A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2011

Colin Firth celebrates after winning the Oscar for Best Actor at the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony.

The 83rd Academy Awards

Ceremony date: February 27, 2011

Best Picture: The King’s Speech

Best Director: Tom Hooper for The King’s Speech

Best Actor: Colin Firth for The King’s Speech

Best Actress: Natalie Portman for Black Swan

For whatever reason, it has worked out that I have made a number of major life changes immediately preceding the Oscars, meaning my memory of the ceremony in certain years is inextricably tied to the events going on in my life. I completed my college education in December 2010 and moved to Grass Valley, Calif., to begin my first post-college job on Feb. 14, 2011, 13 days before the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony.

It was just by chance that my first job out of school happened to be a half-hour from where my best friend had grown up and where he lived with his parents after we left school. So, for those first two weeks, before I secured my first apartment, I stayed in the Leydons’ den. At the time, I preferred to fall asleep with a movie playing – a habit that continued until I met my wife, who cannot sleep with noise – so I slept on a pullout sofa and watched an old VHS copy of Back to the Future most nights.

I commuted to my job at the neighboring town’s local newspaper, ate dinner with the Leydons, drank with my friend (Sean, whose writing you may have seen on this site), and generally adjusted to life without the structure of school. My dad lived two hours south of my new home, and the Leydons became like a family away from family. They still are. The last weekend before the quarantine went into full effect, I was in Grass Valley, visiting with Sean, and we had a lovely brunch with his parents. We ate coffee cake and watched Samsara. Remember social gatherings?

The Leydons graciously allowed me to throw a miniature Oscars party in their den. The four of us and a Leydon family friend crammed onto the couch, finding additional seating room on the ottoman, and ate my homemade vegetarian spinach lasagna, a step up from the Stouffer’s I had served the year before. I cannot recall what else I prepared, but I remember being shocked by how much spinach shrinks when you cook it. I remember communal laughs and fun and a lovely night. Social gathering.

That ceremony became infamous for co-hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco, primarily for Franco being stoned out of his mind throughout the event. They were lambasted as sleepy, boring, and generally unwatchable. My secret: I loved it. I thought they were great, and I thought Franco was hilarious. Who didn’t want more Pineapple Express? I remain in the minority, but my small group had a good time.

This was the year The King’s Speech beat The Social Network. Time has been kind to David Fincher’s Facebook drama, with many recently hailing it as one of the best films, if not the best film, of the 2010s. That is going too far. It is quite good. So is The King’s Speech, a Best Picture winner that film snobs dismissed as stuffy Academy bait. I have rewatched both recently, and in my estimation, they are not as far apart as history would have you believe.

Unfortunately, director Tom Hooper’s subsequent work – the overpraised Les Misérables, the dour The Danish Girl, and the disastrous Cats – have only served further to take the shine off of his award winner. I do not have the time or patience to look into it right now, but it seems likely no other director’s post-Oscar resume is quite this dire. None of that takes away from the fine accomplishment of The King’s Speech, but it is worth remembering the next time you see Hooper’s name on a marquee.

I snuck in a screening of The King’s Speech while I was visiting my dad for Christmas. I was still living in Humboldt in the immediate aftermath of graduation. My little car was bedraggled and did not deserve the beating of a 600-mile roundtrip, so I took a bus down to Tracy. For the trip back, the route was Tracy to San Francisco to Arcata. There was, however, a four-hour layover in The City, and I figured I had enough time to get to the Embarcadero Center Cinema for a screening of the much-hyped Oscar contender. I was right and I was wrong about that timing.

I remain famous among my friends and acquaintances for my lack of navigation skill. In the days before you could download Google Maps to your smartphone, I was all but helpless if placed in even moderately unfamiliar surroundings. Given this, it was foolish of me to believe I could get to the theater from the bus station and get back without getting lost. After five years living in New York City, I feel fairly confident I could do it now, but at the time, there was no way.

The afternoon screening was packed – the limited release would grow into a massive sleeper hit – and the audience seemed genuinely moved and entertained by King George VI’s plight. I had about 45 minutes to make it back to the station to catch my bus. I spent 20 minutes good and lost, wandering around central San Francisco. I did not have a clue where I was or how to get where I was going. I flagged down a cab and did my best to explain what I needed.

San Francisco is, of course, a city of many bus stations, so it was not precisely helpful to say to the driver, “Take me to the bus station.” A familiar calm settled over me. I have been lost many times in much more dire circumstances, and I have learned to roll with the punches. The driver and I worked it out together, and I was at the station with minutes to spare. Another adventure to tell, and another Oscars year in the books.

Quick notes: This was the last year of 10 Best Picture nominees because Academy members complained they could not come up with 10 worthy nominees. That is obviously ludicrous, but the next year, the system we have now would be put into place. … The best of the 10 nominees in my estimation was Danny Boyle’s 127 Hours, and the lineup was not particularly strong in a somewhat down year for film. … That said, I find it delightfully subversive that Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth found their way into the room. … This was the first year I was able to catch the short films in a theater. They were lovely, but since we are running long here, I will save that story for another time.

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Next time: The biggest Oscars party I have thrown and a rather mediocre year for nominees.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2010

Kathryn Bigelow accepts the Oscar for Best Director at the 2010 Academy Awards ceremony.

