The Lion, the Giesha & the Gay Cowboys

It was supposed to be a very gay evening in Hollywood. John Stewart (who kept many of his political quips low-key) hosted a rather drab show which included a burning car with people moving around in slow motion.

Many watched to see Bareback Mounting get shafted (sic) by one of the all-time biggest Oscar upsets; Paul Haggis' underdog favorite, Crash, won the 2006 Academy Award for Best Picture, besting the gay cowboy movie that most of the experts said would win. Crash, also took top honors for Best Original Screenplay and Film Editing.

Bareback, nominated for eight awards, didn't go home empty-handed, winning Best Director for Ang Lee, plus awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score.

The top acting awards went to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his portrayal of Capote, and to Reese Witherspoon for her take on June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. Supporting acting nods went to "Out-Of-Touch" George Clueless (who beat out a more deserving Matt Dillon) and Rachel Weisz (for playing the same kind of character she plays in EVERY film she does). Clueless's acting nomination, coupled with his directing nomination for Good Night, and Good Luck, made him the first person to ever receive directing and acting recognition for two different films in the same year.

Winning in the Foreign Film category was Gavin Hood's excellent South African film Tsotsi.

Peter Jackson's King Kong won awards in Visual Effects, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing while the ultra-chickflick Memoirs of a Geisha also won three oscars, in Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design.

Meanwhile, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe won for Achievement in Makeup, beating out Lucas' Star Wars III; March of the Penguins took home Best Documentary for being the only documentary people actually watched; and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit was somehow named the top animated film, despite being the worst of only 3 nominated films.

Hollywood showed again that with George CLueless as their king that they were all living in La-La-Land when "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from the film Hustle and Flow, won for Best Song. Yes those poor pimps it must be so tough out there killing people and beating up on their "bitches". What a sad state of affairs.


A full list of winners can be found at the official Oscars website.

The fact that San Fransisco and New York (location says a lot) had a 55 share of the TV ratings, just goes to show how big a show some had hoped these awards would be. In the end they had to settle for Best Director (somewhat deserved), Best Adapted Screenplay (from a hribble list of nominees) and stealing Best Musical Score from Memoirs of a Geisha (probably due to the familiarity of it with all the BB take-off trailers circulating around the web).

On a personal note, I have to admit it's great looking around the office at all the lefty liberals with glum faces today. Typically, they would be beaming and talking all about the awards. As of yet no one has said a thing!

Egotastic! has a whole bunch of photos of the celebs from last night here.

You can search by actor name here at the Oscar's official site.