82th Academy Awards: A Review Part IV

We've come to the final (thank Heaven) of the Oscar review. Let's get on with it.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1. The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart): Crazy Heart (T Bone Burnett/Ryan Bingham)
2. Almost There: The Princess and the Frog (Randy Newman)
3. Loin de Paname: Paris 36 (Reinhardt Wagner/Frank Thomas)
4. Down in New Orleans: The Princess and the Frog (Randy Newman)
5. Take It All: Nine (Maury Yeston)

Put it on my love of country music, but The Weary Kind does what an Original Song is suppose to do: be part of the film/story. This would be radically different if Ma Belle Evangeline had been one of the nominated songs from The Princess and the Frog, but it was not.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

1. UP
2. Sherlock Holmes
3. Fantastic Mr. Fox
4. Avatar
5. The Hurt Locker

Of all the things I remember from The Hurt Locker, the music ISN'T one of them. As for Avatar, the same goes. The only two scores that I think were in the running were UP and Sherlock Holmes, but the beauty of UP's music (still so reminiscent of Victor Young's score for Around the World in 80 Days) trumps the manic nature of Sherlock Holmes.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

1. The Young Victoria
2. Coco Before Chanel
3. Bright Star
4. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
5. Nine

Is there anything more lavish than royalty? Here is a rule of thumb, just as the Best Film Editing Oscar usually goes to the Best Picture winner, almost any film that features royalty will win Best Costume Design. The wardrobe Oscar is usually for the most lavish and extravagant of films, so The Young Victoria had the leg up.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1. Burma VJ
2. Food, Inc.
3. The Cove
4. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg & The Pentagon Paper
5. Which Way Home

How I HATE not being exposed to this films! Sometimes documentary films are far more interesting/frightening/better made than feature films. Certainly, Food, Inc. is far better than New Moon (excuse me, The Twilight Saga: New Moon). I voted for Burma VJ because any film that draws the spotlight on the Satanic military dictatorship in Burma (aka Myanmar) deserves all the attention it can get. However, not having seen The Cove, I make that judgment with some hesitation. I will say it will be hard to say, Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens.

BEST ART DIRECTION

1. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
2. The Young Victoria
3. Sherlock Holmes
4. Nine
5. Avatar

I have not shifted my view that Avatar is mostly computer generated, and regardless of how pretty it looks, art direction requires sets. If anything surprised me, this one did.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1. UP
2. The Princess and the Frog
3. The Secret of Kells
4. Fantastic Mr. Fox
5. Coraline

Where was Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs? I kid, I kid. Curious that two of the nominated films were traditional 2-D animation and two were stop-motion animation with only ONE being computer generated. That to me is a sign of hope: CGI films are now having to compete with more traditional animation, the way it should be. Of course, in any version, UP is just a beautiful film, and it deserves its Oscar. However, I hope there will be a revival of different types of animation, because CGI is making kids stupid and adults fail to appreciate the true beauty of hand-drawn creations.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

1. Logorama
2. A Matter of Loaf and Death
3. French Toast
4. The Lady & The Reaper
5. Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty

I only saw clips, and while I (like almost all humanity) love Wallace & Gromit I think the spoof of corporate logos in Logorama is a far more intelligent choice.

There you go: the nominees all wrapped up for this year. I hope to see some of these nominated films in the future, and that next year I will have a better idea of the nominees.