The 82nd Academy Awards

Ceremony date: March 7, 2010

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker

Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart

Best Actress: Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side

There are two things that must be talked about when we talk about this year’s ceremony: Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first (and to date, only) woman to win Best Director, and The Hurt Locker triumphs in the 10-film Best Picture lineup.

Bigelow’s place in history is well deserved, and her film remains as pulse-pounding and psychologically complex as it felt a decade ago. The story of an elite bomb squad unit fighting in the Iraq War remains the best film made about that conflict, and that is due to Bigelow’s gripping storytelling and powerful direction. Having Barbara Streisand present the award to Bigelow was a touch similar to having Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg give the same award to Scorsese in 2007. The Academy knew it had a special moment on its hands and played it for all it was worth.

I still recall Streisand’s earnest: “It’s about time.” There were definitely folks pulling for James Cameron to win for Avatar. I would not have minded Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds. But Bigelow was the right person at the right time with the right film to make history. It is shameful she remains the only woman to win the award. Among those overlooked in the ensuing years: Ava DuVernay for Selma, Greta Gerwig for Little Women, Chloé Zhao for The Rider, Deniz Gamze Ergüven for Mustang, and Dee Rees for Mudbound. None of them nominated. Any would have made a fine winner. For now, Bigelow stands alone.

I remember I was home from school for the summer when I saw The Hurt Locker in theaters. I drove down to San Jose to the CinéArts at Santana Row, which had become my go-to indie theater for summer and winter breaks. I loved the Embarcadero in San Francisco (a theater we will talk about in the next installment of this series), but San Jose was an easier drive. I caught the late-night showing in a mostly empty theater, and it was apparent right away The Hurt Locker was top-notch filmmaking.

That mostly empty theater turned out to be sadly prophetic as the film became the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner of the past 40 years. This brings us to the Academy’s expanded Best Picture lineup. I have talked before about the misguided belief that popular, box-office successes in contention translate to increased viewership. The numbers simply do not bear this out. That has not stopped the Academy and the ceremony’s producers from trying anything and everything to keep viewers tuned in to the show.

Despite eight nominations and two wins the year before, blockbuster superhero film The Dark Knight failed to score either a Best Picture nod or a Best Director nomination for Christopher Nolan. By the same token, Pixar smash Wall-E garnered six nominations, tying Beauty and the Beast for most ever for an animated film, but it could not break into the top categories. The loudest voices decried this as a stain on the Academy, particularly in light of a rather milquetoast group of Best Picture nominees that included Milk, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader.

The solution: 10 nominees. The hope was for more populist, crowdpleasing films to get in the mix. The Academy wanted voters to think big. Did it work? Yes and no. Avatar, still the second-biggest movie of all time, got in, but it is likely it would have been among the five anyway. Pixar adventure tale Up did manage to break in, becoming just the second animated Best Picture nominee after Beauty and the Beast, as did feel-good football drama and surprise box-office hit The Blind Side.

Avatar is an inarguable artistic achievement, and Up remains, for me, Pixar’s high-water mark, but I think it would be difficult to find anyone who thinks a Best Picture nomination for The Blind Side has been good for the long-term health of the Academy. The complaints about a watered-down Best Picture lineup will only grow louder next year, and the Academy will be forced once again to change.

The expanded lineup also had the unintended effect of making voters more adventurous and ushering in several of the kind of little-seen independent films from which the Academy was trying to distance itself. Among them this year were the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man – the best film of the year in my estimation – and Lone Scherfig’s An Education. In the years since, the Academy has moved even more in this direction, choosing interesting, difficult indies over middle-of-the-road blockbusters (the odd Bohemian Rhapsody, which I actually think is fine, notwithstanding).

With all of this going on, this year happened to be my last year watching the Oscars at school, as I was set to graduate in fall 2010. The pandemic has ensured that I will not be forced to make the difficult decision not to attend my 10-year reunion. Pity. Once again, I relied on the cable connection of another to watch the show, but this time, I supplied the food and drinks.

I cobbled together the money to buy some alcohol, some frozen appetizers, and a Stouffer’s lasagna – not yet ready to try my cooking skills – and held my first informal Oscars party at my friend Ryan’s house. There were maybe eight or nine of us there for the show, many of them the same people who attended my wedding eight years later, which if nothing else, suggests a certain loyalty among my friends.

We ate, drank, laughed, and rather enjoyed ourselves. I remember being pleased I got to enjoy the show with good friends. The lasagna came out of the oven right about the time Michael Giacchino won Best Original Score for his work on Up. He paid tribute to artists and those who dare to dream big, and sitting there among my friends, those I played music with and made art with, it could not help but feel like he was talking to us.

Quick notes: This was the dreaded Adam Shankman-as-producer year, when the So You Think You Can Dance judge thought it would be a good idea to replace the Best Original Song performances with a series of interpretive dances set to the Best Original Score nominees. It was embarrassing for everyone. … I have always thought it a shame that Tarantino’s best film – give or take a Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood – came away with just one win from eight nominations. Still, that one win gave us Christoph Waltz, the gift who keeps on giving.

Next time: I move to the mountains and get lost in San Francisco. Find out what any of that has to do with the Oscars.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2009

The cast and crew of Slumdog Millionaire accept the Oscar for Best Picture at the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony.

