82nd Academy Awards Winners

I'll be honest. The only award I was strongly invested in tonights Oscar's was Kathryn Bigelow for director The Hurt Locker. And she won. Yes! After that, it's all cake & icing of which there was a lot. The Hurt Locker went to pick up a total of 6 wins: Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Sound Editing & Sound Mixing. After that the most wins went to Avatar with Art Direction, Cinematography & Visual Effects. Two films came in at 2 wins each: Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire and Up. After that, any film that won was for one award. Overall there were very few surprizes and the show ran pretty smoothly.

I enjoyed the Best Actor and Best Actress nomination introductions from their peers, which was added to the awards last year. This always feels like a heartfelt exchange from peer to peer and gives the audience a lovely insight into the person, and also gives us more time with each the actors. I hope they keep this up. I like the nod to horror films, which was included as a sort of 'usually they go unacknowledged', but a lot of the clips were from really old films. The montage for the people we've lost was very beautiful though, James Taylor sang as they showed clips from each of the artist works along with their picture, name and what their did. Very classy. John Hughes had a separate tribute earlier in the night with clips along with reflections from people he'd worked with, which was also really well done. Overall the show ran about 3 hours and 35 min, slightly longer than noted on the tv guide but as always I wished they've just make it a bit longer and let everyone have their moment to say their acceptance speech. They might have decided to cut those short to allow more time for doing the ten best picture intros.

Slightly Bizarre Moments:

• An Education, best picture nominee introduced by Colin Firth - would have been nice to see it introduced by a woman consider the context of the film, even though Colin Firth did a lovely job.
• Almost all the short film directors and/or awards that went to more than 1 recipient were cut off / music'd out. They often cut to someone in the audience while doing this so it was less noticeable.
• Some of the nominees names were said aloud, sometimes it was pre-recorded. Saw no pattern here as to why, other than sometimes noms were read really quickly.
• During the Animated Film nominees, they had fake-y interviews with the characters in the film. The fact that The Princess & the Frog interview was with characters other than the female protagonist says everything you need to know about the film.
• Ryan Reynolds introduced The Blind Side, Best Picture nominee as “It’s a true story, as American as Football”. Y'all know he's Canadian - right?
• Thank you cam speeches are available online here (and are preceded by 30 second ad. 30 sec times 24 awards.. that's 12 minutes of ads if there is one in each category).

Here are a few of my favourite quotes of the night:

• "Thank you to the 3,000 unofficial sponsors. No logos were harmed during the project" - acceptance speech for the short film Logorama
• “They just said my name at the Oscars. I better enjoy it because it probably won’t happen again” - Tyler Perry - while introducing Film Editing nominees
• "If you want to do it, do it. Get out there and be creative, it's not a waste of time" - Michael Giacchino, acceptance speech for Musical Score for Up
• "We are lucky she is so young, because we have a lifetime of work to look forward too" Peter Skarsgard introducing Best Actress nominee Carey Mulligan
• Michael Sheen re: Helen Mirren "Is it wrong to be so wildly attracted to the Queen?"
• "The breath and depth of her heart.. is something you can never miss" Forest Whitaker introducing Sandra Bullock
• "Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down" - Sandra Bullock, Best Actress for The Blind Side
• “Well, the time has come” Barbara Streisand announcing Kathryn Bigelow's win for Best Director for The Hurt Locker
• "It's a moment of a lifetime" Kathryn Bigelow winning Best Director for The Hurt Locker
• "They are there for us, and we are there for them" - Kathryn Bigelow, during Best Picture acceptance speech for The Hurt Locker

Now, let's look at the winners

82nd Academy Awards Nominations

Performance by an actor in a leading role
Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Mo'Nique in Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

Best animated feature film of the year
Up - Pete Docter

Achievement in art direction
Avatar - Art Direction: Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg, Set Decoration: Kim Sinclair

Achievement in cinematography
Avatar - Mauro Fiore

Achievement in costume design
The Young Victoria - Sandy Powell

Achievement in directing
The Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow

Best documentary feature
The Cove - Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens

Best documentary short subject
Music by Prudence - Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

Achievement in film editing
The Hurt Locker - Bob Murawski and Chris Innis

Best foreign language film of the year
El Secreto de Sus Ojos - Argentina

Achievement in makeup
Star Trek - Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
Up - Michael Giacchino

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
"The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)" from Crazy Heart - Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Best motion picture of the year
The Hurt Locker - Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier and Greg Shapiro

Best animated short film
Logorama - Nicolas Schmerkin

Best live action short film
The New Tenants - Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

Achievement in sound editing
The Hurt Locker - Paul N.J. Ottosson

Achievement in sound mixing
The Hurt Locker - Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett

Achievement in visual effects
Avatar - Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones

Adapted screenplay
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire - Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher

Original screenplay
The Hurt Locker - Written by Mark Boal

See links to acceptance speeches and thank you cam speeches at the Oscars site here.