Let's start out with the Host, Seth MacFarlane. So Seth basically spent the whole night tip-toeing the line between pretty funny and borderline offensive. He may have crossed the line a few times depending on who you ask (The "We Saw you Boobs" song seemed more stupid than offensive to me and the Quvenzhané Wallis - Geroge Clooney Joke was hilarious I don't care what anyone says), but like all hosts he had his gems and his flops (The whole Shatner coming back in time thing was kinda lame, but the Sound of Music joke was incredible/best joke of the night) and I think he did an above-average job.
Next up is Quvenzhané Wallis, the youngest nominee ever for Best Actress and literally the cutest thing ever. Seriously, every time the camera landed on her everyone I was watching with got happy and it made us all feel good to be alive. When they announced her name and she did her little flex/fist pump thing, oh my god, adorable. More Quvenzhané please. (On a related note, this video of Kids doing scenes from Oscar movies is well made, hilarious, and almost equally as adorable: Kid Oscars) Plus look at that puppy purse.
Next, something I liked but felt uneasy about was Christoph Waltz winning his second Oscar for supporting Actor. I think he did a phenomenal job in Django, but to me Leo was better and the only reason Waltz was getting this much attention was because of the unreal performance he gave in IngloBast. To me, his performance this year was at best 3rd (behind Leo and Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master). Honestly it feels like he is just getting another award from IngloBast, but he did do an awesome job and better he get it than Tommy Lee Jones.
Another oddity was Ang Lee winning Best Director for Life of Pi. He did a great job, but in a year of such strongly directed movies it seems odd to give it to Life of Pi, which may have been the 2nd most beautiful film of the year (behind The Master of course) it was missing from a lot of people's year top movies lists. The whole directors category was messed up though, in fact in my opinion the top three directors of last year weren't even nominated:
Not Nominated:
Kathryn Bigelow - Zero Dark Thirty
Quentin Tarantino - Django Unchained
Paul Thomas Anderson - The Master
[sigh] Whatever, I'm over it.
And lastly, Argo. I don't want to ramble on too much about this, and let it be known that I did like (not love) it but come on. This award seemed to be chalk full of people changing their votes late based on other awards, and especially voting for it because Ben Afleck didn't get nominated for Best Director. I felt that Argo was a very good film, but took very few risks and was not at all interesting or original in a meaningful cinematic way (the story was riveting, but no one had to write it). Off the top of my head these are the movies of 2012 that I felt were better than Argo.
(In no particular order (except The Master)):
The Master
Django Unchained
Zero Dark Thirty
Wreck-It Ralph
Silver Linings Playbook
Ted
The Dark Knight Rises
Cloud Atlas
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Cabin in the Woods
Safety Not Guaranteed
So yeah, "great work" Oscars
Stray Observations:
- Jennifer Lawrence if awesome and I am falling more and more into love each time I see her give an interview (This Post Oscars one is incredible). First actress to ever win an Oscar the same year she starred in The Hunger Games.
- Wreck-It Ralph got robbed. I saw Brave and it was whack. Wreck-It Ralph was hilarious and heartfelt and Brave was not.
- Zero Dark Thirty got no love and it was incredible and that's too bad.
- Daniel Day Lewis gave one of the most awesome and hilarious acceptance speeches of all time, and on the opposite side Tarantino's speech was one of the least humble ever which made it also hilarious.
Well that's that, peace out.
Slam