The 81st Academy Awards

Ceremony date: February 22, 2009

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor: Sean Penn for Milk

Best Actress: Kate Winslet for The Reader

In the pre-Twitter days, live blogging meant literally that: updating your blog in real time while watching a live event. This was the first year I tried that. I did it again in 2010, and that was that. Live blogging the Oscars is not for me. I love the show too much. I do not want to be dealing with the site or checking my Twitter feed constantly while I am trying enjoy my favorite night of the year. You can find those live blogs on the site still. They are interesting little time capsules of my younger self trying to figure out this whole website thing.

At the 2009 ceremony, the producers attempted to program the awards to reflect the filmmaking process. They started with the screenplay awards, then art direction, etc., all the way up to the finished product. If you really think about that, though, it does not make much sense. So much of filmmaking is simultaneous creation. Craftspeople of all disciplines are on set every day, making a film work. The producers and director are there from the start. It is a whole jumble. Points for trying to give the show a loose structure, but the thread was tenuous from the start.

Two things stand out from this show: Heath Ledger’s posthumous Best Supporting Actor win for The Dark Knight and the near sweep by Slumdog Millionaire. Ledger’s victory was a foregone conclusion. As much as I might have preferred Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt, or the not-nominated Brendan Gleeson (In Bruges) and Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), it is hard to begrudge Ledger the Oscar, and certainly, no one would want to lose the moment Ledger’s family accepted the award on his behalf.

Another of the big experiments the producers of this ceremony tried was to have past acting winners in each of the four categories pay tribute to each of the nominees before announcing the winners. This is a fun idea in theory, but in practice, it was a bit of a drag. My feeling is that if you are going to give seven minutes-plus to each of the acting categories on a show people already complain is too long, then just let the winners talk for however long they wish.

The speeches are the best part of the show, the thing that makes the Academy Awards unique. It has never made sense to me the consternation over lengthy speeches. Playing people offstage at the biggest moment of their lives seems needlessly cruel. Of all the places to cut time in the show, the speeches should be the last.

The triumph of Slumdog Millionaire still seems odd in retrospect. Throughout the season, it became a juggernaut. It could not be stopped. It is hard to say why or how except that it is, at its core and despite delving into real darkness, a feel-good movie made by a group of delightful people for whom you want to vote.

The story of the movie nearly being dumped straight to DVD then being rescued by Fox Searchlight also helped make it the kind of underdog everyone wants to see win. And win it did, to the tune of eight awards. No movie since has won as many. Gravity came closest in 2013 with seven wins but no Best Picture. I think it would be difficult in the current era of the Academy to match the number put up by Slumdog Millionaire.

This was the last time the Academy had just five nominees for Best Picture. After this ceremony, they would go to 10 nominees, then at-most-10 nominees, which is where we are today. Folks paying attention at the time will remember this as a response to the lack of a Best Picture nomination for either The Dark Knight or Wall-E. The Academy, it was feared, was losing relevance when artistically accomplished box-office champions could not compete for the top award. We can talk about how that has worked out in future installments of this series.

Quick notes: Kate Winslet finally wins an Oscar, though I preferred her work in Revolutionary Road to her performance in The Reader. Just happy to see her with a statue. … The Mickey Rourke comeback tour stalled out here with Sean Penn taking home Best Actor. My favorite of the nominated performances was Richard Jenkins in The Visitor. … Looking back on my predictions from this year, I actually did pretty well. Not counting the shorts, which I had not seen, I went 17 for 21. Those are numbers I would kill for now.

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Next time: I throw my first Oscars party and The Hurt Locker takes down Avatar as the Academy paradigm shifts.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2008

Tilda Swinton accepts the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress at the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony.

The 80th Academy Awards

Ceremony date: February 24, 2008

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men

Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood

Best Actress: Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose

By the second year of college, I had moved off campus into a house with some friends. For the final three years of school, the house would remain the same, though the roommates would sometimes change. This year, we watched the show in one of my friend’s rooms on a cable connection stolen from our neighbors in the duplex. If you can believe, I never had a television in my room in college, and I have never, save for one month that will be covered later in this series, paid for cable.

Under these conditions, I witnessed three of my favorite Oscars moments ever in this single show. First among those three was the Best Supporting Actress prize. The betting favorite was Amy Ryan for Gone Baby Gone. The sentimental favorite was Ruby Dee for American Gangster. Maybe they split the vote, or maybe the Academy’s love for Michael Clayton carried the day. Or, perhaps voters just saw what I saw: Tilda Swinton giving one of the best supporting performances of the decade. Swinton won, and I was downright giddy.

A little over seven years later, I got the chance to tell her that. For my 27th birthday, as a present to myself, I bought my wife and I tickets to the premiere of Judd Apatow’s Trainwreck, starring Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, and Swinton. After the screening at the Lincoln Center, it was off to Tavern on the Green for the afterparty and a chance to mingle with the celebs. We met everyone, talked to a few folks, danced, drank, and ate.

Tilda Swinton and some drunken fan in 2015.

The highlight: Tilda. A few drinks deep at the open bar and feeling just a hint of liquid courage, we approached Swinton, who could not have been kinder, cooler, or more gracious. My partner told her of my joy at her Supporting Actress victory, and I waxed on about my love for Michael Clayton. She said it was a shame I had not approached earlier because writer-director Tony Gilroy had been wandering around and she would have introduced us. Oh, well, who can really ask for more? We snapped a picture and left her to enjoy her well-deserved hosannas.

