2008 Oscars Wrap up (and my favorite moment)
Last Oscar post -- I swear.
Well, it looks like my predictions were pretty close -- except for Best Actress/Supporting Actress. I was happy that No Country For Old Men swept (It won 4 of the 5 majors, and it wasn't even eligible for "Best Actress" - though Kelly Macdonald was very, very good in her small, but pivotal role -- and her accent was dead-on -- had no idea she was Scottish!), because it really was, to me, the "best" Academy-esque film of the year.
Although there were a few really nice moments during this year's telecast (Tilda Swinton's win - and her absolute shock, was amazing; the beautiful Marion Cotillard's win for Best Actress - as soon as I saw her clip, I had a feeling that would take it -- makes me want to see La vie en Rose), my favorite moment was the performance and subsequent win for "Falling Slowly" from the film, Once. I'm not quite sure how I missed out on all the buzz for this film (actually, I take that back -- pretty sure it happened while I was recovering from my eye surgery back in July/August), but as soon as they started performing, I got chills and was really hoping it would win. I thought Enchanted was great and I absolutely adore Amy Adam, but "Falling Slowly" was just such a beautiful song. Of course, while I'm watching the ceremony, I keep thinking, "I know that dude's voice -- I've heard him before somewhere" and sure enough, it turns out that both Glenn and Marketa contributed to the The Cake Sale (NOTE: Because I'm all about Full Disclosure, my Amazon.com affiliate ID IS included in that link, you don't have to click it or buy it through that, just trying this out more than anything), a collaborative effort between a bunch of Irish musicians that I imported back in November of 2006 (and I couldn't find the CD so I bought the Amazon.com download, as it was both cheaper than iTunes and without DRM, of course, I found the CD this morning. Whatever.). Glenn is in an Irish band, The Frames, which has opened for Damien Rice (one of my favorite musicians) on recent tours and also collaborated with Damien and the Bell X1 guys.
They were also on KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic last summer and I actually had that podcast saved on one of my external drives. Neato.
Anyhoo, I was super excited that they won (as was the audience, you could tell that the crowd was really psyched for them to win) but more than a little peeved when the orchestra cut off Marketa before she was able to give her speech. I always think those things are so rude anyway, especially given how much time is wasted in lame joke set-ups and deliveries and fake montages (as Jeff pointed out in his comment on my last entry). So when they came back from commercial and let her come out and give her speech, I was really, really happy. I can't remember that ever happening before, and I was very, very glad that that happened. After that, no one got the orchestra of death music again -- I think the director of the show freaked the fuck out and basically refused to do it again. The show was short this year anyway (they didn't have the traditional 2:30 montages for each Best Picture nominee, I assume because they weren't able to get the WGA consent when all this was being planned -- and there was no time to go back in and try to edit another 13 minutes into the show), so it wasn't like it was needed.
For anyone who missed or wants to re-watch the performance,
Click to viewCan you believe that chick is only 19?!?! Amazing!
I immediately bought both the Music From The Motion Picture Once and The Swell Season, which contains many of the same songs (slightly different) and is the name of the collaboration of the two.
Awesome, awesome stuff.
Originally published at www.ChristinaWarren.com. You can comment here or there.