Wow, this is the first nite that I actually watched the end of the ceremony. I was a little surprised at some of the winners. I was certain they would bypass Roman Polanski b/c of the circumstances. Glad "Gangs of New York" didn't win. It sucked. The pregnant Catherine Zeta-Jones, despite how beautiful she is, looked uncommonly orange. Did pregnancy do that to her? She didn't look that way in "Traffic." Well, all I can hope for next year is that nothing incredibly awesome (like a "Schindler's List" or something)comes out so "Lord of the Rings" can do some sweepin'.

I was happy that Adrian Brody won for "the pianist". he looked authentically happy that he won.......i'm glad "bowling for columbine" won for best documentary.

i'm also very glad adrien brody won. i think he was wonderful in the film and that he should've won. i'm also very happy that he said what he said. and i really liked "bowling for columbine" too, but i still think michael moore was out of line saying what he said when he said it. i don't agree with the war either, but he shouldn't say stuff like that in that kind of a situation, and i'm glad the audience didn't react by clapping or cheering him on. it wasn't the time or the place to express those sentiments.

I agree featuresgirl... what Adrian Brody said was much more appropriate than michael moore's comments. Of all the movies that came out over the course of the year, I find it hard to believe that they can justify focusing on the same movies for nearly every catagory (chicago, the pianist, the hours, etc.) needless to say, it really pissed me off. anyway, just my 2 cents

michael moore has made some good points. he is also a dick. a huge dick. it's also been argued that bowling for columbine is much more of an opinion piece than a true documentary. i will listen to and agree with many of his opinions, but i don't understand how people can completely champion such a manipulative asshole.
those other documentary nominees didn't look too happy to be brought up there and spoken for. maybe some paralyzed columbine victims would have been more appropriate.

(Edited by 6969hOoBaInCuBuS420 at 12:09 am on Mar. 24, 2003)

i'm glad that fuck got booed. agree or disagree with bush, that was neither the time nor the place...nor the way to express it.

exactly. he had no tact and made what was a somewhat calm and lighthearted atmosphere (as much as it could be) into a tense atmosphere. i was proud of the audience when they booed him too. adrien brody saves the day

(Edited by featuresgirl at 9:04 am on Mar. 24, 2003)

I'm proud of Michael Moore. Sometimes you have to be a dick to get people to pay attention to what you're saying. And there were many people clapping amidst the boos. Here's a link to a video of his backstage comments, where you hear the press core clapping. It's an interesting conversation.

But Adrien Brody definitely was more generally appealing, since his comments were less divisive and I think most people would support what he said. I was impressed that he successfully made the orchestra stop to make his comments! I think the most beautiful comments were made by Gael García Bernal (yep, I had to look his name up) who read a lovely poem about peace & then said that Frida would've been against this war. His delivery was so smooth that I thought at first that it was his teleprompt text. And now, back to reality

(Edited by Lauren at 9:43 am on Mar. 24, 2003)

Personally, I think that Michael Moore had every right to say what he said. It would have been out of character for him to hold his tongue and not say what he believed.

Interestingly enough, Micheal Moore made the same speech at the Independent Spirit Awards and the whole audience applauded. But this was before the war had officially begun.

(Edited by iwantelvis at 9:25 am on Mar. 24, 2003)

the point is not that he did not hold his tongue, rather that he could have shown a lot more class in his choice of demonstration. i don't think he had to be a dick to get people to listen. it's not as if he was breaking some new story to america.

(Edited by damon at 10:49 am on Mar. 24, 2003)

yeah, i mean, i expected for him to say something. i think he should and everyone has a right to say what they believe. but he was obnoxious about it, which just annoys me.

What exactly did he say? I'm too lazy to look it up. I didn't watch last night because I was at the Verde/Forget Cassettes show. Plus, award shows bore and frustrate me.

Here's a transcript I found, although I think the last line is incorrect- I think he said your time is short in the White House or something. Also don't know if the grammar mistakes are accurate:

On behalf of our producers Kathleen Glynn and Michael Donovan from Canada, I'd like to thank the Academy for this.
I have invited my fellow documentary nominees on the stage with us, and we would like to — they're here in solidarity with me because we like nonfiction.
We like nonfiction and we live in fictitious times.
We live in the time where we have fictitious election results that elects a fictitious president.
We live in a time where we have a man sending us to war for fictitious reasons.
Whether it's the fictition of duct tape or fictition of orange alerts we are against this war, Mr. Bush.
Shame on you, Mr. Bush, shame on you.
And any time you got the Pope and the Dixie Chicks against you, your time is up.
Thank you very much.

I was glad that "Chicago" had a near-sweep since I thought the movie was brilliant and highly entertaining. I also want to see "The Pianist" after seeing Adrian Brody deliver that speech. That was very very cool how he got the orchestra to stop. The orchestra was almost like something out of the Apollo since not only did they start playing super loud, but if the speech went on too long they yanked the microphone down into the ground! That is just rude. There were many awards that had 3-4 winners and the last person to speak didn't even get a chance to thank anyone. I would be super-mad if I won an Oscar and couldn't even say anything because the Academy thought that replaying every major winner's walk to the stage was more important than the actual speeches. Geez.

And about the Michael Moore thing, I have to agree that I enjoyed the statements made at the closing of the ceremony and Adrian Brody's comments more, but as IWE said, it would have been way out of character for him to not say anything. I don't really agree with what he said (mainly because I don't know many facts) but hey, he said it and it provided another memorable Oscar moment.

my complaint is that the oscars are not a platform for such an attack. there were other speeches that touched on the subject in a classier manner. i would even go so far as to call this a low blow.

"AAARGH!!!", to qoute one fictitious Charles Brown.

