HOBBIT-FORMING: The big winner at tonight's 77th Annual Academy Awards was "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King," which won a record-tying 11 awards, including Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and every major technical category- that's two more Oscars than Norah Jones won Grammys. I've published my entire Oscar diary over on BlogCritics, but here are seven major observations, for the number (7) of Billy Crystal's favorite ballplayer, Mickey Mantle:
1. A good show all around, albeit nothing too memorable. Crystal was a pro, and he's obviously the best in the world at doing this- the clip-montage, the sung-monologue, and jokes throughout hit on all cylinders. Still, I wish the Academy had heeded my call to let Bill Kristol host the show, or at least given him and Crystal a song-and-dance number together.
2. Two biggest robberies of the night: Sean Penn beating out Bill Murray for Best Actor, and "Fog of War" besting "Capturing the Friedmans" for Best Documentary, clearly a political move on behalf of the academy which was hammered home by Errol Morris' speech. Both Penn and Morris are talented and have had distinguished careers, but I just thought their opponents did better.
3. Tom Cruise gave out Best Director, breaking with the tradition of the previous winner giving it out- but the winner was... oh yea, Roman Polanski. If R. Kelly can come to the Video Music Awards every year, why no Roman at the Oscars?
4. Funniest moment of the night: During the "dead people" montage, Elia Kazan got a loud, sustained ovation, and apparently no one sat on their hands. All of those people immediately stopped applauding, however, when the next name appeared: Leni Reifenstahl's.
5. As one of my readers pointed out, when Francis Ford and Sofia Coppola got up on stage together, it would've been great if someone had shot her, and then she'd muttered "Dad" before keeling over dead, like at the end of "Godfather III." I mean, Kay Adams Corleone was right there in the audience...
6. Charlize Theron won Best Actress and looked fabulous doing it, bringing up an interesting dichotomy: in today's Hollywood, the best thing a pretty actress can do is look ugly in her movie, while the worst thing a pretty actress can do is look ugly on Oscar night.
7. I correctly predicted 20 of the 23 winners, missing only on Actor (Murray instead of Penn), Adapted Screenplay (Mystic River instead of LOTR), and Song (I had the "A Mighty Wind" tune, instead of Annie Lennox's LOTR theme). Still, I went nearly the first three hours of the show without getting one wrong. I even correctly guessed Animated Short, Live Action Short, and Documentary Short, despite never having heard of any of the nominees.
For my expanded thoughts, click here.