Initial Thoughts on the 80th Annual Academy Awards & Telecast

1. For starters, with my predictions I got 13 out of 24 nominees correct. Certainly not excellent, that's the same number I got right as last year. I did get 6 of the big 8 (picture, director, actor, supporting actor, supporting actress, & original screenplay).

2. I thought Jon Stewart did an excellent job with the award show, being funny, adaptive, timely, and relavent. In 2006 I made a comment about how I didn't think he was that great, I think Stewart was exceptional this year. Favorite Jon moment was probably when he accepted the baby on behalf of Angelina Jolie who was unable to attend because she couldn't get a baby-sitter.

3. I was in the Julie Christie camp pre-award show, but am excited that Marion Cotillard won. She was beautiful in her mermaid dress (somehow she pulled it off, unlike Bjork and the Swan Dress). I hope her career continues to blossom. Her speech and attitude from red carpet to stage was classy and touching.

4. I probably should have chosen Cottilard to win, after all I've been posting all year about how "Real (Reel) People win Oscars." And this year Cottilard and Blanchett were the only leads performing in bio-pics, so what was I doing predicting Julie Christie to win?

5. Bourne Ultimatum wins each of the 3 Oscars it was nominated for...now that really threw off my predictions (I only had it down to win Editing). Pretty impressive feat since the first two films in the trilogy failed to even score a nod.

6. Who would have guessed Katherine Heigl would have been the most nervous person on stage? And she was just presenting the award for best makeup. Not only was her body and voice shaking, she apologizes to the audience for her nervousness and looked like she was about to cry.

7. I realize that Joel and Ethan Coen were co-nominated for 4 awards and have previously won an Oscar for their Fargo Screenplay...yet, I felt like their acceptance speechs were so lame and cocky, especially their writing award. Sure, they might have been confident about their opportunity to step up on stage again later in the evening, but at least take it seriously. Joel Coen did better during the award for best director with a fun anecdote, but come on act like you care.

8. Amy Adams did such an fantastic job singing "Happy Working Song" at the beginning of the telecast. No props, fancy sets, flashy costumes or lighting shows, just Amy singing the fun Alan Menken/Stephen Schwartz song with all of the energy and talent that made Enchanted an exceptional film. I think the Academy really missed the boat by not nominating Adams for best lead Actress for her role.

9. Speaking of best song, it was really great that Markéta Irglová was able to come back on stage to give her great little speech upon winning the award with Glen Hansard for best Original Song for "Falling Slowly" from Once.

10. The most akward moment of the award show was when Oscar winner Diablo Cody (Original Screenplay, Juno) in her very unique Award-show-get-up ended her speech saying "I want to thank my parents for loving me just the way I am." And then in an emotional huff walks away from the microphone. It was an oddly personal moment that you just weren't sure how to react too.

11. I thought it was pretty neat when the soldiers where helping announce the documentary short awards. Yet, there was a really weird moment when Tom Hanks was reading and briefly describing the documentary feature nominees. Once he finally mentioned the fifth nominee (War Dance) he made a comment about it being a movie about hope, and then he says, "finally hope." I agree that between 2006's hopeless films and 2007's violent films, he's right to be thankful for films about hope, but this was just a strong added little comment that surprised me.

12. It was interesting how many non-American winners there truly were this year. Marion Cotillard (French), Javier Bardem (Spanish), Tilda Swinton (English), Sweeney Todd Art Director (Italian), Dario Marianelli (Italian), Hansard (Irish) & Irglova (Czech), etc.

13. I know I'm interested in having the opportunity to see the Oscar winning documentary (Taxi to the Dark Side) and foreign language film (Austria's The Counterfitters) as soon as they are made available to me. It's always too bad when these nominated films, especially the foreign films, do not have wide screenings prior to the awards telecast.

14. The funniest presenters were certainly Jonah Hill and Seth Rogan as they tried to decide who was most like Halle Berry and who would be left pretending to be Dame Judi Dench.