Oscarmath

Last night was the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony.  I watched it with my entire family and many friends by posting about the festivities on THE Facebook.  There were some high points and some low points.  Makes sense.

Among the high points were the little films that could.  The shut out of Avatar in the non-technical categories may have been a surprise to some, but not everyone.  The Hurt Locker did what few thought it would by making history with Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first female director to win the Best Director Oscar.  The night was capped with her film winning Best Picture.

Jeff Bridges' win and acceptance speech were another highlight.  We had to explain to our daughter that he grew up in the 1960s in California so that's why he kept saying man.  Sandra Bullock's deek of Meryl Streep as she headed to the stage was silly funny.

The Supporting Actor and Actress statues went to deserving but unsurprising winners Mo'nique and Christoph Waltz in great performances by both.

The Tina Fey / Robert Downey Jr. presentation of screen-writing awards was great.

On the flipside, Ben Stiller's presentation dressed as a Na'vi from Avatar was funny for about a second or two.  As he noted, there was an irony that he was dressed as a character that was completely CGI while giving the award for acheivement in makeup.

The low point was sadly the delivery of some pretty clever jokes on the part of hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin.  We weren't sure if it was intentional or not.  As the evening went on, it was pretty clear that it was not.

This was the first year that I recall where the best song nominees were not performed.  I missed them.

The biggest problem was the In Memoriam section.  Every year, there are oversites and this year was not an exception.  The problem is the person who was not included was a cultural icon who appeared in many films and was a Golden Globe winner.  They included Michael Jackson who was in one film but left out Farrah Fawcett.  To me, that was the low point of the Academy Awards ceremony.