Next, among the great moments at the 80th Academy Awards, was Best Original Song. Readers of this site will recognize this as a category I loathe. But even a broken clock, etc. Off-kilter Disney musical Enchanted, which is a fine movie, was thrice-nominated in 2008, alongside “Raise It Up” from August Rush and “Falling Slowly” from the superb Once. For those unaware, before it was a massive, Tony-winning Broadway hit, Once was a little Irish indie by writer-director John Carney. It is a delicate, beautiful little film, and one hopes the success of the musical caused more people to seek it out.

The producers of the show had already bungled the performance of “Falling Slowly” by cutting away from stars/performers Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová at the song’s climax and instead focusing on the orchestra conductor. Then, when the little indie that could won the award, topping the Disney pic three times over, Hansard gave his speech then tried to give the microphone to Irglová, who was played off by the same orchestra conductor. He had stolen her moment twice, likely through no fault of his own and certainly with no malice. Just the same, Irglová’s moment in the sun seemed shaded.

Enter the evening’s host: Jon Stewart. Sensing an opportunity for a special moment coming out of the commercial break, Stewart called an audible and brought Irglová back on stage to give the speech she had not been allowed to deliver. She paid tribute to the independent musicians and artists striving to put great work into the world and drove home a message of hope. It was a lovely moment and remains one of the best things I have witnessed on the show in nearly 20 years of watching.

Finally, toward the end of the show, there was Best Actress. Julie Christie was the favorite for her stirring performance in the little-seen but rightly heralded Sarah Polley drama Away from Her. Ellen Page had supporters for her breakout turn in surprise hit Juno. But like Swinton in the supporting category, Marion Cotillard could not be denied. She truly is stunning in La Vie en Rose, the Édith Piaf biopic directed by Olivier Dahan. It is riveting work.

Remember, in 2008, Cotillard was not really a name in the United States, though already a star in France. Until a rewatch a couple months ago, I had forgotten her supporting turn in Tim Burton’s Big Fish. She also appeared in the little-loved Ridley Scott-Russell Crowe collaboration A Good Year. For her to win this award, though, becoming just the fifth person to win for a foreign-language performance, the Academy had to know it was seeing someone special. Watch the film again, and there is little doubt.

After Cotillard’s victory, Joel and Ethan Coen were named Best Directors, and their No Country for Old Men took home the top award. The Coens had been in the business 20 years by this point, rightly claiming in their speech that they had always been in their own part of the sandbox. This triumph was the Academy recognizing the brilliant work they had been doing over in their own world. They beat out another modern masterpiece, Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, which has only grown in esteem in the ensuing years. Of course, Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor. Even fellow nominee George Clooney said he voted for Day-Lewis.

In all, 2007 was one of the best years for film of the new century. Every film mentioned above is tremendous, and I have not even mentioned what I called the best film of the year: Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. The stunning French feature was nominated for four awards (Director, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, and Cinematography). Had I been a voter, I would have voted for it in all those categories. Alas, it is hard to argue with the wonderful night we got.

Quick notes: On this day, Last Cinema Standing was born. Apart from a small intro to the site, the first post to appear on Last Cinema Standing was a reaction to these very awards. It is hard to believe it has been 12 years. I have had so much fun, and I thank anyone who has been on this journey with me for all or part of those dozen years.

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Next time: Slumdog Millionaire triumphs in a year that precipitated major changes for the Academy.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2007

The Broadway 8 in Eureka, Calif., where I saw The Departed (twice) and about 200 other movies during my college career.

The 79th Academy Awards

Ceremony date: February 25, 2007

Best Picture: The Departed

Best Director: Martin Scorsese for The Departed

Best Actor: Forrest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland

Best Actress: Helen Mirren for The Queen

People think I am joking when I say I chose my college based on the weather. Yes, Humboldt State University (go Lumberjacks!) did seem to have the best, most diverse, most all-encompassing journalism program of any school in the California State University system. But, foggy, cloudy, and 60 year-round certainly did not hurt in my estimation. By drive time, it was about as far from home as I could get while still attending a state school. The distance was neither an issue nor a factor, just a geographical fact.

All of this is important because it meant I did not see my family too often during those years at school, at least not during the school year. For the 79th Academy Awards, my dad and his then-girlfriend, now-wife came up for their second visit to Humboldt County, closing a 2006 Oscars loop that began nearly five months prior.

For their first visit to the school, we planned the date around the release of Martin Scorsese’s latest crime opus, The Departed. My dad is a big fan of Goodfellas, and this was a clear return to that territory. We saw it the second weekend of its release, Oct. 14, 2006. We would repeat the ritual two years later with another Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle, Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies. That second film was a much less memorable experience.

Of course, the Scorsese flick went over like gangbusters. What’s not to love? DiCaprio is rounding into form as the greatest movie star of his generation. Jack Nicholson is tearing down the scenery left and right. The world truly got to meet Vera Farmiga. And Scorsese was back in cops-and-robbers land like he had never left. That ending remains shocking and visceral, and I will even go on record as liking the rat.

A brief aside: There was an online movement – no, movement is too strong a word. There was an online hissy fit a couple years back when some film fan tried to raise money to edit the rat out of the ending. This person is an idiot. Anyone who donated real money to that cause, also an idiot. Let us never speak of these people and their dimwitted nonsense again.

Over the next four months, I saw The Departed in theaters twice more. Once, I went with my friend who needed a pick-me-up, giving her the choice between The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine, which I had also already seen. The third time, I rounded up a group of about 10 people from the dorms to see it in a huge group. It kills every time.

