Monday, February 25, 2008

The Oscar Goes To...

Watched the Oscars last night. I only had two horses in the race since it was such a weak year for films last year. It was thrilling to see Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova win for Best Song from the film "Once". That was, by far, the best moment of the night. From their performance of the song, "Falling Slowly" (which received enthusiastic applause at it's conclusion), to their winning the award, to Glen's acceptance speech, to Jon Stewart (after the commercial break) apologizing for the cutting off of Ms. Irglova's speech and bringing her back on stage to delivery her own "thank you". Awesome!

P.S. The film "Once" also won for Best Foreign Film the evening before at the Independent Spirit Awards! That was great!

My second horse in the race: Marion Cotillard winning Best Lead Actress for her performance in "La Vie En Rose". The film wasn't put together well, but her performance as the famed French singer Edith Piaf was by far the best performance last year. Her getting the award was well deserved (and not a surprise to me).

Most embarrassingly shameful moment? Having the U.S. troops in Iraq introduce the nominees for Documentary Short Films and then, just a few minutes later, basically spitting in their faces by awarding the Documentary Full Length Film award to an anti-American military hatchet job of a film (the title of which I'm not even going to bother to mention here). You could sense a bit of unease in the auditorium. Serves them right. Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

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