Oscar telecast

Kind of a snooze.  Franco-Hathaway never really hit their stride as hosts, and despite a few cute moments, mostly just made the 3+ hour show seem even longer.  I especially wondered what the purpose of AH's song about Hugh Jackson was doing there, capped off by JF in drag.  Ugh, filler of the worst variety.  As usual, I didn't like the way the Best Song nominees were performed, but I complain when they do big production numbers and then I complain when, like this year, they do it in a more understated way - clearly there's no satisfying me!  Very few memorable presenters - Jude Law and Robert Downey may be the only ones who made any kind of impression.  And I think they need to change the envelopes, because more than one presenter seemed to be struggling to get the cards out of them

No surprises to speak of among the winners, except for Inception's win for Cinematography (no one I read had predicted them!)  I was also a bit surprised that Hooper won for The King's Speech - everything I read suggested it was pretty much a horse race between Fincher and Aronofsky (since Christopher Nolan was left out of that category). 

The King's Speech mostly swept the top awards, which is both the triumph of old fashioned movies (a good and a bad thing) and a clear indicator that it was a good year, but not a great year for movies.  I liked TKS a lot, but it certainly doesn't have the sweep or resonance of Crash, American Beauty, The English Patient, or GWTW, to name just a few examples.

Unlike most people, I really like the speeches, and am always alert for authentic emotion.  I thought Christian Bale and Aaron Sorkin were highlights - classy and (at least apparently) genuine.

Another random complaint - they cut to reaction shots of Mark Wahlberg rather more than seemed justified - I guess they had a camera planted there, and he's easy on the eyes.  But it almost seemed cruel, seeing as everyone in his film was nominated except him.  And there were plenty of other celebs I would have liked to see!
Lots of pretty dresses, in a wonderful array colors (including lots of red), but so many women looked emaciated, including Sandra Bullock, and especially Sharon Stone and Hillary Swank.  No real fashion disasters IMHO - I thought the bodice of Cate Blanchett's dress was a bit much, and Jennifer Hudson's was unflattering, and the waist accents of Nicole Kidman's dress ruined the line.  But mostly I thought everyone looked classy and lovely, especially Mila Kunis in lavendar, Scarlett Johanssen in purple, Jennifer Lawrence in red, Amy Adams in blue, Michelle Williams in white, Marisa Tomei in black, and Halle Berry in frothy cream.

As always, I did very poorly in the Oscar pool - out of 7 participants, only one person did worse than me - I only got 7 of the 14 categories; Suzanne, who won again, got 11/14.  Even if I hadn't abadoned Melissa, and if I'd gone with the crowd in the Costume category, I would have barely gotten into the middle of the pack.  Sad, really, especially since this year I actually did some research to see which films were favored beyond the major categories.  Fun though, and it forces me to pay attention when I might wander off to start a load of laundry instead.