Oscar Night

I just finished watching the Academy Awards and I don't think I've ever enjoyed any other Oscar night as much. First of all, I really liked the more intimate set design and tone of the evening. I also loved how they did the Acting awards this year, with five previous winners coming out and addressing this year's nominees one by one. It made it all seem really personal and special, which was much needed after that whole horrible "Let's have the winners accept from the audience!" debacle a couple of years ago.

I also loved Hugh Jackman as the host. It was nice to have someone sing & dance instead of doing a hit or miss stand up routine to start off the show. Anne Hathaway was pretty damn great too, when she joined him as Richard Nixon! After Rachel Getting Married and then tonight's performance, I think I have developed a little non-sexual crush on her!

It wasn't just the different tone of the evening that I loved, though. The greatest moment of the night for me was when Dustin Lance Black won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Milk. Having this amazing, openly gay, writer win for a movie about a man like Harvey Milk was incredible enough, but his acceptance speech really moved me. I actually had tears in my eyes and I'm pretty certain I've never cried during any award ceremony before!

He's certainly made a lifelong fan of me just by being so awesome and I can't wait to see what he does in the future. Of course, I still haven't been able to see Milk, which really upsets me! I've resigned myself to waiting for the DVD but I'm baffled that even with the Oscar nominations it hasn't played on the big screen anywhere near me.

Speaking of Dustin Lance Black, check out this piece he wrote on Harvey Milk for the 30th Anniversary of his death, which is a Towleroad exclusive. It's very much worth reading and just makes me admire him even more. (When you're done reading that, they also have an exclusive on Harvey's last love, written by Armistead Mapuin!)

Heath Ledger's posthumous win was also a moving moment, mostly because in my mind he was winning the award not for The Dark Knight but to make up for the Oscar he should have won for Brokeback Mountain when he was alive.

Sean Penn's win was unexpected for me. I'd hoped he would win, of course, but all the predictions seemed to be trending towards Mickey Rourke so I'd pretty much accepted that. I was moved enough by the win for Best Original Screenplay to tell myself that it was all right if the film didn't win anything else, but when Penn's name was called I was shouting with joy.

I was kind of sad that he (unlike Dustin Lance Black) didn't actually say anything about Harvey Milk while accepting the award, but he more than made up for it with his call for marriage equality and the reference to the signs of hatred that they'd all passed on the way in. His & Lance's wins are the best sort of in-your-face to that kind of mentality.

The fact that a film about Harvey Milk can finally be made is the best part of all, though. The awards are just the icing on the cake.

I wasn't surprised that the film didn't win for Best Picture (again, I'd not expected it to since all the predictions were trending towards Slumdog Millionaire), though deep down I was hoping that I'd end up being surprised there as well.

We still seem to be in a stage where it's okay to honor straight actors for playing gay roles but not to honor a gay themed movie as the Best Picture of the year.

We'll get there, though. I don't have any doubt about that.