Oscars

It's been a while since I last blogged, backdate a bit to talk about the Oscars.

The Oscars winner list:

Best Picture: The Departed
Best Director: Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Best Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine
Best Adapated Screenplay: The Departed
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker for the Last King of Scotland
Best Actress: Helen Mirren for The Queen
Best Foreign Film: The Lives of Others
Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson for the Dreamgirls
Best Cinematography: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Music Score: Babel

I'm not exactly pleased with the results especially the wins for The Departed, a film adapted from Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs. By far, the honorary Best Picture usually go to a film with credibility, think Schindler's List, Last Emperor, Godfather etc. Of course there are exceptions in the past which I do not agree on as well, like Million Dollar Baby, Shakespear in Love, Chicago etc.

The fact that The Departed was adapted straight from another film just doesn't deem fit to win Best Picture. Yes you can twig the plot, screenplay to make it your own, but to me, it pales against something which is original. I see a difference between adaption from a film and adaption from print. The latter is a far challenging effort, to conceptualise the screenplay from hundred/thousand pages to a film of about 2hours. It brings life to the characters, settings, mood, something that a book may not be able to.

Ok, moving on to Best Director. You probably know that Martin Scorsese was snubbed by the Academy for like 5 times, namely for Raging Bulls, Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York and Aviator. Martin eventually won this time for The Departed which is not his best. I think the Academy probably pity him this time and give it to him. In the industry, Martin is acclaimed for his works and even without an Oscar statue to his credit, people still respect him. I'm not sure if he's so hard up for the award or not but probably he is. I read somewhere and some sees Martin like a kid who see other kids having toys that he doesn't have and yearns for it. In my opinion, he should have won for Raging Bulls (lost to Robert Redford's family drama Ordinary People). I guess sometime you have to be in their good shoes to win, or in some cases, the Academy seems to be 'biased'.

Take for example the Best Supporting Actress category in this year award. Out of the 5 nominees, Adriana Barraza is Mexican, Cate Blanchett is Australian, Rinko Kikuchi is Japanese and left with the little girl Abigail Breslin and Jennifer Hudson, both American. The little girl is fortunate to be nominated already so the tussle is between the other 4. Cate won for Best Supporting Actress in Aviator in 2004 so unlikely the Academy will let her win again but having watch Notes on a scandal, she gave her a very good performance. Likewise for the other two supporting actress in the Babel especially the Mexian lady who plays a maid to Brad and Cate's characters' kids in the film. And no prizes for guessing who won the award, American Jennifer Hudson and fyi, this is her first movie! So lucky right, first time act, win already, so easy huh! Ok I have not watched Dreamgirls and I may be biased against her. IMHO, I do not see how a role who sing and dance can win a best acting award!

There are other coincidence as well, here goes. Helen Hunt in her first movie role, won Best Actress for As good as it gets, beating Judi Dench, in Mrs Brown, back in 1997. In 1996, another American Francis Macdormand also won in a category in a tug with 3 Brits, 2 Ameicans. That year, Brenda Blethyn was a hot favourite to win for her role in Secrets & Lies but lost. Gwyneth Paltrow beat Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth) also hot favorite back in 1998. You probably see this as American bashing :) afterall this Oscar is an American award so nothing wrong to award Americans right? Well, enough said, I have seen some of those films, make comparisons, read reviews from different sources and view results from different awards and I truly think that this Oscar just does not do justice to some lor.