A Night of WTF

I'm pleasantly surprised by this year's Oscars! Not only was Jon Stewart hilarious (no matter what Nikki Finke thinks), but there were some MAJOR shockers in the awards!

I have to complain for a half-second about that, though. What's the point in following the guild awards if the Oscars don't remotely resemble them? I know the Academy has slightly different membership (as in not every member of each guild is a member of AMPAS, so the results are often different even in the technical categories)... but am I mistaken in thinking that Oscar voting is similar to Emmy voting, where your specialty determines which categories you can vote in?

Anyway, to highlight this... god bless Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton for their wins (BOTH DESERVED!) but every single acting award went to Julie Christie and Cate Blanchett. So... yay, but "huh??" And while I hated Transformers and the idea of it getting three Oscars hurt me (it wound up with none, so, again, YAY), if the Visual Effects Society gives you its award, shouldn't the Oscars follow suit? Or if, say, the VES DOESN'T NOMINATE YOU, how do you wind up with the Oscar (cough, Golden Compass)? Meanwhile, there are multiple Sound guilds, but the confusing thing for me was that Transformers won awards for editing and mixing from one guild, and the other went with No Country for editing and Bourne for mixing (Bourne won both Oscars). Does not compute. And the list goes on.

So, yeah. While I was THRILLED with some of the winners that I didn't pick, I wound up with only 13/24 right (12/21 if you play without the short subject categories as some do). Which, for me, is down right embarrassing. Well, maybe next year I'll beat the 21 I got right in 2006.

Meanwhile, awkward moment of the night one... WTF with Amy Adams' performance of "Happy Working Song"? Not only did she change into an outfit far uglier than what she wore to the ceremony (she later presented, and you can see her on red carpet photoblogs) and an outfit that didn't at all recall the outfit she was wearing during the movie when the number happened... but she sang alone, on stage, with nothing and no one behind her. The rest of the musical numbers tried to recreate the atmosphere of the scene in the film, so I understand the show not setting loose a number of pigeons, rats, and cockroaches during Amy's performance... but WTF!? Tangent: gotta love Kristin Chenoweth.

Awkward moment of the night two... poor Markéta Irglová. The producers cut the mike after Glen Hansard does his thank yours when "Falling Slowly" won as she tries to talk. At least the show semi-corrected itself after the commercial break by bringing her out. Ugh, stupidity.