Yay, Marty Won a Statue

I'm happy for him, I really am, even if there's not an exclamation point in the title. It's been far too long since he should've got one, so it's about time. He's been nominated five times previously (though not necessarily for the films you might guess). Three of those times he lost to an actor in the director's chair. He could've lost to Clint, the only actor up this year, but he lost to him last time, so I guess it's only fair.

But the whole Oscar season this year was just hard to get excited about. I guess there were a lot of good movies out there, but the quality was so spread out that there was nowhere to focus. If I'm not mistaken, Helen Mirren was the only Best Actor or Best Actress nominee who was nominated for a performance in one of the films up for Best Picture. Between the noms for Picture, Actor, and Actress, there were fourteen films represented.

I don't really have a problem with any of the winners, though I'm a bit disappointed that Peter O'Toole went home empty handed. Seeing him making the rounds of the talk shows this year, I'm not sure if he has any more movies in him. I haven't seen Venus yet, so I can't say for sure, but I'd have to wonder if a win this time around would've felt like the Academy owed him. He's given performances that deserve Oscars, so by extension he deserves an Oscar but doesn't have one. Whether this specific performance is Oscar-worthy is almost beside the point.

This may be somewhat masochistic, but for giggles, Don was hanging around The Corner to hear them bitch about the Oscars and Al Gore. Against my better judgment, I took a look, as well, and it was pretty funny. After a post insisting that she wasn't liveblogging the Oscars, Kathryn Jean Lopez made six more liveblog posts. But my favorite post came from Peter Suderman:

By making the theme "celebrating you" (as in celebrating the nominees), [Ellen DeGeneres] pretty much openly admitted what I suggested in my article Friday—that the Oscars are little more than an opportunity for Hollywood's power set to engage in a round of luxurious, public self-congratulation.

The Oscars are for Hollywood to pat themselves on the back? That's unbelievable! Thanks for going out on a limb to explain that to us, Pete!