[February 28, 2008]

Linda's Picks:
Picking Apart the Oscars:

• Hoorah to European actors! All four major acting prizes went to those darn foreigners: Daniel Day-Lewis (Irish/British), Marion Cotillard (French), Javier Bardem (Spanish), and Tilda Swinton (British). And also please note that at least two of them (the jury is still out on Death's nationality) played Americans in their award-winning. Buck up, American actors! You are being outclassed more than ever onscreen!



• Speaking of the acting winners, surprisingly, they all had very charming acceptance speeches, and seemed genuinely excited to receive them. Cotillar stammered something about life and love in halting English, Day-Lewis was charming and eloquent, Swinton was surprisingly funny, and gets to be the most quoted of the night ("I have an American agent who is the spitting image of this. Really, truly, the same shape head and, it has to be said, the buttocks..." she said lovingly to her statue.)



• Jon Stewart was... fine. Except for the snarky comment about the Glen Hansard's arrogance after his excited speech for winning Best Song for "Falling Slowly" (swoon!) from Once. When the show abruptly went to a commercial break, our Oscar party shook our collective fist at the awards for cutting off Hansard's partner Marketa Irglova before she could even utter a word. But to our absolute shock, the show returned and Stewart invited Irglova to come back out and give her thank you speech! Holy crap! Has that EVER happened before? That was easily the classiest move of the night. (Sucks for every other less-adored winner who didn't get the same treatment, though.)



• I still love the film clips for nominees: For as clichéd as they are, I adore the film clips for the represented nominees—whether it be for art direction, editing, acting, whatever. Film is, after all, a visual medium, so let's show off why all these people were nominated!



• Speaking of film clips: At my Oscar party, most of us, unsurprisingly, had not been able to see all the movies, so many choices on our Oscar ballots were based entirely on guesses. There were two Oscar clips in particular that had people screaming, "I want to change my vote! I want to change my vote!" just before the winner was announced. These were for Hal Holbrook's skill at making us cry in a matter of seconds with his Into the Wild clip, and Marion Cotillard, for La Vie en Rose (which none of us had yet scene), making our jaws collectively drop in awe with one tiny moment from her film. Holy. Crap. Give her the award now! (And they did!)



• However, there such a thing as one too many montages. Every year, they crack jokes about the montages, then they do them anyway. Film collages of, say, Best Actress winners through the years are fine (and tend to make me weepy). And maybe a jokey one or two montages of telescopes or waking-up-from-nightmares... that's fine. But it is no longer jokey when you have an animated character—in this case a bee played by Jerry Seinfeld—for a movie that was not even nominated, that just so happens to be coming out on DVD in a matter of weeks present an award (after, of course a montage of bees in the movies). Enough, already. Let's move on.



• For goodness sakes! Someone wipe off the floor! We don't need to see presenter after presenter slipping then barely recovering on the way to the podium. The Oscars should hire some of those kids you see at basketball games that push a clean-wipe broom across the waxed floor to sop up the players' sweat. Maybe there were some nervous presenters.



• Speaking of nervous. Poor Katherine Heigl! I don't know the last time I've ever seen anyone so nervous. Not only was she nervous, but she stated in an out-of-breath panicked voice how nervous she was, thusly making the entire worldwide viewing audience nervous with her. To her credit though, she made Best Dressed on many lists the next day.



• And speaking of Colin Farrell being among those skating across the slick stage, one of the biggest revelations (for me, at least) came after the show, during one of the entertainment channels' wrap-up. Some ass-clown designer with one-week stubble and crispy hair had his hands clasped in excitement as he discussed the fashion for the evening. Men, he pointed out, didn't get to be as creative with their suits, so instead opted to make a statement with their hair, "... For instance, Colin Farrell's hair extensions..." HAIR EXTENSIONS?!?!? My jaw dropped. See, whenever I see an actor getting all long-haired and disheveled, I've always assumed that he just grew his hair out for a part, but this sheds (no pun intended) a whole new light on instant hair-growth-for-men. Extensions on men? Why not? Honestly, it never occurred to me that this might be the case.

[Read the full list of 2007 Oscar Nominees (and Winners), plus our pre-award Picks and Predictions.]