By Barry Benintende, Film Editor for Riveting Riffs Magazine
The 82nd
annual Academy Awards were full of firsts and things that I never thought I
would see such as; Kathryn Bigelow took home Best Director Oscar for
The Hurt Locker, Sandra Bullock won a Best Actress trophy and George
Clooney looked stone-faced most of the night (he was joking). It was also
the largest viewing audience since 2005, with 41.3 million viewers, and
co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were off camera more than on. The
show moved swiftly, right up to the moment Tom Hanks came out to announce
the Best Picture winner, and he came off like the adult rushing the
teen-agers out of his house because the party was over.
After seven years in Missouri, my wife Sharon and I have returned to our
home, lovely San Diego, and we expected that we would enjoy the festivities
under sunny skies and on a warm evening. Well, it rained and it was ugly
outside, but that did not stop our friends from showing up to enjoy some
good food and bad wine. Most of our guests enjoyed watching James Cameron
lose frequently throughout the evening as The Hurt Locker won and
Avatar lost most of the evening's trophies. While Avatar had
plenty of gorgeous images and is the largest grossing film of all time, it
simply is not the best movie of the year. Witnessing Cameron who was seated
directly behind his ex-wife, Bigelow, and watching his face show varied
degrees of hurt after each category was read became painful after a while. I
do not have anything against the man personally, and I have enjoyed many of
his films, but in my book, Avatar had overstayed its welcome. Leading
up to the Academy Awards, as I waited for the trolley or as I stood in line
at the coffee house, people would strike up conversations with me and
invariably they wanted to talk about Avatar. After a while I became
numb to everyone telling me how the movie deserved every award that the film
industry could bestow upon it. The Oscars are not the People’s Choice Awards
and since none of us are in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,
we do not get a vote. Suffice to say that Cameron will sit on his pile of
money and he will come up with another film that will rival Titanic
and Avatar at the box office and on this night his ex-wife was
honored for making a solid movie about moving topic.
Sandra Bullock won Best Actress for The Blind Side and came across as a sweet person, while keeping her speech positive. She gets bonus points for telling Meryl Streep that she is a great kisser. Many of my friends from church thought she stood no chance of winning, since she played a Christian conservative, NRA member. Well, score one for the folks in middle America. Bullock played the role with confidence and not everyone in Hollywood votes for awards based on their personal politics. If you have never met Sandra Bullock you would fall in love with her, even if she were to portray Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun. She is a kind human being and an individual for whom you want to root.
Jeff Bridges speech was a mixture of too-cool-for-words and it is about time! How did it take so long for Bridges to win a statue? That was one of the most often asked questions during the evening, as well as, “who made these awesome cupcakes?” (thank you to my wife’s friend Teresa).
My worst
moment came when Nick Park's A Matter of Loaf And Death lost out to
Logorama in the Best Animated Short category. As a huge fan of
Wallace and Gromit, I will always cheer on a Nick Park victory. However,
Logorama does look amazing.
I now have an answer to a question I would never have thought to ask, that
being, "What would the musical score to The Hurt Locker look like as
an interpretative dance number?" A troupe called the Legion of
Extraordinary Dancers answered that question, but unfortunately, the
answer apparently is it looks a lot like a bunch of people dancing to music
from a movie about a bomb disposal unit. I am not Twyla Tharp, so I have no
idea if the dance was brilliant or horrible, but it did give me time to get
everyone drinks and to get myself a plate of Beijing beef.
As for the rest of the evening, there were too many shots of Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart, as they introduced a segment on horror films, which oddly enough featured films that I would never think to call horror films; Marathon Man, Edward Scissorhands, Little Shop of Horrors, Jaws, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Beetlejuice. It was however awesome to see Roger Corman get an honorary Oscar, because he is one of my favorite directors / producers and it was also n ice to see Lauren Bacall receive one as well. It was also nice to see the camera point out the old guard in between shots of Zac Efron and Cameron Diaz.
It was an
outstanding night and the evening was much faster paced than most of the
previous Oscar ceremonies that I can remember and while Baldwin and Martin
may never be a headlining comedy duo, they were satisfactory and stayed out
of the way for most of the night. There was enough time to wonder why
certain stars were wearing dresses with one strap and what Judd Nelson was
doing with himself after appearing in a tribute to John Hughes. There were
plenty of leftovers to snack on while watching the season finale of HBO's
Big Love, which is a great show if you have never tuned in. I cannot
wait until next year. I will be pulling for Nick Park, as always.
Photo: Sandra Bullock in the film The Blind Side, photo courtesy of
Warner Bros. Pictures, all rights reserved ©
Riveting Riffs Magazine's Film Editor Barry Benintende is a freelance journalist living in San Diego. He is happily married to Sharon, with two sons, a daughter, two cats and the world's finest Terrier named Jack.
March 2010
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