The Oscars: They Happened

I find myself experiencing a sense of deja vu.  Just as last year's Oscars left me feeling hollow and utterly disappointed following The King's Speech's victory over The Social Network, so I'm now feeling sour and disillusioned after The Artist topped Hugo for Best Picture.  My favorite movie of the year is rarely even nominated for Best Picture - it's a miracle The Tree of Life was this year - and for my favorite movie to actually win?  You have to go back to when Return of the King won in 2004.  Who knows if it will ever happen again?

The similarities to last year's ceremony don't end with my general sense of disappointment.  I consider The Artist a great movie, as I do The King's Speech.  Both made my Top 20 of the year, and both are movies that I will likely enjoy many times in the years to come.  But neither matches the filmic bravura, the genius, the instant classic status of the films they triumphed over.  The Oscars don't represent the best that Hollywood has to offer - they represent the representation of the best of Hollywood.  The Academy is always shaping and reshaping its image, sometimes going a little bolder, but more often resettling into a quaint reverie of baity charm and dispassionate consensus.

But, oh, the evening got off to an interesting start.  Hugo all but dominated the technical awards, taking both Sound categories, Cinematography (one of the night's greatest travesties is The Tree of Life losing the category), Art Direction, and Visual Effects.  Just as I did after The Social Network took Score, Editing, and Adapted Screenplay, I just managed to convince myself that an upset was possible, even - dare I say it? I do - probable.  It was not to be.  The techs were all Hugo managed to win, all of them well-deserved, but it should've gotten more.

The Artist's mini-sweep included Picture, Director, and Actor for Jean Dujardin, who was charming in his ode to Douglas Fairbanks.  Joining Dujardin in the winner's circle were Meryl Streep, Christopher Plummer, and Octavia Spencer.  The actors provided some of the night's best speeches and most memorable moments.  Streep finally won her third Oscar after decades, and even as a non-fan of The Iron Lady, my heart leapt to see her take the stage and deliver a much cleaner speech than her train wreck at the Golden Globes.  (I'll just pretend she won for Julie & Julia, if you don't mind.)  Plummer was his usual eloquent self, including his touching tribute to his wife at speech's end.  And Spencer's emotional response to winning helped to make up (a bit) for Melissa McCarthy's loss.

The show itself proved a breezier affair than usual.  Billy Crystal played it pretty much as expected, with a montage of movie clips and a poorly-mixed musical number.  His best moments were smaller, more casual, as when that huge book rose out of the stage for the music categories, to which he shrugged and said, "Eh."  Crystal kept things moving along, resulting in a show that felt shorter than usual, even though, as far as I can tell, it wasn't.

There were also some pleasant surprises along the way.  Emma Stone's exaggerated giddiness had me ready to propose marriage despite the atrocity that was her dress.  The Christopher Guest-directed Wizard of Oz focus group was a hilarious non sequitur with his whole gang in tow.  And the In Memoriam segment was tastefully done, though I prefer clips to photos.  It's simply a matter of opinion.

Awards-wise, the night's best surprise came in the Best Editing category.  For the second year in a row, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall took the prize, again working with David Fincher.  It's great that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo took home an Oscar, and the brilliant work these two did cutting the film is a worthy way for it to garner some gold.

The hush after the Oscars is a bit uncomfortable.  After months of poring over critics groups' choices and pondering what factors will have more pull this year than last, it all ends.  Christmas is over.  It's time to go to Disney World.  Better luck next year.  Next year.  We all hope for better things next year.  Maybe a superhero movie making it into the Best Picture race?  An animated film's director getting nominated?  Andy Serkis finally getting an acting nomination for his motion-capture work in The Hobbit?  From this distance, these all seem like possibilities, however remote, and the 2013 Oscars look impossibly bright and shiny, a new frontier.  But as we get closer, we'll see the wrinkles, the age, the well-worn patterns that have emerged without fail over the years.  And then we'll hope for a happier 2014.