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

The Groves Of the Academy

I haven't really seen any of the movies nominated for Oscars, which will be given out at the 82nd annual Academy Awards ceremony tomorrow, but I hope Sandra Bullock wins the best actress Oscar for The Blind Side. She's never been taken all that seriously as an actress, yet she's getting some of her best reviews ever for playing a white Southern woman who takes in a black teenager and raises him to become a great football player. And it would be a shame if she lost that and won a Razzie for All About Steve. But Meryl Streep as Julia Child in Julie and Julia might provide her stiff competition for the Oscar.

The award for best actor looks like it could be a showdown between Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart - he plays a country singer, and he did his own singing for this role - and George Clooney for Up In the Air. Don't count out Morgan Freeman, though, as Nelson Mandela in Invictus, about South Africans in the days after apartheid rallying around the white-dominated rugby team.

Looking at the ten best picture nominees, I had to ask myself: How did they come up with ten? And why do they think quantity equals quality? Oh, right, this is Hollywood. I hope Avatar doesn't win. Nothing against James Cameron or anything like that, but if a 3-D movie wins, this could have a great aesthetic fallout on motion pictures, and bring to something as kitschy as three-dimensional imagery the artistic legitimacy it shouldn't have. At least give the best director Oscar to Kathryn Bigelow for her Iraq War movie The Hurt Locker, if not best picture.

If Vera Farmiga wins best supporting actress for Up In the Air, this could bring her the stardom that has eluded her up to now.

The envelopes, please. :-)

Do The Razz

The 2010 Golden Raspberry Award Foundation for the worst movies and movie performances of all time have been announced, and surprisingly, Nia Vardalos, the Peter Frampton of comedy, is not among them - despite putting out two movies last year.

Even more surprising is that Sandra Bullock is a nominee, despite getting a best actress Oscar nomination (more about the Oscars later) for her role in The Blind Side, about a white Southern woman who takes in a black teenager and helps him turn his life around and sees him go on to the NFL. Her worst actress Razzie nomination is for All About Steve, a movie in which Bullock plays a lovesick crossword puzzle editor who obsesses over a news cameraman and follows him everywhere. Never heard of it? A lot of people didn't, until the Razzie nominations were announced.

All About Steve got a worst picture nomination, as did Land of the Lost (based on the seventies Saturday morning TV show of the same name, which truly sucked), Old Dogs (starring Robin Williams and John Travolta, both of whom jumped the shark some time in the late nineties), and two action movies made for twelve-year-old men of all ages, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Steve Martin got a worst actor nomination for his role as Inspector Clouseau in Pink Panther 2, a sequel to his original remake, which flopped. So many people must have felt taken in by the first Martin Pink Panther movie that they weren't about to fall for the same scam again. Will Ferrell got one for Land of the Lost. But get this - the Jonas Brothers were nominated for a concert movie. I've always said they'd be the Bee Gees of the twenty-first century; this must be their equivalent to the Sgt. Pepper movie (which also starred Peter Frampton). Alas, that deathless classic was released in 1978, two years before the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation was even founded, so it never won a Razzie.

For worst actress, Sarah Jessica Parker joined Sandra Bullock for Did You Hear About The Morgans?, a movie no one heard about. Miley Cyrus got nominated as well for playing the title role in Hannah Montana movie, even as her father Billy Ray got nominated for worst supporting actor in the same film. Keep it the family. Beyoncé Knowles was nominated for Obsessed, but she isn't likely to win, if only because her husband is Jay-Z, and the artist legally known as Shawn Carter isn't someone the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation would want to mess with. (He is one big nasty dude!) I would have to root for someone other than Sandra Bullock to get the worst actress movie, if only because she's finally being taken seriously as an actress by the Motion Picture Academy, and a dubious award like this one is the last thing she needs.

Wait! Why am I wasting my time reciting all of these nominees? You can check them out here. They have all sorts of categories - worst acting, worst screenplay, worst direction (All About Steve seems to have cleaned up) but no categories for worst song or worst score. This means that Peter Frampton could write film music and never have to worry about being nominated - though Miley Cyrus will remain a Razzie favorite, it appears, if she keeps up with her acting, which is, I'm led to understand, no better than her singing. So enjoy perusing the latest Razzie nominations and remember - you might be miffed that true talents like Steve Martin and Sandra Bullock are among them, but even esteemed actors are human and make mistakes. And no matter how bad the Jonas Brothers's concert movie turned out, I expect them to have a long and prosperous musical career.

Unlike Peter Frampton.