Oscar 2003 review
Congratulations to Susan Thomas and Tina Perantonakis, the winners in our first ever Oscar contest! Read their acceptance speeches here. A few of the more interesting moments from last night’s ceremony:
Adrien Brody’s speech. Good for him. The Pianist was awesome. Speaking of him, I was going through my website referral logs, and since last night a whole flurry of people have come to my site from Google searches for his speech. Check it out. As of this writing, the string of search terms “adrien brody oscar speech” (and slight variations) will give you Rebel Prince, no lower than fifth on the list of search results. I’m sort of delighted and bewildered. Maybe Google happened to run a search crawl right after I posted about the Oscars, but still, I’m beating out sites like Hollywood.com. Heh. Anyway, if you’re really looking for his speech, find it at the official Awards site. (The extended Halle Berry kiss was a bit much, though.)- Barbra Streisand’s reaction at presenting the Original Song award to Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” from 8 Mile. Herself a winner in this category back in the day, she looked more than surprised. Film-score great John Williams, seated on the aisle, making way for Luis Resto to get through and accept the award, was rather symbolic.
- Peter O’Toole, a class act all around (who originally said “no thanks, I’m not done working yet” to the Honorary Award), gave a great, gracious speech.
- Michael Moore can say whatever he likes—I won’t argue his politics either way—but just because cameras are rolling and the world is watching, the Academy Awards isn’t the time and place for protest. It’s like if someone held a party in my honor, and then I got up and ranted about our government. It’s just inappropriate for the occasion. He could have at least related the themes of his winning documentary Bowling for Columbine to his message.
- Could Sean Connery at least have gone the whole nine yards and worn a kilt to go with his frilly shirt? And Gael Garcia Bernal needed a tie. Matthew McConaughey’s boutonniere of red, white, and blue flowerbuds: very classy.
- What did we think of Steve Martin? I’m usually a fan, but I thought his material last night was a bit hokey.
- Yay for Pedro Almodóvar. Talk to Her is one of the most fascinating and strange and original movies I’ve seen.
