Every year the industry of Hollywood gathers around its best and some of time chooses to honor greatness. This year was one of the better ceremonies. Perhaps less funny than most ceremonies but certainly more powerful in the speech department. Javier Bardem delivered my personal favorite speech in which he honored his home land, Spain, in that sweet glorious Spanish accent of Spain. It certainly is not difficult to understand why it seems that every Spainard I have ever met seems to have this sense of pride about their country. I was right just about as many times as I was wrong. I can tell you no one saw Tilda Swinton winning. That one came from nowhere. I am not too upset about it though. I just saw Micheal Clayton today and she really did a great job. Still I would have chosen Kate anyway. Daniel Day-Lewis won, as we all knew he would. What an amazing speech from him as well. I think the two wins that made me most happy, were the totally unexpected wins of There Will be Blood in Cinematography and "Falling Slowly" from Once. Marketa Ingrid's makeup speech was excellent.
Always when I finish watching the Oscars, except when I am mad about it, I have this sincere sense of possibility. I know its all Hollywood cliche. I know that the Oscars mean about as much to the world as say the winner of the Davidson County Fair's best cow award, but I love when we celebrate ideas. The ideas this year were greed, the American dream and how much the pursuit of that dream costs us. In the last speech the producer of No Country For Old Men thanked his partner, not his work partner of course, his boyfriend or husband. It made me smile. Not out of any political agenda, but out of the knowledge that, like the movies that mirror them, times have changed. And that there is hope. Hope found in art. Hope found in the honoring of people who create. Yes, it is true, that if Atonement had won best picture, the cheery nature of this journal entry would be replaced with a sense of profound blah. But luckily a great American film, the third best film of 2007, won the day. And for that we can, as lovers of movies, as lovers of art, find the grand satisfaction of knowing that one of the great movies of the last decade was honored.
Coming Up Next: My picks for top ten films of 2007 and a few thoughts on censorship.
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1 comment:
YAY!!! Oscars!! I am happy as well with the winners, though yet again I did not see even half of the movies up for best picture. But what else is new?
Interesting how an American Film won best picture yet all of the acting trophies went to Europeans. I guess I'll need to change my ehtnicity, what do you think of Liverpoolean? (sp?)
I'm interested to see what wins next year, of course that won't be known till the end of the year when most of those movies come out.
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