Brief Thoughts on the Oscars

The Oscars were on tonight, and for the first time ever I really didn't have anyone to root for since I hadn't seen a single one of the nominated performances. It made for a completely different experience, I have to say.

Over the last few years, especially, there have been nominees I've felt very strongly should win, and the entire night was colored by whether or not they took home the little statue. Last year, for instance, was especially awesome because of Dustin Lance Black's win and incredible acceptance speech.

This year, I really didn't care. It would have been nice to see Colin Firth win for A Single Man, true, and the clip they showed looked really good. But overall, I just felt like a detached spectator.

Despite that, I completely loved the opening! It was a fantastic surprise to suddenly see Neil Patrick Harris come out and start singing! He was wonderful as the host of the Tonys and the Emmys last year, so it makes perfect sense that the Oscars didn't want to miss out on the NPH action, either.

It was the best moment of the show, I have to say. The song was cute and Neil, of course, was hot. I love that he's getting so much recognition for his talent these days.

Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were amusing hosts (except for that hotel room bit before the horror movie montage; what the heck was that?), but I hope next year they'll just hire NPH to do the whole thing.

I'm very glad that a woman won best director, just because it was pretty ridiculous that the winners up to this point have all been (white) men, but other than that I really don't have much to say about any of the awards.

I did think it was sad that they didn't honor Lauren Bacall during the televised ceremony, by the way. Yes, a twenty minute tribute to John Hughes was nice (I listed The Breakfast Club as my favorite film for years), but they could have trimmed it down by five minutes to allow a Hollywood legend her moment.

It was nice of the show to provide eye candy for the tween crowd with Zac Efron (who, I must admit, I finally saw the appeal of when I watched 17 Again. He's beautiful, has a fantastic body, and great comedic timing) and the inexplicable Taylor Lautner (I was especially perplexed as to his appeal when they showed the footage from New Moon during the Horror Montage and he had that ridiculous looking long hair. Seriously?) but I'd still take Matt Damon over them any day of the week! He was achingly beautiful in Good Will Hunting, a full twelve years ago, and he's still got it.

Well, that's about it. Hopefully I'll see more films this year so I can get more into the spirit of things for next year's show.