I can count on one hand the number of first-run movies I have seen in theaters three times: The Departed, There Will Be Blood, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (we can talk about that some other time), Drive, and Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood. If you want to throw in revivals and reparatory screenings, you can add Rachel Getting Married to the list. And, that is it. I have seen plenty of movies twice, but it takes a lot to earn my money three times.

Fast forward to February 25, 2007. My dad and his wife rent a hotel room from which to watch the broadcast together. There was a scary moment when, for whatever reason, the local ABC affiliate was blacked out and I was briefly afraid we would be unable to watch the show. The national broadcast, however, was fine. We ordered pizza in and hunkered down for what turned out to be a nearly four-hour show. I believe this to be the last time my dad watched the complete show, and it is also probably the last Best Picture winner he truly enjoyed.

As far as the show itself, of course I remember Scorsese winning, as well as longtime friends (his, not mine) Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas presenting the Best Director Oscar to him. That was a lovely touch by producer Laura Ziskin, who had clearly read the tea leaves. Eddie Murphy’s anger at losing Best Supporting Actor to Alan Arkin also sticks out.

This was also Guillermo del Toro’s first bite at the Academy apple, a dry run for what was to come a decade later. Pan’s Labyrinth picked up three well deserved awards, all basically surprises to me, then somehow lost the Best Foreign Language category. Voters can be strange. I caught up with winner The Lives of Others when it was released to American theaters later on, and it is quite good. It is not, however, Pan’s Labyrinth.

Eventually, the whole class of Mexican filmmakers who broke out at this year’s Oscars would win Academy Awards for directing, and we will get to them all in this series. There was del Toro, of course, as well as Alfonso Cuaró               n, who this year had Children of Men, and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, who had Golden Globes champ Babel. But, in the end, this was Scorsese’s night, and it was well deserved.

Quick notes: There are two films I have yet to mention. First, Little Miss Sunshine took home two awards and was really the beginning of the Sundance-hit-as-Oscar-player trend that continues to today. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’ film holds up remarkably well and remains on the top tier of that group. … Second, Little Children, directed by Todd Field and starring Kate Winslet, lost all three of its nominations and rarely comes up in conversation these days. That is a shame. It is a brilliant piece of work and one of my absolute favorite films of all time. See it if you have not.

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Next time: It is the year of the Coen Brothers, and I have a Tilda Swinton story.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2006

The Cinedome 7 West in Newark, Calif. It always looked like that.

The 78th Academy Awards

Ceremony date: March 5, 2006

Best Picture: Crash

Best Director: Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain

Best Actor: Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Capote

Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line

This one might go on a little long, and not just because it featured possibly the most notorious ending of any Oscars telecast not involving an envelope snafu. Rather, my memories of much of this show are quite vivid as it was the first ceremony for which I had seen all the Best Picture nominees beforehand and the first broadcast for which I attended a party, thus cementing the Academy Awards as an annual tradition in my life.

So, let’s get it out of the way right at the top: I have no problem with Crash as a Best Picture winner. I was thrilled at the time – though shocked like everyone else – and I remain completely at peace with that choice. It is probably my least popular Oscars opinion that Crash is a worthy recipient of the top prize and is a better film than Brokeback Mountain, which I find overdirected and dull, despite some stellar performances. Ranking the Best Picture nominees, I have Crash second behind Capote and followed by Good Night and Good Luck, Brokeback, and Munich.

This brings me to the second point: my conscious decision to see all of the nominees. This was my senior year of high school, and as a teenager is wont to do, I was spouting opinions with little to nothing to back them up. This time, it was about the Oscars. A friend rightly called me out, saying that I really could not have a valid opinion without having seen the films. So, rather than shut up about it, which was probably the point of the chastisement in the first place, I decided to see them all.

Crash famously came out early in the year, and I had seen it on DVD with my dad. It belongs in the pantheon of Best Picture winners my dad and I can enjoyably watch together, a group that also includes Forrest Gump, Rain Man, Platoon, and Rocky. The other one is The Departed, which we will talk about next time. I remember liking Crash, enjoying its interconnected story structure, and overall appreciating the message, which most would call facile today but which hits the targets at which it aims. One down.

When Brokeback Mountain was in theaters, I was 17 and had a car and a permit, but I was not really driving anywhere. I still walked to school, and to go to the movies after class, I hopped on the bus. On the way back, I hopped on the wrong bus and ended up in a different city entirely. I then had to take a train back to my neighboring hometown. I had one of those old Nokia flip phones and pretty much only used it to call for rides home. My dad kindly obliged. Two down.

Next, two birds with one stone on a weekend. I saw advertised in the paper – yeah, we still got movie times in the paper then, at least at my house – that the Cinedome 7 was doing a double feature of Capote and Good Night and Good Luck. What luck! I had never been to a double feature before and was excited at the prospect. My dad dropped me off on a rainy Saturday afternoon, and I told him to come back to get me in about five hours.

Nervously, I approached the ticket counter and asked for the double feature ticket. The box office attendant did not seem to know what I was talking about and gave me one ticket for Good Night and Good Luck. After the film, I asked an usher what to do about the double feature and was told just to hang out and the second movie would start. Even though the double feature had been advertised, because both films were not on the ticket, it somehow still felt like stealing. Nevertheless, I caught the second film and wrote Capote on the back of the ticket in pen for record-keeping purposes. Four out of five.

