Oscar Night

Wincing from the fact that I wasn’t able to complete the second draft of my screenplay in enough time to make the Project Greenlight deadline yesterday (damn the week that I lost to whatever viral plague that was that I mentioned below), I spent the evening watching other folks who were able to finish THEIR screenplays get little golden statues for them.

Yes, it was very, very good to see LOTR finally get the “real” awards–and especially giving Peter Jackson the Director’s Oscar. The man filmed what many thought was un-filmable. HOWEVER…If I have to read another geek rant about how this is somehow validation for “us”, as if the geeks in question had any fucking thing at all to do with the creation of these brilliant masterpieces that were rightfully recognized with awards, I’m gonna have to start pounding on people so bad that they’ll think they’re back in High School. For fuck’s sake, people…not everything is a referendum on your acceptability.

Likewise, slappings are in order for every geek bitching that Johnny Depp didn’t get the Oscar for his portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow. Folks…look: I love pirates possibly more than all but a handful of you, and I loved that movie. However, that wasn’t an Oscar-worthy performance. Giving Depp the Oscar for that would have been like the Oscar they gave Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost–“We fucked up by not reconizing you when you DID give an Oscar-worthy performance , so we’re giving you a “gimme” Oscar for this bit of fluff.” Sparrow was a charicature. An amusing bit of eye-rolling with some funny delivery. It wasn’t Hamlet.

Then again, neither was Sean Penn’s role in Mystic River, but it was still damned good….I also think this was a gimme award for passing over his amazingly consistant work, year after year…but if it’s gonna be a gimme, at least it was for a performance which, although not better than anything he’s done before, was at least as good.

Charlize Theron gets the Oscar for her work in Monster, which should come as zero surprise to anyone. “Let’s see…we could give it to some 13 year old kid in a movie nobody has seen, a woman who still apparently hasn’t gotten over playing Annie Hall, or gee…maybe we should give it to a woman who is playing against type and did an amazing job that nobody expected.” I loved Adrian Brody’s last-minute breath-spray moment. Mind you, if faced with the possibility of kissing Ms. Theron, I think that I’d probably just pass out. Makes for much more exciting television.

Sophia Coppola: We’re going to see her again. A lot–and in both screenwriting and direction categories. In my opinion, her recent work more than makes up for nearly single-handedly destroying The Godfather saga with her “star turn” in Godfather III…and believe me, it takes a lot for me to forgive that.

So…I missed the Project Greenlight deadline…but the deadline for the Nicholls Fellowship is on May 1st. I can still make that….

GMS