If you love movies, you're require to have some post-Oscar observations. Here are mine:
1) Nice to see Alan Arkin win. I'm tempted to say he was the best thing about Little Miss Sunshine, but all the actors were exemplary. Arkin simply had the fortune to exit the film before the overly familiar script mechanisms started to grind, and all the promise of the early scenes collapsed into feel good cliches.
Arkin's win, of course, was Eddie Murphy's loss, and there are a variety of theories as to how the front-runner came away empty-handed. Some think it was simply the appearance of Murphy's most recent crapfest, Norbit, which turned off voters. Others, more disturbingly, think it was racism, which would explain why a seemingly Academy-friendly movie like Dreamgirls didn't get a Best Picture nomination.
But let's propose an alternate theory, shall we? Maybe Murphy didn't win because he wasn't that good. Or more accurately, he was as good as the movie allowed him to be, and is sensational in the opening scenes. As the story progresses, however, and he's required to become a tragic figure, he's badly let down by the film's indistinct point of view; he becomes a plot point, not a character, and there's nothing he can do. he shows what a fine dramatic actor he could be, someday, in a movie focused on character, not costumes.
2) Many in the animation community are incensed by the choice of Happy Feet as Best Animated Feature. They argue, correctly, that a movie like this (or Monster House, also nominated) depends so much on live action motion capture technology that it isn't strictly speaking animated at all.
Me, I'm a cel animation guy. My beef with the recent spate of motion capture pictures is the same as my problem with most recent CGI features: They are so frantic, so full of pointless motion, both of the characters themselves and of simulated camera moves, that they seem to assume all audiences have ADD, and won't sit still for a scene that runs longer than a minute or two, that something has to happen, something has to be moving all the time.
And of course, all these recent so-called "animated" movies have been aimed at kids. Studio execs seem incapable of thinking of animation as a medium unto itself, a way of telling all kinds of stories, a way to paint deeper moods. Brad Bird's stupendous The Incredibles, while family friendly, seemed like it was pointing the way to animated films about real human beings with real human concerns. Alas, Pixar has roped Bird into directing another animated critter movie, and word is, his next project will be live action. A possible visionary and savior of animation gone, but who can blame him?
3) The Departed? Really? Is there anybody, anywhere, that thinks this was the year's Best Picture? Or that Scorsese deserved to win an Oscar for this?
And about that whole Scorsese's-never-won-an-Oscar thing: So? Neither did Altman, until they gave him an honorary one last year. Neither did Hitchcock, Kubrick or Peckinpah, all infinitely finer filmmakers than Scorsese. But now he's won, so everybody please stop whining.
4) I didn't watch the telecast, but God knows I've seen enough clips to confirm my opinion: This show is worthless. If a year went by and it wasn't broadcast, would anybody miss it?
