If you missed the 82nd Academy Awards last night, you missed A LOT!!
First of all, Barbara Walters did her last Oscar Special right before the Oscars; this was her 29th year to do the special. She decided to stop after this year, because she said it'd be too cliche to wait one more year to make it an even 30 years. Babs interviewed Best Supporting Actress nominee, Mo'nique, who was in the film Precious, and Best Leading Actress nominee, Sandra Bullock, who starred in the film, The Blind Side.
Barbara also gave a re-cap of her past 29 years of Oscar special interviews, which was quite entertaining to see how her appearance has evolved through the decades!
This year's Oscars made a lot of firsts for a lot of people in the movie industry. "The Hurt Locker", directed by Kathryn Bigelow (ex of the director of "Avatar", James Cameron) was the first female director to win an Oscar. "The Hurt Locker" won a total of six Oscars, including Best Film!--This just proves that just because a movie (Avatar) is the biggest blockbuster and highest grossing film of all time, does not mean it is Oscar-worthy!
Sandra Bullock won her first Oscar for Best Actress, while giving the most heart-felt and humble acceptance speech of the night.
The program ran over an extra half hour to fit in all the great Oscar moments:
-Tribute to John Hughs by many of the stars from his movies, including Matthew Broderick, Jon Cryer, Molly Ringwald and more.
-Ben Stiller, appearing in full Avatar makeup to present for Best Makeup
-The hilarious duo hosts, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin
The program closed with Alec Baldwin smacking Best Director winner, Kathryn Bigelow on the backside!!
1 comment:
You briefly touched upon the notion of the highest grossing film of all time being beaten in Oscar categories. Therefore, I chose to explore this topic further. It seems that the biggest kicker is that the highest grossing film of all time was beaten by the "lowest-grossing best picture winner of all time". A monetary comparison of $11 million in total production costs as compared to $230 million. Dollars aside, "The Hurt Locker" had to overcome many obstacles that movies involving the War in Iraq encounter such as media backlash and a difficulty in finding an audience. As a future PR practitioner I am intrigued by the tactics used by PR firm 42 West team, led by veteran Cynthia Swartz, to earn this award. Swartz's strategy was to expose voters to the DVD. She also, "bound copies of the "Hurt Locker" script sent to every member of the Writers Guild of America, earning guild honors for the original screenplay and the same award at the Oscars" (www.reuters.com).
In the same article I also found this quote interesting, " In the end, both movies tried to position themselves as important parts of screen history. That worked for 'Hurt Locker' but not for 'Avatar', which will have to settle for being the biggest-grossing movie, even though it didn't gain the respect that comes with the best picture trophy" (http://tinyurl.com/ygzevyz).
I enjoyed exploring this topic because I do not follow the Oscars and was unaware of Public Relations campaigns that are utilized to achieve honors such as an Oscar.
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