Oscars and awards...

Last night was Oscar night. I was not sure how I was going to like it since I have not seen any of the top nominated movies. Over the years I have been going out to the movies less and less. I just don't feel the need anymore. High ticket and food prices plus people who have no regard for other people have really turned me off on the experience. I would rather wait for the dvd release. Even more so I usually wait for my library to get the dvd so I do not even have to pay for it. Eventually I probably will see all the top nominated movies this way. Maybe.

But I digress. The telecast was surprisingly good last night. Hugh Jackman did a pretty good job as host. Especially for his first time. It seems like the movie industry took a cue from the Golden Globes and even the MTV Movie Awards and lightened up their attitude. They actually seemed to have some fun. I say it was about time. The awards pretty much went as expected with Slumdog Millionaire being the big winner. The one big upset it seemed was Sean Penn winning the Best Actor award over Mickey Rourke. The fact that the majority of awards went as expected made me wonder how attuned to reality the awards are. Did the best people/picture win? Do voters make the right choice or the one they think they are suppose to make? I always wonder with award shows. Some seem to go out of their way to pick winners that no one has seen or read. It is like they want to thumb their noses at popular culture. Last night for example there were three songs nominated for best song. Two of them were from the same film. I find it really hard to believe that out of all the movies released in 2008 they could not find any other songs to nominate. I am not saying that what is popular should be picked as the best. Whatever is the best should be chosen. I just think that the process should be a little more transparent so we can judge the choices a little more rationally. After every award show the voting process should be revealed so we can see just what the actual vote counts were not only for the winners but for who made the last round. Of course that won't happen because then we would see just how restrictive the whole process is. I can dream though...

Best film...

The wife and I finally watched There will be Blood tonight. We had not seen any of the Oscar nominated films prior to the awards. Since then we have seen 4 out of the 5 now. The wife tried to watch Atonement which would be the fifth, but turned it off part way through because she did not like it. I read the book and had no desire to see the movie. So which one should have been the winner? No Country for Old Men won the oscar. I have to say I think Michael Clayton was the best movie by far of the nominees. And the biggest disappointment for me was There Will be Blood. I thought it would be so much better than it was. Daniel Day Lewis was great as usual, but the movie was far to slow to hold my interest. And what was up with that soundtrack? I have to say it was the worst soundtrack I have ever heard. It did not match the images at all and every time they would do a big scene with only music and no lyrics it was horrible. The movie really needed a better editor too.

As a side note what was up with the rating for the movie tonight. It was rated R for "some violence". I have seen a lot worse in a PG-13 movie and have no idea why this movie was rated R. There was zero nudity, no profane language and minimal violence. Yet it still got an R rating. WTF? This is further proof the ratings board has no clue in what it does...