1. Best Picture: The Hurt Locker
2. Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
3. Actor in a Leading Role: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
4. Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
5. Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
6. Actress in a Supporting Role: Mo'Nique, Precious
7. Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
8. Adapted Screenplay: Precious, Geoffrey Fletcher
9. Animated Film: Up
10. Foreign Language Film: The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Argentina)
11. Original Score: Michael Giacchino, Up
12. Original Song: "The Weary Kind," Music and Lyrics by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart)
13. Art Direction: Avatar
14. Cinematography: Avatar, Mauro Fiore
15. Costume Design: The Young Victoria, Sandy Powell
16. Makeup: Star Trek
17. Film Editing: The Hurt Locker, Bob Murawski and Chris Innis
18. Documentary Feature: The Cove
19. Documentary Short Subject: Music by Prudence
20. Animated Short Film: Logorama
21. Live Action Short Film: The New Tenants
22. Sound Editing: The Hurt Locker
23. Sound Mixing: The Hurt Locker
24. Visual Effects: Avatar
25. Governors Award: Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman and Gordon Willis
The big winner, obviously, was The Hurt Locker taking home 6 Oscars out of 9 nominations, I'm just glad that Avatar didn't sweep the awards this year. If it had, well, then my faith in the Academy would definitely be diminished significantly. I mean, like in a really, really bad way.
When I first reviewed The Hurt Locker after its limited release here in Manila, I was pretty impressed with it. I walked away with generally the same feeling I had after watching Crash and The Constant Gardener - it was heavy, powerful and very draining. But really, all were good movies that weren't quite so popular at the box office. If the Oscars were anything like our horrible Metro Manila Film Festival Awards, then it definitely wouldn't have won the way it did.
So yes, I'd like to thank the Academy for not being total idiots.
Plus major cheers for Kathryn Bigelow for becoming the first-ever female director to win at the Oscars. I mean seriously, kudos to you! Your movie was just gripping and intense and as much as I walked away feeling a little worse about the world, it was a good kind of hurt. Or something like that.
I can't really comment on the acting awards since I haven't actually most of those movies save for Inglourious Basterds, so yay for Christoph Waltz! And okay, okay, here's a big cheer for Sandra Bullock for finally breaking out of the romantic comedy rut and managing to accomplish was Julia Roberts managed back in 2001 for Erin Brockovich.
Naturally, Avatar got the mandatory nods on the technical side save for those for sound - if you're one of the few who managed to watch The Hurt Locker, you'll know why it won all the sound awards. However the big win that I don't get for Avatar was why they won Best Cinematography given majority of the movie was, well, animated. I don't think they did motion capture for trees and the like and so the most stunning visuals weren't even real. If this was the case, then any CGI-rendered background in any movie can be win for Cinematography in the future.
My partner and I agree that the cinematography is way different from visual effects. There's no question that Avatar had some amazing visuals and thus the visual effects award, but things should have ended there. Creating the environments in post-production is not the same as scouting out locations to shoot, planning out the shots and executing them in natural lighting conditions. If you do it in post, then it's visual effects.
If it's because it was a live-action movie, then does that mean that the likes of Final Fantasy: Spirits Within could have won? What if Mary Poppins had visuals as stunning as Avatar in terms of the carousel scene - would that make it worthy of the Oscar for cinematography? Think about it, it sort of doesn't make sense.
Overall, I was happy with this year's Oscar winners. There were even the nice little nods to Lost's Michael Giacchino for his score work in Up and Best Make-Up for Star Trek - officially the first-ever Academy Award for any Star Trek franchise film.
Let's hope that next year's offerings are even better given how this year's awards turned out. Remember that movie makers - the Academy rewards quality and not box office results!
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