Hurt Locker Wins Big at the 82nd Oscars

Sunday night, the world watched as the 82nd annual Academy Awards were televised. Though most Oscar predictors were thinking it would be a close match between Avatar and the Hurt Locker (both with 9 nominations), it was a night that felt almost predictable, with The Hurt Locker snatching up 6 Academy Awards (including both Best Picture and Best Direction). Avatar was relegated to winning only the more technical of Awards (Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Art/Set Direction).

The night was filled with a lot of first time winners, the biggest being Kathryn Bigelow becoming the first woman in Oscar history to take home the award for Best Direction for her film The Hurt Locker (only took 82 years…who said the members of the Academy aren’t forward thinking?!). All four acting awards also went to first timers.  Christoph Waltz won for Inglorious Basterds and Mo’Nique for Precious (best Oscar acceptance speech of the night).  After 5 nominations and a career of amazing performances, Jeff Bridges finally won for Crazy Heart. Sandra Bullock has the distinction of taking home not only the Oscar for The Blind Side this weekend, but also winning two Razzies this weekend for Worst Actress in The Proposal and Worst Screen Couple with Bradley Cooper in All About Steve… which she graciously went to the Razzie Awards ceremony on Saturday  and picked up her statuettes.

The telecast had nice touches this year, most notably Neil Patrick Harris’ song and dance (is it now a rule that he HAS to open an Award ceremony?), the dance number for the introduction of the Best Original Score Oscar and the tribute to John Hughes by ex-brat packers, there were a few misses.  One was not the ceremonies fault, with producer Elinor Burkett hijacking director Roger Ross’ moment for his win on Best Documentary Short (even though it seems that every year, the winner(s) for best Doc or Doc Short give way too long and impassioned speeches and the Oscar people don’t cut away fast enough). The biggest mistakes came during the Stars We Lost remembrance reel. Although it was a welcome change to have someone like James Taylor sing while the remembrance reel played, the mistake of NOT cutting quick enough a close up shots of the screen was a big one. The first person shown was Patrick Swayze, but for television viewers, it felt as though they left him out of the video, and leaving off BOTH Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur was downright nasty.

As usual, the ceremony felt as though it dragged . Maybe they should stop televising the more technical awards and just get to the ones that the PUBLIC really care about, and let the BIG WINNERS  of the evening bask just a bit more.. how nasty is it that they rush the winners of Best Picture each and every year? It’s always nice to have funny touches, but Ben Stiller as a Na’avi was dumb and just added to the length of the award ceremonies. And as nice as the glowing speeches made by the nominees friends was before the Best Actor and Best Actress awards… enough is enough. The Oscars is the last awards show of an already bloated season of the industry patting each other on the back.  Get it over with, and get back to making films.

Here is the full list of Oscar Winners last night:

Best Picture – The Hurt Locker

Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker

Best Actor – Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Best Actress – Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side

Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds

Best Supporting Actress – Mo’nique, Precious

Best Original Screenplay – Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker

Best Adapted Screenplay – Geoffrey Fetcher, Precious

Best Foreign Language Film – El Secreto de sus Ojo (The Secret in Their Eyes), Argentina

Best Animated Feature – Up

Art Direction – Avatar – Rick Carter & Robert Stromberg (Art Direction)
Kim Sinclair (Set Direction)

Cinematography – Avatar – Mauro Fiore

Costume Design – Sandy Powell , The Young Victoria

Documentary Feature – The Cove – Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens,

Documentary Short – Music by Prudence – Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett

Film Editing – The Hurt Locker – Bob Murawski & Chris Innis

Makeup – Star Trek – Barney Burman, Mindy hall & Joel Harlow

Original Score – Up – Michael Giacchino

Original Song – The Weary Kind – Crazy Heart – Ryan Bingham & T Bone Burnett

Animated Short – Logorama – Nicholas Schmerkin

Live Action Short – The New Tennants – Joachim Back & Tivi Magnusson

Sound Editing – the Hurt Locker – paul N.J. Ottosson

Sound Mixing – Paul N.J. Ottosson & Ray Beckett

Visual Effects – Avatar Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham & Andrew R. Jones