The 2008 Academy Awards: An Overview of the Ups and Downs

Time to fill in the blanks, people. The 80^th Academy Awards was upon us on February 24^th and the writers came back just in time.

Thankfully, the three month long Writer's Strike ended just in time for there to be an awards show that acted its age. Seriously, Oscar celebrated its 80^th birthday in style with numerous flashbacks from previous years through out the program. Every inch of the broadcast honored its 80 year existence that originally started in 1929, and now hold courts in the Kodak Theater.

The show began with a 30 minute warm up with Regis Philbin hosting a red carpet rundown of the celebrities arriving and building a comfortable rapport with them that Joan Rivers should aspire to. He celebrated his own anniversary with the Oscars, because about thirty years ago he hosted an Oscar pre-show just like the one he did this year. Hopefully, it won't be another 30 years before Regis returns to be the red carpet for his next go-around.

In terms of the awards expectations, the results were rather mixed. The nominees for Best Song, while interesting to hear, were in the best of terms lacking the oomph from previous nominees. While the Disney film Enchanted had multiple nominations, the songs did not have the same impact as previously nominated Disney songs. Listening to the songs would make many want to get to their kitchens before the next award gets presented out.

Jon Stewart did an okay job as host for the second time, but Billy Crystal will always be the best Academy Awards host. His energy was infectious while Stewart's is more classroom smart aleck snickering at his own jokes. The most annoying sketch was done by Seth Rogen and Judah Hill pretending to be Halle Berry and Dame Judy Dench. It did not work during the first award they presented, and it did not work the second time they presented. What also could have been taken out was having the lead bee from Bee Movie presenting an Oscar. Come on. Seriously. It was a cartoon. A live person could have done better than that, or not. Katherine Heigl's nerves made her look like a robot who made no effort to move her head, except to read the teleprompter better.

Some awards wins were already expected, while others were rather surprising. The two acting categories that carry the biggest jaw dropping moments are always the Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories. No one really knows what to expect until the envelopes are unsealed and revealed in front of the hundreds of millions of people watching.

Everyone pretty much knew Javier Bardem was going to walk off with the Oscar, because he pretty scared the living daylights out of everybody in No Country for Old Men. What made many jaws drop to the floor was when Tilda Swinton won for Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton. That was completely unexpected, because many critics predicted that either Amy Ryan or Cate Blanchett were going to walk away with the golden statuette. Swinton performed her part of an extremely driven corporate attorney well and deserved the Oscar.

Another surprise was when Marion Cotillard won for Best Actress for La Vie en rose. Her shock and nervous energy made the audience fear that she was going to squeeze the life out of presenter, and previous Oscar winner, Forest Whitaker. Insiders believed Julie Christie would get her second Oscar for Away From Her, but they were proven wrong when Cotillard walked up to the stage.

The night's biggest "it's about time" moment is waiting for Daniel Day Lewis to walk up to the stage to get his Oscar. It was bound to happen, and it took nearly two plus hours to happen. Even fellow nominee George Clooney admitted that this was his year for Day Lewis's performance in There Will Be Blood. The other major honors were justifiably given to the Cohen brothers for No Country for Old Men in both the Best Director and Best Picture categories, because this film was something to behold. They were also awarded for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film as well. The Cohens might not have intended for the film to get such a response out of everybody, but it did and they have the awards to prove it. The ultimate tribute to writers everywhere was watching Diablo Cody win for Original Screenplay for Juno. Hopefully, this will be a sign of things to come for Cody.

In conclusion, the show was pretty much the same as the previous years with a fair share of stale jokes and a lot of technical awards dominating the ceremony. The only difference was the thousands of montages that paid some tribute to the awards show, while others were obvious space fillers. What would the show have been like if the writers were not part of the equation? The idea would just be terrifyingly montage heavy, and probably as exciting as paint drying. Thankfully, that was not the case this year. Maybe next year, Billy Crystal could return to spice things up, or let Regis try his hand at hosting. Now, that would be a thought.