'The Hurt Locker' brutalized 'Avatar' Sunday night. In fact, I don't remember the camera cutting to Cameron at all during the second half of the broadcast apart from when they announced his ex-wife's name. Crushingly for him, she was sitting but one row in front of him for the duration of this one-sided takedown. As he gazed at the back of her pretty, talented head, 'The Hurt Locker' proceeded to scoop six Academy Awards. Best Picture and Best Director yes, but that was (in my opinion) a foregone conclusion. It also picked up Best Original Screenplay which went to a controversial Mark Boal who (angry military man aside) wrote a script that matched the intensity of the action piece by piece. Personally, I think that Quentin should have been considered for this one. Shows how much I know about how screenplay voting. I thought 'Up in the Air' was going to walk the adapted category. Silly me, right? But, we'll get to that later.
So, not only did 'The Hurt Locker' win Original Screenplay (which 'Avatar' was not ever remotely considered for), it managed to royally tax some of the technical awards which most people would have assumed 'Avatar' to walk away with. Alas, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing both went to the Bigelow pic within seconds of each other. It also picked up the Best Editing award which I figured was a landslide as the entire 'Hurt Locker' experience was based around the precision cuts that kept the film on its toes for an hour and a half. 'District 9' would've been a close second as I'm sure you'll agree. Lowly 'Avatar' (the most successful film of all-time) was reduced to Cinematography (which it shouldn't have won), Art Direction and Visual Effects. Both of those latter two it was totally entitled to thanks to truly stunning stuff from Cameron and his team of movie scientists. It was double trumps though for Bigelow and co. The first female directing award was presented with no stop for the Best Picture statue as Tom Hanks rounded off a long, impressive evening hosted unbelievably well by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.
The Supporting Role categories went as planned. The first award of the night was the easiest to call as Christoph Waltz elegantly accepted his final award of the season for his perfect performance in 'Inglourious Basterds'. Once again, he took to the stage with intellectual grace and poeticly bromanced Quentin Tarantino. Kindly spoken too was Mo'Nique who collected for her role in 'Precious' in which she silenced all her critics within seconds of appearing on screen. Considerably shorter than her Globes speech, she eased up on the Hallmark but still led us to believe that she and her husband are terribly in love. It was nice.
An overlooked big winner on the night was most definitely 'Up' which rightly was awarded Oscar gold for both Animated Feature and Original Score. Michael Giacchino could easily have been nominated twice for his musical contributions to cinema this year, so it was good to see him up there making a meaningful speech. And it's always a good year when Pixar makes the best animated movie. Dreamworks tend to be a tad Fox Network-y if that makes any sense? Solid movie, solid wins.
If the Oscars were about one movie this year, they were about one man. One man who has proved to be one of Hollywood's most consistent talents over the years, but amazingly had never won the big one until last night. That man of course is The Dude. And boy, did he abide.
After a beautiful performance in Scott Cooper's 'Crazy Heart' as the over-the-hill, whiskey-dependent Bad Blake, Jeff was finally able to take a load off (maybe smoke a J) and let the praise roll in. That's not to say that his competition wasn't stiff though. In fact, the Leading Actor category was this year the strongest its been in the last five which makes Bridges' win all the sweeter. Any one of the leading men nominated was a worthy winner, except maybe Morgan Freeman who was outshone in his own movie by Matt Damon. Colin Firth was the main threat for what I understand to be a truly emotive performance in Tom Ford's 'A Single Man', but this prize could just as easily have gone to George Clooney for what Empire described as 'a gift of a performance' in 'Up in the Air'. Renner was an outsider in 'The Hurt Locker', but it's not as if he was there to make up the numbers.
Following a heartfelt tribute from Michelle Pfieffer then, it was finally The Dude's turn. With his first Academy Award nomination coming almost 40 years ago, it was always going to be an emotional moment for everyone involved. I'm actually suprised that Jeff didn't just run on stage and shout 'It's about f*cking time!'. Reserved and humbled, he saved that kind of colourful language for Radio 5 Live and proceeded to make a lovely little speech in which he held high his wife and his parents.
Emotional too was Sandra Bullock who won for her leading role in the wasteful Ameridrama 'The Blind Side'. Having seen the film, I can confidently ensure you that this win was a complete joke. Don't get me wrong, Bullock was good in it. As good as you can be portraying a Southern, conservative mother-of-the-year type. Yeah, it was a career performance for Bullock, but the film really was terrible. On top of that, I didn't ever really picture SaBu as the Oscar-winning type so for her to come out on top for a above-average performance in a mediocre movie was hard to swallow. Carey Mulligan was absolutely stunning in 'An Education', as was Auntie Meryl as Julia Child in 'Julie and Julia'. Apparently Bullock was the frontrunner the whole time, but that certainly wasn't the case in my circles. Is there something we're missing, America? I'll never understand it, I guess. Nor will the millions of film-lovers around the world who know for a scientific fact that Mulligan or Streep should've won. Hell, I'd put first-timer Gabby Sidibe above Bullock having seen both 'The Blind Side' and 'Precious'. No brainer.
Finally, we come to Adapted Screenplay. This was the only real unexpected upset of the night for me. Having won the Globe, the BAFTA and countless other awards for its exceptional writing, this award should have gone to 'Up in the Air'. Hands down. Not only was it Jason Reitman's finest work and the best screenplay of any movie last year, it was one of the best written films I've ever watched. That's a personal opinion of course, but I'm not exaggerating. I loved it from start to finish. So for Geoffrey Fletcher to sneak in and nick it for 'Precious' was heartbreaking. He wrote a brilliant film, no doubt. But, as high as I hold 'Precious', if anything it was the writing that held it back from being truly great. 'Up in the Air' on the other hand offered nothing short of masterful dialogue. The characters were more true and more defined that any character in 'Precious', and it brought a poetic, quirky and involving feel to often overlooked and depressing subject matter. When Fletcher's name was called, my heart sank. The only film that I would have been okay losing to was 'An Education', but the Academy would have never gone for a Brit-flick.
2009 was an astounding year for film, but strangely enough the Oscars were particularly easy to predict. Maybe that's because I saw all ten Best Picture nominees before the awards took place this year. Maybe it's because there was so much quality separating the best from the rest (not so fast, 'The Blind Side'). From the looks of things, 2010 is going to be equally as impressive. Right now though, my money's on 'Inception'. Just you wait.
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