Pbenjay's Blog

Well now, did you win the Oscar pool at your office or party?  I did NOT but I did come in 2nd place and we all know how important second place is!  Yeah, like who came in second for Best Picture?

The evening started off with what I thought was an upset.  Christopher Waltz wins Best Supporting Actor.  His role as the fast-talking dentist cum snake oil salesman was really terrific and he held the screen’s attention whenever he was in the scene.  However, I thought Robert DeNiro  would win because I read all the predictions.  That’s not who I thought should win…in fact, I don’t consider DeNiro’s portrayal of the father in Silver Linings Playbook even among his better roles.  Tommy Lee Jones or Philip Seymour Hoffman would have been my pick.

Best  Actress was also an upset.  Again, I chose the one I considered a favorite, Emmanuelle Riva in Amour.   I saw Silver Linings Playbook  and loved her character.  I did think one of her best scenes was somewhat borrowed  from  Five Easy Pieces.  And again, not really an Oscar-worthy performance.  So how did she capture this prize?  I think the old saying A house divided…..may have had some bearing here – Emmanuelle Riva was a favorite and Quvenzhané Wallis, a young lady who became an actress and a star within the space of a year.  I think these two other entries divided the vote significantly.

 No surprises in Best Picture and Best Actor.  Argo  was favored to win by all accounts in the last weeks of the Oscar race.  It was a really good movie but I don’t think it was better than Lincoln and rumor is….Argo was picked because the Academy snubbed Ben Affleck and didn’t nominate him for Best Director. Mmmmm could be! Out of the five nominees for Best Actor there were really 3 strong contenders.  Hugh Jackman and Denzel Washington gave us Academy Award performances.  Joaquin Phoenix was   absolutely fantastic and although he was the lead in the movie, I think he would have been better placed in the Best Supporting Actor category. And no surprise for Best Supporting Actress either – Anne Hathaway sang her heart out and up the red carpet.

As the big night wound down and the big three were about to be announced, hardly anyone expected any upsets at this point in the evening.  Never assume!  When Ang Lee won Best Director, I felt that was a real upset.  Steven Speilberg had been mentioned over and over as favored to win, so was this yet another house divided?  Certainly all the nominees were real contenders;  Benh Zeitlin directed an entire cast of mostly unprofessionals – brilliant! David O. Russell was an emotional favorite due to his son’s condition. Probably the least likely to win was Michael Haneke, not because his direction of Amour  wasn’t spot on, he just hasn’t directed  a lot of movies that were hits in the USA and as I said, the competition in this field was fierce.

My husband and I were guests at our neighbor Alice’s party.  It was a small but lively group and great company.  Heather, her daughter is witty and sardonic and she makes a mean Cosmopoiitan ( I just was’t in the mood for one thinking it might too sweet for me).  Jason and Joanie, both friends of Heather were there as well as Mark, another neighbor.  Jason and I hit it off immediately because the two of us sat there iPad in hands and we tweeted throughout the show giving our own personal insight and opinions on everything from the gowns, Who are you wearing?  to critiquing performances and even hairpieces! We were wicked!  It was no surprise that we had a great time, and  that Alice had enough food to feed an army.  But there was one more upset of the evening – Heather (self-acclaimed favorite) did not win the Oscar pool!  She had such a strong early lead that the rest of us figured the money was going to her for sure.  Mmm NOT  Jason scored the highest score with the most correct answers and hey he was holding the money all evening……. ??!!

Academy Award (Photo credit: Wikipedia)