Oscar Night 2007

Last year, I spent Oscar night in San Diego. I was attending ETECH 2006. That was the year Brokeback Mountain lost to Crash. But you know, west coast time. I'm used to Oscars ending around midnight on the East Coast. But that's 9 PM West Coast. I was visiting Justin having dinner with him. And you figure a dinner's going to be like, what, 8 PM? So, by the time I'm done with dinner, it's like 9:30 and the Oscars are already over.

This year, I'm watching it with Ellen DeGeneres hosting. I have to say Ellen isn't exactly my favorite comedian, but she's done a pretty good job so far. What she does well is to make people feel pretty good about themselves. She's not mean, she doesn't have such strong zingers, but just slightly absurd.

I had thought Pan's Labyrinth which had been racking up the technical awards would win best foreign language picture. Alas, that went to Germany's The Lives of Others, which was about the only other film I had heard.

Right now, as I type this, they have given a special award to Ennio Morricone, the composer of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly among about 400 other pictures, making him one of the most prolific composers in the world. He continues to compose long after he has had to.

This year's nominations for best picture are bleh. No one is coming into this year being clear-cut favorite, like the years Titanic or Return of the King. Heck, Brokeback Mountain was considered something of a front-runner, and much like Saving Private Ryan appears to have lost out in the last few weeks heading into the awards.

Ennio is now giving his speech in Italian, with Clint Eastwood "translating". I had thought he'd give it in Italian leaving the audience wondering what was going on.

It's rather effective, I'd say.

I know most critics feel Oscar night tends to celebrate the wrong films, but then, this is a subjective award, and more than likely people are going to not like who was nominated or picked, and that some smaller film is more deserving. Still, I enjoy the spectacle of it all. And no, I don't particularly care about what the women are dressing.

We've yet to hit the really major awards, but I'm done writing this blog entry. Enjoy the Oscars.