Here are some thoughts on this year’s Oscars.

Cheers

• Tina Fey and Steve Martin – Their bit had me rolling!
• Queen Latifah – Her grace and excellent singing voice provided the perfect accompaniment to the memorial video.
• Beyonce – Girl can sing AND dance.
• Acting Presentations – I really liked seeing the past acting Oscar winners give a tribute to each of this year’s acting nominees. Although it could have been simple politeness or professional courtesy, I think many of the nominees enjoyed it as well. If you were an actor, how amazing would it be to hear Kevin Kline or Nicole Kidman tell you how great an actor you are?
• Winners – Overall I’m pretty happy with the winners. Honestly, I had only seen a few of the films and didn’t have many strong opinions. The only nominee I was really pulling for was the no-brainer: Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor.

Jeers

• Not Enough Clips – In years past they always showed lots of clips – for the acting awards, best picture, etc. I never get to see every movie that’s nominated, so the clips were the only exposure I had to some of the films. This year they left out much of the footage for some reason.
• Bill Maher – If he wants to make a movie criticizing religion and everyone who believes in any religion, that’s his business. But does he have to use one of the biggest platforms on television to criticize people of faith? His pushing of his movie Religulous during the presentation was also annoying. We got enough political messages from the people who produced Milk. At least their agenda could be considered somewhat positive.
• Best Song Performance – I must admit that the blend of three songs into one at the end did work pretty well. But I prefer for the organizers to have five nominated songs and spread performances of each song throughout the night to break up all the talking.

I want to see Slumdog Millionaire, Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road, The Reader, and Tropic Thunder partially due to the Oscar factor. Many of them should be available on DVD/BR soon, so I hope Blockbuster will start mailing some of them to us in a few weeks.

What did you guys think of the Oscars?

For Date Night, Jenny and I went to an afternoon showing of The Dark Knight, the much-hyped new Batman movie by Christopher Nolan. It was AWESOME. For me, among many great elements, the standout was definitely the late Heath Ledger’s amazingly creepy performance as The Joker. I loved Jack Nicholson’s Joker from 1989, but Ledger’s is much darker and adds the nuances, reptilian mannerisms, and icy voice needed to elevate The Joker from a cartoon to a real person. I want to see the movie again just to watch Ledger at his best. I’ll jump on the bandwagon and predict a posthumous Oscar nomination for him, and possibly even a win. He’s that good.

…Iron Man was a lot of fun! Robert Downey Jr. is one of the best actors around, and he gives the title character a great blend of wit, confidence, character flaws, and humor. You have to love the Iron Man suit, too. Jenny and I saw the movie Saturday night and split a large popcorn and a large Coke. Good times. It also made me want to buy stock in Marvel.

Last night I went to a movie at AFI Dallas, an international film festival that started last year. It’s about 10 days long and gives us the chance to see about 200 different movies of all sorts – foreign, documentary, family-friendly, narratives, fantasy, horror, shorts. Most are done with a low budget by people who love film and poured their hearts into making the best film they could make. The screenings are mostly at Dallas-area theaters that focus on independent film. Generally some of the people who made the film attend the screening and talk about it afterwards.

I saw a Belgian/Dutch film called Blind, which is a tragic love story about a blind and violent young man and a woman who is hired to read to him and calm him angry soul. The filmmakers did a fantastic job all around to produce a very moving and memorable film. The lead actor, a 20-something marketing student, flew over to attend the festival and answered lots of questions from us afterward. I hope to attend another AFI Dallas film, but I don’t know whether I’ll have time. It’s best to buy your tickets in advance through the website. If you like unusual films that aren’t your typical $100 million Hollywood blockbuster, I strongly recommend that you attend!