Oscar Season finally OVER

What I thought of the Oscar ceremony: Neil Patrick Harris is a very funny, musical and talented guy.... Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were very amusing most of the time.... Who was that weird woman in purple who rudely interrupted the acceptance speech of the director of the winning short documentary? (Turns out she was the producer who had distanced herself from the film and was NOT invited to accept any award. She sounded like an idiotic fool.)....I am thrilled that THE COVE won best documentary---and the Japanese government is pissed.---See recent news releases for more info on that.....Happy that PRECIOUS won for best screenplay adaptation (a surprise win over UP IN THE AIR) as well as the well deserved supporting award for Mo'nique.....Most of the other awards were very predictable, but HURT LOCKER was my least favorite of all the nominees--an intense and well made film about tension and dangers in war---but little plot and predictable point..... I must confess that I haven't seen THE BLINDSIDE yet--it sounded rather drippy to me and got very mixed/mediocre reviews, but now that it is in the cheap theatres (CREST) and DVD soon, I might catch up with it......The winner of best foreign film was a big surprise--mostly due to it's unknown/unseen status.....
(And of course, my favorite gowns of the evening-- a tie between Sandra Bullock's jeweled and sheer form-fitting dress, and Jennifer Lopez in that white tulip looking gown. The worst was Charlize Theron in the dress that had the Cinnabon-looking ribbons encircling her breasts--incredibly distracting, but she gets an "A" for trying to work it.)

Speaking of foreign films and Oscars, I just saw a strong candidate for next year, the Swedish film based on the best selling international novel, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. More on that film when it opens.....also half way through the 5 1/2 hour version of John Woo's version of RED CLIFF, so more on that when I finish it off. The two and one half hour version of that film is due on DVD next week.

The only other film that I saw this past week was a dreary "B" film called CRASH LANDING (1958) with Gary Merrill and Ronald Reagan's wife Nancy (Davis at the time), which was probably the basis for the AIRPLANE comedies of the 1970's, but which had no camp value, humor or suspense or drama.
A big disappointment, with a by-the-numbers plot and zero special effects--the crash landing is not even shown and the deplaning process in the ocean is an awkwardly edited cheat as well. Unmemorable.