ACADAMY AWARDS 2010: Predictions and Contradictions

A NIGHT OF SURPRISES

Contributing Writer: AMIT DAYAL, International entertainment columnist and film critic.

The city of angels, Los Angeles hosted the 82nd Annual Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre. And what an event it was! We saw the $500 million extravaganza ‘Avatar’ humbled by a low budget independent movie depicting the everyday precipices of an American bomb squad unit posted in Iraq “The Hurt Locker”, walking home with six of the major awards including Best Picture and Best Director in Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman ever to win it in the category.

The ceremony kicked off with a hilariously witty musical performance by Neil Patrick Harris, “No one wants to do it alone”, mockingly introducing the two hosts for the evening, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, who then went on to present an extremely humorous monologue introducing all the major nominees. When introducing Sandra Bullock, Steve Martin said: “And there’s the beautiful Sandra Bullock. Wow. Who doesn’t love Sandra Bullock?” To this Alec Baldwin replied, “Well, tonight we may find out.”

Among the winners, Jeff Bridges sealed what was already looking like an unbeatable performance in “Crazy Heart” as the Best Actor, after claiming the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors’ Guild Awards in the same category earlier this year. He went on to thank his parents for introducing him to “such a groovy profession”.

Sandra Bullock on the other hand, won the golden statuette in the Best Actress category for her heart wrenching performance as an All American woman playing the Good Samaritan in raising an African American boy. The win did not come before receiving fierce competition from Hollywood icon Meryl Streep who had earned her 16th Oscar nomination this year for “Julie and Julia”, making her hold the record for the highest number of Oscar nominations for any actor.

Other wins included Austrian actor Christoph Waltz who won the Best Actor in a Supporting role for his terrifying portrayal of Col. Hans Landa in Quentin Tarantino’s directorial venture “Inglourious Basterds”. It was a rather disappointing night for Tarantino for he had hoped his movie would cause some major upsets in the Best Picture category. Mo’Nique received a standing ovation for her win in the Best Actress in a supporting role category for the movie “Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire”. While accepting the award she thanked her husband for encouraging her to do the movie, he pushed her, she said by saying “sometimes, you have to forgo doing what is popular in order to do what’s right.” She added “Baby, you were so right.”

“Up” won the Animated Feature Film. Michael Giacchino also won the award for “Up” in the Original Score category, edging past master musicians like Hans Zimmer and James Horner. JJ Abrams’ spectacle “Star Trek” won in the Makeup category. It’s the first ever Oscar win for the ever so popular Star Trek franchise.

Other winners were, Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for Original Screenplay, Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire) for Adapted Screenplay, Sandy Powell (The Young Victoria) for Costume Design, “The Cove” for Documentary Feature, “Music by Prudence” for Documentary Short, “The Secret in their Eyes” (Argentina) for Foreign Film, “The Weary Kind” Music and Lyrics by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart) for Original Song, “Logorama” for Short Film Animated, and “The New Tenants” for Live Action Short.

Half way into the ceremony it was looking evidently clear that “The Hurt Locker” would outweigh the mammoth of a movie “Avatar”, having won three major awards for Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Original Screenplay against “Avatar’s single award for Art Direction . But then “Avatar” got back into the race by bagging two more awards for Cinematography and Visual Effects. Kathryn Bigelow’s thrilling Iraq war drama then won in the Film Editing category.
As the night neared its conclusion, it was a clear battle between the two strongest contenders for the top honors, “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker”. Barbara Streisand presented the award for Best Direction. She announced the name saying, “The time has come”. The time had indeed come to make Oscar history for Kathryn Bigelow, as she became the first woman ever to win the Best Director award. In her acceptance speech she kept describing the award as “the moment of a lifetime”. She later expressed her notion of inspiring more women to reach her pinnacle by saying, “I hope I’m the first of many, and of course, I’d love to just think of myself as a filmmaker. And I long for the day when that modifier can be a moot point, but I’m very grateful if I can inspire some young, intrepid, tenacious male or female filmmaker and have them feel that the impossible is possible, and never give up on your dream.”

After that, it was a mere formality for her movie “The Hurt Locker” to walk away with the Best Picture award as Tom Hanks hastily entered the stage and announced the winner even before Kathryn Bigelow could exit the stage fully with her Best Director award. Not many people know that “The Hurt Locker” is the lowest grossing movie ever to win Best Picture. It has made a mere $21 million worldwide. The award was accepted by Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, and Greg Shapiro. The third producer Nicolas Chartier was barred from attending the ceremony after he mailed numerous Academy members requesting them to vote for his movie.

All in all it was a great night for world cinema. For once, one didn’t feel that the Academy aimed for political correctness in awarding the winners. All the major awards were well deserved. Steve Martin ended the show by saying “the show is so long that Avatar now takes place in the past.” So true, but who’s complaining.

Contributing Writer: AMIT DAYAL, International entertainment columnist and film critic.