Monday, February 25, 2013

2013 Oscar Afterthoughts and Contest Results

Following a surprisingly funny opening from first time host Seth MacFarlane, the Oscars proved to be another plodding, phony, self-congratulatory strokefest featuring anticipated disappointments and very few surprises. Out of not wishing to make a cohesive post (which is pretty much business as usual at this blog), here are a few of my thoughts on the event followed by contest results:

  • Although I was pulling for Tommy Lee Jones, I was still glad to see Christoph Waltz pick up another trophy. He was the core of Tarantino's film once more, and did an admirable job investing humanity in his character while again spinning the loquacious dialogue.
  • Why was Adele the only Best Song nominee allowed to perform?
  • I was a little put off by the "Life of Pi" visual effects winners bragging about how most of the film was fake, which made me want to discredit its cinematography win, although I think its still the most sumptuous of all the nominees.
  • It was pretty neat to see the tie, although I can't for the life of me remember what category it was in.
  • Exactly what was going on with this year's themes? First there was the tacky Bond tribute, celebrating 50 years of an enormously successful British series at an American award show. Then there was the lame brained idea of tributing musicals of the last decade, which was just an excuse to have fading celebrities clench on to their quickly fading stardom and have the tone deaf stars of "Les Mis" provide an encore to their glowing turd of a movie.
  • It was good to see "Searching for Sugarman" and "Amour" take home their trophies in the Documentary and Foreign Language category, although I would have liked to see Michael Haneke and company fare a little better otherwise.
  • Again, that Adele song isn't even that great
  • Argo was the best written adaptation this year? You gotta be friggin' kidding me.
  • I liked seeing goofball Quentin Tarantino win the screenplay award, but he wasn't the most deserving contender this year either. This was probably a make-up award for the egregious snub a few years earlier when he went home empty handed for Basterds.
  • Best surprise of the night was Ang Lee. I was so glad about this it almost made me change my mind about the entire evening.
  • Will someone please explain to me what the big deal is with Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence? I don't get it. It is a pretty neat stat though that the two least deserving women went home with acting Oscars tonight though. Sheesh.
  • Daniel Day-Lewis proves that even he needs a good script as his unexpectedly joke-filled acceptance speech fall flat.
  • Argo? What a joke.
Contest Results
It's becoming a disturbing trend but once more I did not win the Oscar contest. The winner was Eleanor Morse, a previous winner from two year's ago. I am still working on tweaking this contest which has now run for four years, and hope to have a more improved version up and running for next year's show. See you then!