The next weekend, the same theater was hosting the two-for-one bill of Munich and Syriana. This time, I told my dad to come back in six hours. Now, I was a pro at the whole double-feature thing and calmly passed the 15-minute break between movies by listening to my MP3 player, which held an impressive 32 songs (depending on the length of the songs, of course).

The Cinedome 7 West was a truly run-down relic of theatergoing days past. My grandfather and I had seen Walk the Line there a couple months before and one of the sound channels was just out – not an ideal way to experience a musical. But, as with all crummy things from our youths, I loved it.

Along with the Cinedome 8 East, it was the primary theater of my childhood. It had an arcade that I still think about and which makes me sad realizing movie theaters do not really have arcades anymore. I know why, but you know, nostalgia and all. The Cinedomes deserve their own piece someday, but these four movies in eight days were really my last hurrah with the great movie houses of my youth. They were not much, but they were always there when I needed them. Five out of five. I was ready for the show.

My school friend Maddie, with whom I took theater and business math, was interested in the Oscars but even more interested in party planning. It was a passion of hers, and we made a pact while sitting in that business math class that if I ever got to make a movie, she would plan the wrap party. Those are the kind of pacts you make with high-school friends. I wonder if she remembers at all.

Corny as it probably seems, I still have the invite to that party saved, tucked away in its original envelope along with other mementos from my early years of Oscar watching – newspaper clippings of the nominees, computer printouts of my predictions and wishes, etc. All of that is kept inside of the front cover of Jim Plaza and Gail Kinn’s “The Academy Awards: The Complete Unofficial History,” a reference book that served as my film bible in the pre-internet days. I had the post-2004 edition, which included everything up through Million Dollar Baby. Not sure what I am waiting for to buy the revised, updated version. Someday, perhaps.

The party was a delight, featuring friends who cared about the movies and others who cared about being places their friends were. We made predictions, ate food and candy, drank sodas, and generally enjoyed each other’s company. The awards proceeded apace, culminating in Ang Lee winning Best Director for Brokeback Mountain. All was going according to plan. Then, Jack Nicholson read out Crash for Best Picture and all hell broke loose. Thankfully, Twitter was a long way off from existence.

I cheered and proclaimed that the Academy had made the right choice. The same friend who chastened me into seeing all of the nominees before commenting reminded me I had already proclaimed Capote the best of the nominees. I hit reverse and proclaimed Crash the right winner “among the nominees that had a chance,” and so joined that eternal dance of movie punditry. I have not stopped dancing since.

Quick notes: I cannot let this year pass without commenting on the Best Actor win for Philip Seymour Hoffman, whose death still hurts so much. I loved him even then, and he remains one of the best ever to do it. … We all have vivid memories of Three Six Mafia winning Best Original Song for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from Hustle and Flow. One of the great weird Oscar moments. … Still remember George Clooney accepting his Best Supporting Actor statue with the immortal, “I guess I’m not winning Director.” A legend.

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Next time: Off to college for me, and Martin Scorsese finally gets his due with The Departed.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2005

Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne win the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2005 Academy Awards ceremony.

The 77th Academy Awards

Ceremony date: February 27, 2005

Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby

Best Director: Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx for Ray

Best Actress: Hilary Swank for Million Dollar Baby

This was the last year I did not see the Best Picture nominees before the ceremony. There is a story behind that decision, but let’s save that for the next piece. Truth told, the only nominee I had seen prior to the ceremony was Sideways, which I loved. I love it to this day. It is one of my 20 favorite movies ever, and if you want to get really nerdy, the commentary track on the DVD – featuring Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church – is one of the best commentaries out there.

This was also the last year I did not have my finger on the pulse of the awards race. I was completely out of the loop, in fact. My memory from this year was that The Aviator was winning everything as the show kept going. It won several below-the-line awards, as well as Best Supporting Actress for Cate Blanchett. In total, it won five of the 11 awards for which it was nominated. To my untrained Oscar-watching eye, it looked like Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes epic was going to win Best Picture. Obviously, that did not happen.

Instead, a movie I had barely heard of won the top three awards of the night: Picture, Director, and Actress. Million Dollar Baby was in my consciousness only because its dark, powerful ending had proved moderately controversial. I remember Roger Ebert, already my favorite critic even then, going on CNN to talk about the ending. There was certainly a cultural moment around it. I just did not realize that moment came with Academy cache. It did, and the 74-year-old Clint Eastwood was the belle of the ball.

Apart from enjoying Sideways, I did not really have a dog in the fight. I had enjoyed Mystic River from the year before, so I was happy enough to see Eastwood win the award. This, of course, was prior to any empty chair nonsense, though I must admit I still admire many of the films he makes, up to and including last year’s Richard Jewell. It does seem Eastwood’s misfires are becoming more frequent than his successes, though.

I was vaguely aware some people were disappointed Jim Carrey was not nominated for Best Actor for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film that missed me completely at the time but of which I was aware. Aware enough, in fact, that I remember being pleased for the writing team of Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman, and Pierre Bismuth, two of whom would go on to make some of my favorite films of the ensuing years, winning Original Screenplay.

Eternal Sunshine might be Gondry’s best, though I have a soft spot in my heart for The Science of Sleep, but this is Kaufman mid-ascent. Kaufman’s best remains Synecdoche, NY, and Anomalisa probably surpasses Eternal Sunshine, as well.