He's not even saying anything for the peace movement, or even anti-war. It's mostly anti-Bush. Just an Oscar winner still upset that his guy didn't win. I think this kind of talk hurts the cases of people who really just don't like war and want it to end peacefully and soon. It hurts it in the same way as do the people who provoke violence at a peace rally. He made no real difference last night except to stir things up. (Well, stirring things up makes us think outside the box and our forefathers stirred things up.) This is neither the time nor the subject to be stirring up for the sake of stirring.

That's what I think for now. i haven't seen the footage as of yet, though. I did see Chicago and loved it. HOw they worked in the musical numbers was amazing. now if they'd only make a movie out of Cabaret that rivals the Broadway show....

(Edited by foldsfan at 12:52 am on Mar. 25, 2003)

Bob Fosse and Liza Minnelli apparently get no love, despite winning eight academy awards.

I just realized that Eminem won at the Academy Awards for that song from 8 Mile. Is this the first time a rapper has won an Oscar? I can't think of any others.

i was rooting for paul simon....i dont know why......

i definitely have love for liza and bob. i love that movie.

First, M&M isn't a rapper; he's white. But, even if he were, it wouldn't be the first Oscar for a rapper. In 2000, Snoop Dog won a special Academy Award for "Creative Use of a Male Member" for his performance in "Girls Gone Wild: Doggy Style."

Here's a bizarre one... I was talking to my mother in law about exciting stuff like corporation taxes (she's a CPA) when she casually mentions that one of her clients won an Oscar last night. He was the producer for the Eminem song, the guy with the curly hair that accepted the award.

I keep telling her that she needs to keep name dropping the brilliant director her daughter is married to, to all of her clients, to which she always says, "I never know if these people can ever help you."

Needless to say she isn't exactly hip. We were in a guitar store downtown here in Nashville, when she looked at a Jimi Hendrix songbook and asked to no one in particular, "Did you know Jimi Hendrix was black?"

sigh...

Really? He is??

"You know we live in crazy times when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy, France is accusing the U.S. of being arrogant, and Germany doesn't want to fight."

Is that Chris Rock?? Some dude used that quote in my public speaking class today.

i would like to say for the record that there are several topics i would like to comment on the present moment, yet am too fucked up to do so.
i will return tomorow with quasi-intellectual comments.

I don't know. Someone said it to me at work the other day.

that's sooo... sad

Couldn't you just wait one more day to post? Not trying to be rude, but, you know...

Total agreement here. I really liked so much of what happened (Miyazaki's win, Almondovar's win, Chris Cooper's win, Eminem's win, Polanski's win), but my one complaint was that Chicago won every category that academy members clearly didn't understand too well or want to think about. Say what you will about Soderbergh's two films this year (Full Frontal and Solaris, both of which I loved but most, understandably, hated), they both were amazingly well-edited and much more deserving than any of the nominees for editing... which matched the Best Pic nominees to a T. Come on Academy, at least do what you did with director and change ONE of the nominees. That Chicago, a film that I did love, won editing is even more insulting. If ever there was a better example of how NOT to edit a musical, I haven't seen it.

Will

My favorite quote regarding the upsets at the Oscars was Entertainment Weekly's, which said something to the effect of:

We pause now to remind you that Eminem now has more Academy Awards than Martin Scorsese.

Which brings me to that Oscar. I'm glad Polanski won because it showed that there is more to it than campaigning going on in the voting, and he deserves it, but I had really been hoping to justify things like Crowe's win for Gladiator with Scorsese winning an Oscar. They have a history of giving the award for past work and, fair or not, I'd not have minded for them to stick to it. Hitchcock, Welles, Kubrick... Scorsese? His name shouldn't be among the other geniuses that never received an Academy award. He's quite easily one of the most important directors still living, and that deserves to be recognized.

Will

Eww..

Hitchcock never won any awards? Surely his films did, if he didn't.

I know that Rebecca (1940) was his only film that won best picture.

True, and that's as close as he ever got to personal Academy recognition.

Will

which is a damn shame......

Yes, indeed. Rear Window is one of my favorite movies of all time. As is Vertigo, The Birds, and Rope, among others. There's literally no telling how many times my sister and I rented Rear Window from our local video store years and years ago until we finally got it on VHS, and then finally on DVD. If anything deserves an award, it's Rear Window.

ahhh!! "Rear Window"...that's exactly what i did...I have seen that movie hundreds of times, along with every other Hitchcock movie. I had to check it out from my library cos my video stores didn't have it. Thankfully, it came to video and dvd fully restored.

We all seem to be Rear Window supporters above all. I remember seeing it on the big screen when the restoration came to Green Hills... so sweet.

Will

Yes, my library also had a copy of it. So, I'd rent it from there for free every now and then. My sister and I were the dorks that would go to Movie Gallery and do the five movies, for five nights, for $5.99 thing just about every weekend. If we couldn't think of a fifth movie, Rear Window was almost always the old standby.

Yes, I'm still upset that I didn't get the chance to go see it there.

(Edited by Sexy Sadie at 7:34 pm on Mar. 30, 2003)

Adaptation...Oscar Worthy???

Ray Davies, IWE, and I saw Adaptation the other day. I was expecting to really like it, but I was a little disappointed. Everybody I've heard of who's seen it has loved it, but I just had different feelings on the film as a whole. I thought parts of it were too absurd and almost just stupid. I expect a lot more out of Spike Jonze than I got from this movie. I liked it and everything, I just think it's gotten a little more praise than it deserves. All of the actors did excellent jobs. Chris Cooper did deserve an Oscar for his performance. I just don't think the writing was that great at all.

Does everybody disagree with me? Or did anybody else feel that parts of the movie were poorly done? (I'm not going to say specifics...don't want to spoil it for anybody).

(Edited by Sexy Sadie at 2:47 pm on Apr. 6, 2003)