Holly & I watched The Oscars last night, which were largely uneventful. Jon Stewart did a a decent job, but I don't think he (and his writers) had enough time to craft jokes, due to the recently-ended strike. Probably my favorite moment of the night was the duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova winning for "Falling Slowly" from Once. I rented this disc a few weeks ago from Netflix, and absolutely loved that song the first time I heard it. I went and found it on iTunes to buy shortly thereafter. I was ready to be mad when Marketa didn't have a chance to speak at the microphone, considering Glen had barely spoken for 10 seconds, so they should have had plenty of allotted time for her to say something. Major kudos to Jon Stewart for bringing her back out after the commercial to get her piece in.
Note to the Academy: Stop playing people off who aren't rambling. Seriously, and if you are going to do it, bring in the music slowly. A few times they opened with a cymbal crash, which is rather rude, though I know it was because they were playing the theme to whatever movie the person was nominated for. Really, double the amount of time people have to give acceptance speeches, and I bet it wouldn't add 10 minutes to the show. Most of the time is spent presenting, in commercials, in retrospectives, and waiting for the recipients of the "little" awards to make their way up from the cheap seats in the back. They should have at least as long to speak as it takes to make the trek from their seat to the front.
I also couldn't help but notice how International the Oscars were this year. All four of the acting awards went to Europeans, as did almost everything else, though most of the roles they played were in American studio pictures. I've only seen one of the five Best Picture-nominated films this year, guess I've been slacking...
