Just a few things to say on last night’s ceremony (which, in all honesty, I watched most of in about a half hour this morning courtesy of the DVRs fast-forward):
My favorite three moments:
Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black said this at the end of this acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay: “But most of all, if Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches or by the government or by their families that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours.”
Queen Latifah’s beautiful rendition of “I’ll Be Seeing You” during the In Memoriam section.
The sparkly stage proscenium. I wish I could find a picture to post because it was gorgeous.
The rest of the show was okay from what I saw. Hugh Jackman’s opening number was cute and funny. I particularly liked the fact that he was close to cracking himself up. However, the “big” number that he worked on with Moulin Rouge’s Baz Luhrmann was a mess. Jackman, Beyonce, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper all gave a good performance, but the song selection and transitions were bizarre at best.
As for the winners… I was glad to see Sean Penn get the upset over Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet to finally win. Heath Ledger’s family had a quiet dignity about them. And I’m still a bit embarrased that I haven’t seen Slumdog Millionaire yet.
I thought, with a few exceptions, this was one of the slickest Oscar productions in recent memory. The set was amazing, I liked the idea of past honorees for the acting awards coming out and paying tribute to the current nominees (even if I also felt that each went on a little too long), and Hugh did a good job. (Although, Will Smith was funny enough that I did comment, “Why not give him a shot at host some year?”)
My two beefs were, yes, that horrible tribute to musical movies which started nice but then became weird (right around the time Beyonce showed up…coincidence?) and I’m not clear why Zac/Vanessa/Amanda/Dominic were hyped when they hardly did anything. My second beef was with the memoriam scene. Yes, Queen Latifah was great but the camera work gave me motion sickness. Half the time, you couldn’t read the caption on the screen to see who was being honored. And I’m really pissed they missed Harvey Korman in the montage. Where does one go to complain about that sort of thing?
And who knew Anne Hathaway can sing? Holy crap! Cast that girl in a movie musical pronto!
Sean Penn winning is truly upsetting. The political machine of Hollywood awarded a mediocre actor / performance just to futher a political agenda. The winner should have been Frank Langella or Mickey Rourke.