Oscar Aftermath

The Oscars have come and gone once again, so now it's time for a few reflections on the big night.

First of all, the hosts: I didn't think Martin and Baldwin worked together as well as they could have. They just seemed to lack the chemistry that was necessary to carry the show. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed some of the bits. The Paranormal Activity video was funny and the cut to the two of them in a Snuggie worked well too, I thought. Overall, I was left kind of underwhelmed, though.

I was happy to see Christoph Waltz win a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor award. He actually had one of my favorite lines of the night: "That's an uber-bingo!" I just wish that Inglourious Basterds had been given more recognition.

What was with the John Hughes memorial? Not to take anything away from Hughes, but in all the years I've watched the Academy Awards, I've never seen an entire segment of the show dedicted to a single deceased filmmaker. The whole thing seemed odd to me.

As far as my annual Oscar predictions, I went 17 for 24 this time out. That counts as a personal best for me (pretty good considering a usually get about half right most years).

Seeing Jeff Bridges win for Best Actor brought a smile to my face. The man has maintained a solid career for many years now and just seems like a really down-to-earth kind of guy.

While The Hurt Locker wasn't my absolute favorite film of the year, I was glad it won Best Picture. It's ironic that one of the lowest grossing films won in a year when the Academy was clearly trying to broaden its audience with the expansion of the Best Picture category.

Why was a horror montage included? It seemed pretty tacked-on.

One of the easiest awards to predict was for Best Animated Feature, which Pixar naturally won with Up. Honestly, I was hoping Fantastic Mr. Fox would pull out an upset, even though I knew there was no way it could happen.

I can live with Avatar winning three awards. It certainly deserved some recognition...just not too much.

The memorium montage had some notables missing: Farrah Fawcett, Henry Gibson, Dan O'Bannon, and Bea Arthur.

I'm still not sure what to think about the whole Sandra Bullock thing. Of course, I haven't seen The Blindside, so I shouldn't judge, but it just doesn't seem right that she should win for that film. I mean, what could it have hurt to give Streep another Oscar, right?

Many of the top categories were easy to predict this year - a little too easy. Next year, I'll hope to see some close races.