All About Oscar

I didn't watch the Oscar ceremony last night, largely because Oscar ceremonies are boring and interminable, but I read who won what after the fact. I was surprised to find that The Hurt Locker won for both Best Picture and Best Director (way to go, Kathryn Bigelow!). But then, maybe I shouldn't be. Avatar had a sociopolitically liberal message, the kind that Hollywood loves in its movies (at least after the era of the old studio bosses ended), and it looked to be a winner on that basis alone. With its 3-D and computer special effects, though, the Academy likely balked at giving such a picture legitimacy, if only because of the feared aesthetic fallout on movies that Avatar is likely going to inspire whether it won any awards or not. (It won a few minor ones.)

After all, Star Wars, despite its intelligent story telling and multidimensional characters, is still being blamed for ushering in an era of special-effects movies at the expense of . . . intelligent story telling and multidimensional characters. George Lucas probably gets less respect than even Steven Spielberg as a result.

Sandra Bullock has her Oscar for The Blind Side . . . and her Razzie for All About Steve. She won both awards, and she personally accepted both awards. All About Steve, like John Lennon's remark about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus Christ, probably would have slipped by unnoticed and been forgotten if someone hadn't made a big deal out of it, and now the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation had to go and make it a permanent scar on Bullock's career by "honoring" her role in it. And to think this makes her an Oscar winner and a Razzie winner in the same year. Talk about a silver lining with a cloud on it. That she actually accepted the Razzie "award" in person shows that she's far less mean-spirited than the Razzie folks. (Or I. I still won't let Peter Frampton live down the 1978 Sgt. Pepper movie.)

Jeff Bridges did indeed get the Best Actor Oscar for Crazy Heart, and my mother couldn't be more pleased. She's been a Jeff Bridges fan for years. It was a not-so-great night for Up In the Air, which lost out on every award it was nominated for.

Vera Farmiga has a way to go before becoming a star of Meryl Streep's magnitude.

For a full list of Oscar winners, click here. And for a complete list of Razzie winners - which I know you care more about - click here.

Right, now I have to go and actually see one of these movies!

"If this picture wins any more awards, the Academy's going to have to see it." - Albert Brooks, 1988, on Bernarado Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture