen) As I mentioned before, I quite enjoyed Little Miss Sunshine, but I don’t think it deserved the screenplay award, which gives me some weird cognitive dissonance. Best Director: Martin Scorsese It’s a good thing he won. His buddies Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas would have felt pretty sheepish giving it to somebody else. Best Picture: The Departed I oughtta see that movie one of these days. As you can see, I was no Oscar soothsayer this year. There weren’t many sure things in a year where no single film dominated the nominations, but I still really stunk it up. I think next year, I’m going to mark my ballot with my eyes closed. Other thoughts: •Ellen DeGeneres was a pretty good host. I missed the beginning of her monologue because the New York transit authority decided it wasn't important for me to get to the Oscar party on time, but she seemed to get some good laughs, and the gospel choir was a nice touch. Oh, and remember when she asked Steven Spielberg to take a picture of her with Clint Eastwood? It’s online, as my buddy Scott pointed out, right here. •Once again, the montages were superfluous, and only served to make me wish I could see all those movies. The one about writing was amusing, but I didn't really see the point of the one pieced together by Michael Mann. •Anna Nicole Smith didn’t make it into the death montage, but as somebody pointed out to me, Don Knotts died just before last year’s Oscars but appeared in this year’s montage, so maybe we’ll see her next year. I have no idea why I care. •How cool were those shadow-dancing people, forming visual representations of films of 2006? Their depictions of Snakes on a Plane and The Departed were especially brilliant. If only those guys had been around for Oscar shows of years past… They could have made the Titanic hitting the iceberg in 1998, a fearsome Darth Vader in 1977, and Michael Constantine wielding a bottle of Windex in 2003. •Jack Nicholson’s temporary baldness got folks talking, much like Tom Hanks’s silly DaVinci Code mullet last year. From now on, I think one movie star should show up to the Oscars with unusual hair each year. Next year I want to see Julianne Moore with a Mohawk, and in 2009, Dustin Hoffman with pigtails. •When Maggie Gyllenhaal talked about the previously held technical awards ceremony, she described it as “a wild night.” That was a joke, right? It must have been a joke, but she seemed to say it with some sincerity. •Jaden Smith blew his lines while presenting an award with Abigail Breslin. When I was eight years old, I’m sure I made a mistake or two in the school play, but in my case there weren’t millions of international viewers watching me. •John Travolta, presenting with Queen Latifah, expressed his admiration for a full-figured woman who can sing and dance, then said, “But enough about me…” As somebody at the Oscar party pointed out, this was a reference to the fact that he’s playing the mom in the new film musical version of Hairspray, but if you didn’t know that, it would seem like a complete non sequitur… or like Travolta was choosing that moment to reveal a personal secret. •Have you ever noticed that the show is about the same length every year, but people always say it seems longer than usual? That’s all I got. So who do you think will win Best Picture next year? Comments on this post are closed. |
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| Yeah, you really ought to see The Departed. It's pretty great. |
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| I think that Maggie Gyllenhaal could read an algebra textbook with a respectable degree of sincerity. And as for having nearly won that Oscar pool, I'd have done it if it weren't for those meddling kids. Maybe next year, instead of marking your ballot with your eyes closed, you could use my method: never go to see any movies, and pick only those you've heard discussed on NPR as winners. |
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| I'd just like it to be known that *I* came in with a perfect score. Perfect... in that... I hadn't see any of these movies prior to the actual night of the Oscars. I've since seen Little Miss Sunshine. It was good. I'd also kind of like to see Pan's Labyrinth. |
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