In the Adapted Screenplay category, I was happy for Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor winning for their still-perfect Sideways script. If you want a quick lesson in adaptation, check out the scene of Giamatti and Virginia Madsen on the porch. His speech is from the book. Hers is not. It is seamless, and Payne and Taylor’s thorough understanding of their characters makes it so. Like I said, one of my favorites.

I was a fan of Documentary Feature nominee Super Size Me, a film which only grows more problematic by the day. Another good commentary track, but you have to get past Morgan Spurlock as a #MeToo symbol and the Subway sandwiches pedophile Jared Vogel. Add to that the shaky science and generally unrepeatable nature of the experiment, and well … Anyway, Born into Brothels won the award, which is probably for the best, considering everything.

Beyond that, my reminiscences of this year are few since I had little awareness of the movies in the race. That will not be the case moving forward. My Oscar night plans will also get a little more elaborate as we move through the years, so stick around if you like hearing nerdy memories of making people hang out with you while you watch an awards show.

Quick notes: I have gone back and watched most of the major contenders from 2004. Sideways is still my favorite, but The Aviator probably ought to have won Best Picture. Oh well, we’ll get to Marty soon. … I did see Best Animated Feature winner The Incredibles in theaters. I liked it a lot. … Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio both losers this year. That will happen again in 2006. She will finally break through in 2008. He had to wait a little longer.

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Next time: My first Oscars party! Oh, yeah, and a little movie called Crash shocks the world.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: 2004

Sofia Coppola wins the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay at the 2004 Academy Awards ceremony.

The 76th Academy Awards

Ceremony date: February 29, 2004

Best Picture: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Director: Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Best Actor: Sean Penn for Mystic River

Best Actress: Charlize Theron for Monster

I remember the sweep. I also remember being pretty annoyed by it. It is ironic the biggest sweep in Academy history – thus, the most boring show – happened to be the year I decided to care. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is not for me. A lot of people love those films, and I am happy for them. I have given them a fair chance: two viewings of each. I can live without a third and, thus far, have skipped the Hobbit trilogy.

The Return of the King also happens to be the weakest film in the series, and it was only later I realized the Academy’s tendency to award achievements beyond the scope of the specific film being honored. It was not a banner year among the nominees anyway. A lot of people have love for Lost in Translation, a movie we will talk about in a minute, but I still think the best of the bunch is Mystic River. Clint Eastwood missing out this year probably helped push him over the top the following year with Million Dollar Baby, but I remain convinced this is the grander achievement.

Sofia Coppola’s romantic travelogue was a hipster favorite in a time before “hipsters” were even a thing. She was Francis’ daughter, who had made The Virgin Suicides in 1999, but Lost in Translation was her true introduction to the world – and the world’s introduction to Bill Murray, serious actor. If the Academy had known it was going to give Sean Penn an award five years down the line for Milk, it seems likely Murray would have won this. A girl at school had taped the ceremony and had not yet watched it by Monday afternoon, and I accidentally spoiled it for her by remarking on how upset Murray looked when he lost.

The movie had missed me at the time. My high school girlfriend later bought me the DVD as one of those spur-of-the-moment-type gifts, and I eventually got around to watching it. But long before that and long before the ceremony, I was obsessed with the soundtrack. I had read a 50-word review of it in one of those underground punk zines you used to be able to pick up when record stores were still a thing. I cannot remember precisely what the review said, but whatever it was, it made me have to own the soundtrack to a film I had never seen.

As soon as I scrounged up $15, I had the Lost in Translation Original Soundtrack. I was deeply into Nirvana at the time and had grown up on the ‘80s hard rock that my dad listened to, so these 15 tracks of shoegaze and indie pop rock were a bit outside my comfort zone. I loved it. I had never heard anything like it. The My Bloody Valentine ballad “Sometimes” immediately stood out, as did MBV front man Kevin Shields’ original “City Girl.”

It was on that disc that I first met Phoenix, a full six years before they went supernova. The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” is an ideal album ender (never minding the long silence and hidden track that actually close out the compilation). Happy End’s “Kaze wo Atsumete” is also truly lovely. The album remains a go-to for my writing sessions, and it seems safe to say my affinity for shoegaze and the fuzzier side of rock ‘n’ roll came directly from this album.

So, that was my only real context for that Oscars night. When Sofia Coppola won Best Original Screenplay, I did not know the history she was making as a third-generation Oscar winner or as the third woman in history to be nominated for Best Director. All I knew was that one of the people associated with the movie with that awesome soundtrack had won an award, and that alone was enough to make me happy.

Quick notes: In modern times, with the expanded Best Picture lineup and greater appreciation for foreign films on the Academy’s part, Fernando Meirelles’ masterpiece City of God definitely sneaks into the Best Picture lineup. … Charlize Theron won Best Actress for Monster, which is pretty much the apotheosis of the “pretty actress goes ugly to win an Oscar” trope, but she is tremendous in the film, and it always seemed that “trend” was overblown. … Finding Nemo wins Pixar its first Oscar in just the third year for the Animated Feature category – just pointing it out.

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Next time: The 77th Academy Awards, featuring Chris Rock, Clint Eastwood, and some Aviator talk.

A Personal History of Oscar Watching: Introduction

Denzel Washington wins Best Actor for Training Day at the 2002 Academy Awards ceremony.

