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It’s the morning after the 79th Annual Academy Awards, and I guess I can say that picking four out of six in the major categories ain’t bad!  And out of the 24 categories I managed to call 14 of them.  But did I blow some of the biggies.  I missed both screenplay categories, Best Original Song and, the two biggest surprises, Best Supporting Actor and Best Picture.  Will I ever learn?  One thing for sure we can agree on is that (sometimes) politics and sentiment outweigh merit.

I can live with The Departed as best picture.  Sure, it wasn’t one of Scorsese’s best but, out of the five films nominated, it was the most entertaining.  I chose Babel because of the political slant and thought that would carry it through to a win.  As the ceremony went on, I had a sneaking suspicion that Little Miss Sunshine might pull the upset but, thankfully, that did not come to pass.  After all is said and done, a best director nod for Scorsese and a best picture to boot.  Yes, I can live with that.

Harder to live with, however (for me), are the two shockers—the first being the Academy’s choice for Best Original Song.  Melissa Etheridge took the statuette home for “I Need To Wake Up” from An Inconvenient Truth.  It’s an OK song but, come on; in light of its competition it was the tamest of the bunch.  Up against three hot numbers from Dreamgirls (“Listen,” “Patience,” and “Love You I Do”—any three of which could have won) and Randy Newman’s solid “Our Town,” from Cars, Etheridge’s tune does not hold up—even if you just compare the performances last night.  One has to wonder what the Academy was listening to.  Her strictly paint-by-numbers song (it sounds like everything else she has done) does not have the requisite impact, musically or in the context of the film itself.  The other four are integral parts of the storyline and contribute to the impact of the film.   Her song sounds like a throwaway from one of her recent albums.  Again, it reeks of politics, especially when you think of the love-fest it was for Al Gore last night. 

The biggest surprise of the evening for me, however, was the choice of Alan Arkin as Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine.  I will say it here—Eddie Murphy was robbed.  If it was awarded to Mark Wahlberg (The Departed), Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond) or even Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) I might be a little more sympathetic.  But Alan Arkin?  His (all-too-brief) appearance in Sunshine was good and it had a few funny and touching moments.  But was it a great performance?  Will it stand the test of time?  Will we be remembering his greatness five years from now?  A year from now?  It seems as if the Academy awarded him the trophy based on two things:  sentiment and its love for the cast as a whole.  Let’s face it, Abigail Breslin could not have won Best Supporting Actress, so it chose to honor Arkin as the film’s representative. 

Murphy, on the other hand, may have hurt his chances in several ways.  First of all, he’s not the most amicable person in Hollywood—tough to work with, bad reputation and obsession with privacy (which is mistaken for arrogance).  Second, his career choices have been less than stellar and his performance in Dreamgirls may have been an aberration.  How seriously can we take a guy who still dishes out things like Norbit and the Nutty Professor films?  I know, we should judge each performance on its own; but how can that not be taken into account?  The best thing for Murphy to do now is to continue to venture into new territory and take more challenging roles.  If he can manage to do it again, I’m sure there could be an Oscar for him down the road.  It’s up to Murphy, though, to make that happen and it is unclear whether he is going to do that.

Finally, how did host Ellen Degeneres do?  I predicted a disaster and, if you saw the show, you know that I was right.  Very stiff, very unfunny, very boring.  How uncomfortable did Marty Scorsese, Mark Wahlberg and Clint Eastwood look as she ventured in to the audience and “talked” with them?  And what was that bit with the vacuum cleaner?  It made a long, tedious show feel even longer.  Nice try Ellen—stick to cheesy day-time talk shows.  You are out of your league hosting the Academy Awards.

Final thought: and this happens every year after the Oscars.  I remember how many great movies throughout history I have not seen.  Whether it’s the retrospective of great foreign films or remembering those who have died, I am always left with an empty feeling of how many ground-breaking movies I have yet to see.  I find myself making a list of must-see films for the year and loading up my Netflix queue with great films of the past.  Just goes to show the power of film and the important role it plays in our lives.  I am looking forward to not just the new films of 2007, but venturing back to see what has been done in the past. 

Photo Credit: © A.M.P.A.S.