There is a lot going on in the world right now, and it feels like a million years ago that director Bong Joon-ho and his brilliant thriller Parasite triumphed at the 2019 Academy Awards. In fact, as of this writing, it was less than two months ago that a Korean blockbuster ruled Hollywood for one glorious night. At the time, I called it one of the few “moments of pure bliss” the show has offered me since I began truly following the awards.

That got me thinking about those moments of bliss, as well as my personal history with the Oscars. It would be customary to wait for some round-number anniversary or some other made-up milestone to do a look back like this, but given the circumstances, I think a fun reflection on times gone by is timely enough in and of itself.

Yes, of course the Oscars are silly and frivolous in the face of a deadly virus. And of course, wealthy, beautiful people handing each other gold statues seems gauche in these times. But we find joy where it can be found, and for each of us, that is in a different place. I remember where I was and what I was doing and who I was with for every Academy Awards ceremony I have watched. They are as much a time capsule of my personal history as they are a reflection of the film industry’s days past.

We will start the series in 2004 (the 2003 awards) so that we have an unbroken streak, but let me touch briefly here on the 74th Academy Awards (ceremony date: March 24, 2002) because that is the furthest back my memory of the ceremony goes with any certainty.

I could not tell you exactly why the Academy Awards have ended up meaning so much to me. Movies were always important. I grew up across the street from a video store. We did not have a lot of money, and when you do not have a lot of money, one thing you can still do is rent videos – and rent videos we did. By the handfuls. My dad also bought a lot of the used VHS tapes, and by the time DVD came in and changed home viewing forever (or until Blu-ray and streaming came along), we had amassed quite the collection. So, movies were always around, always a part of life.

Even still, “prestige” films were not necessarily on the menu. My dad was a single father in his late 20s and early 30s for most of this period, and he had grown up in the ‘80s. This meant action films – a steady diet of Seagal (Under Siege, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory, and Out for Justice), Van Damme (Bloodsport, Time Cop, and Sudden Death), and other staples (Road House and Mortal Kombat spin kick to mind).

I loved sports movies as a baseball-obsessed kid and darker kids’ films such as The Addams Family and All Dogs Go to Heaven. I have expounded at length on this site about my early love of horror and will not go into it again here. Some of the traditional stuff was in there, too, such as Spielberg, Disney, and other kiddie comedies. It was eclectic, and I had mostly free reign to watch what I wanted. I did not realize at the time I was receiving an education.

All of that said, sometimes my father would bring home something great. His taste still surprises me and deserves its own post – perhaps once we reach month two of quarantine. I remember Reservoir Dogs and the hard cut to black at the end. I remember Pulp Fiction and trying to title the unnamed chapters. I remember Forrest Gump and Bubba and shrimping. I remember Dazed and Confused and thinking that was what going to high school would be like. I did not understand these as important, praiseworthy works of art. I just knew I loved them.

Fast forward to March 24, 2002. The night of the 74th Academy Awards. I was 13 years old. The only film among the nominees I am absolutely certain I had seen at the time was The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring because I saw it in theaters with a group of friends, and I remember not liking it. I thought it was long and kind of hokey, and being unaware of its literary origins, I was upset it had no ending.

With that context, I remember three distinct things from that ceremony, all at the end and two among the Academy’s most memorable moments ever. In this year, the producers did Best Actress and Best Actor before Best Director, something they probably would not have done in hindsight, given the enormity and historical import of the two acting winners.

First up came Halle Berry. I have spent a lot of time rewatching speeches from old ceremonies, and some are fresher in my mind for that reason, but I will try to go off what I remember in the moment for this series. And, what I remember in the moment about Berry’s speech was the unfiltered emotion of it all. I do not believe I was aware at the time of the history being made, which certainly makes the speech even more of a knockout in retrospect, but I remember being happy for this actress I only kind of knew from The Last Boy Scout in a movie I had not even heard of. (I have seen Monster’s Ball exactly once since.)

Then came Denzel Washington. It seemed a wonderful kismet at play to make it so that Sidney Poitier would receive his lifetime achievement Honorary Academy Award on the same night these two superb black actors would be recognized in the top categories. Washington was even one of the presenters of Poitier’s award. The moment I remember most is when he singled out Poitier during his Best Actor speech. It was a lovely moment, though one wishes it had meant more for the future of people of color in Hollywood in general and at the Oscars specifically.

Finally, Ron Howard and his John Nash biopic A Beautiful Mind were named in the top two categories. I had not seen it. I had not the faintest clue what it was about. All I remember was being happy Richie Cunningham from Happy Days had won an important award. I loved Apollo 13 growing up, but I had not yet put two and two together, so my context for Howard was Happy Days, a favorite show of my father’s and something of a youthful obsession for me.

In 2003, I must have missed the ceremony. Not sure why or what I was doing, but it clearly was not important enough to me at the time to make room for it in my Sunday evening. That would be the last time I felt that way. From 2004 on, the Oscars have been appointment viewing. No matter what was going on in my life, I made sure I was sat down in front of a television set at 5 p.m. on Sunday night for the show (some years it started at 5:30, but I always enjoy the red carpet).

It is my hope this series will serve as a fun distraction in this time of chaos and uncertainty. It is also likely I will be writing about the chaos and uncertainty in other pieces on this site, so I will try to keep these as free of such discussions as possible. Let’s just have a nice time and forget that we are inside because we must be.

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Next time: The 76th Academy Awards, a Lord of the Rings sweep, and memories of Lost in Translation.