I love the blog that you have. I was wondering if you would link my blog to yours and in return I would do the same for your blog. If you want to, my site name is American Legends and the URL is:

http://www.americanlegends.blogspot.com

If you want to do this just go to my blog and in one of the comments just write your blog name and the URL and I will add it to my site.

Thanks,
Mark

Nice job tonight, Kris. Well done, indeed. Happy for Marty. It's about time.

I LOVED the fact that Departed won Pic and Director. I got 18/24 -- correctly predicting the Lives of Others and "I Need to Wake Up" surprises (if it's considered a surprise). Overall, not a bad set of winners this year.

Oh. 17 on 24 actually. Anyway, just wanted to say a loud BOO for denying Lubezki his award.

Kris,
I've been meaning to tell you that you have one of the most visually pleasing Oscar sites online.
I particularly appreciated the coverage and talks with the techies.

I, too, was really upset that Children of Men didn't win cinematography. There was very loud applause for the film when they showed the clip. I thought that it was going to win when I heard that.

I actually enjoyed the show tonight and Ellan. Almost all the hosts I've seen doing the Oscars have to stop making jokes after two hours because the show gets too long. They probably could have done without Celine Dion and the America montage, though the Foreign Film montage was very good.

I thought the opening was great showing the nominees and I liked the reading of lines from screenplays. I agree the Morricone tribute was touching.

I won my Oscar pool tonight, mainly because of choosing The Departed for BP, Arkin, and Melissa E.'s song. I got the animated and live action short wrong early on so I thought I was doomed but I redeemed myself later.

Ellen Degeneres was so so as a hostess like you said, but I was so glad the academy went full out in honoring the tech categories even more than the acting categories. The script readings, the editing clips, the cinematographer's narration, the sound choir, everything there was just perfect, and please please keep everyone talking about how wonderful that was, because I want that happening again year in and year out. Nevertheless, there were some moments of comic genius. Al Gore's attempted run was this huge build up that couldn't have ended any cooler. I sat with a bunch of film students, and we were all pleasantly surprised with everything. I have very few complaints this year, except that god awful snub to Children of Men. Shame Shame Shame Shame Shame Shame Shame. And did Santaolalla have to win another one so soon?

Thx for the great coverage Kris! Even reading it a day later (time zones... ugh!) I still get more of a feel for the whole event than just reading the results in the news...

Yay for 'upsets' Happy Feet and Alan Arkin and Melissa Etheridge! Terrible sigh for the losses of Children of Men, Pan's (for foreign and soundtrack) and especially Babel which should have won BEST PICTURE!!! :(

But all in all I think it was a very good year for the movies, and I hope in the future we'll continue getting such high-quality, intersting film making, with a wide diversity of subjects and talents!

Congrats to all the winners!

And congrats to you Kris for hosting this excellent site! I'll be sure to tune back in next year for more! ;)

I believe I got 17. ;)

Ugh, Al Gore was a condescending holier-than-thou asshole. Why bring him and Leo out to speak for 5 minutes that lead nowhere. Although it may be that I just hate the movie. Why was he up on stage anyway? It wasn't his award.

Loved the wins for Scorsese, Departed, Pan's, Happy Feet, Arkin. Loved the Dreamgirls and the Ferrel/Black/Reilly numbers. The Errol Morris opening was brilliant, too.

That COM loss was strange though. Big WTF moment. Same for Babel and score.

I thought Ellen was great. Sure, maybe "safe", but I'd rather safe than mean spirited (Rock) or comically-challenged (Stewart).

{fine}

"Before I check out here, I have to say this. Sasha Stone called the win for "The Departed," which became a "consensus" pick later in the season, as far back as November."

I think you give her way too much credit. Yes, she got it right but she also got very lucky. She was so fangirlish about the movie I could imagine her behaving the same way even if the movie wasn't as popular.

"And there's no better segue than from those words to these: A Martin Scorsese film has finally won Best Picture and Best Director. And...holy shit...of the nominees, it is the most deserving contender."
Meh, I diasgree and of all people you should know that this movie pales compared to the likes of
"The Fountain". Also Alfonso Cuaron directed circles around Scorsese.

"I am so, SO happy the Academy was this cool. That they were this smooth. That they were this...badass. You have to go back to "The French Connection" to find a film this hard boiled winning the big prize, and even THAT was a film that advanced the medium considerably."
Really? You think the Academy was cool and badass in the year that "A Clockwork Orange" was nominated and lost?

Now here's a movie that pushed the medium much much further than "French Connection" even dreamed to do. If that movie won, that would have been truly badass.

The Departed is actually a relatively safe although very good genre film. You want badass, try Takashi Miike some time.

To me this was a terrible year at the Oscars. That Emmanuel Lubezki's miraculous (you're absolutely right here) work lost is a crime against cinema. Really. I can't even begin to make sense out of this or the fact that Babel's score had won.

Or how about Departed's fairly straightforward editing loosing to a brilliant ambitious mosaic that is Babel? How about Chris Mansell's masterpiece of a score not even being nominated?

I could go on and on...

Also, Elen great Oscar host! Definitely the best since Crystal.

how quickly everyone in Hollywood seems to have forgotten what an enemy to popular culture Al Gore and his wife are. they were the ones who spear-headed the campaign to censor music in the 80's and 90's and are directly responsible for the useless parental advisory stickers that still appear to this day. Gore himself vowed to "help parents and strengthen families...by giving parents the tools to protect their children against cultural pollution." During his last Presidential campaign Gore said he would give industry leaders six months to "clean up their act." If they don't, and if he wins in November, he vowed to step in and urge the FTC to enforce restrictions on commercial speech. His work on global warming is phenomenal, don't get me wrong. But as a member of the movie industry, he is no candidate of mine

Hey Kris, I just wanted to comment on next year's Oscar predictions. I know it's early, but I too have hopes for Day-Lewis and The Kite Runner.

The only thing that I think will inevitably change is the acting lineup. If we just examine recent Oscar history, the Academy is far more inclined to nominating newcomers or non-winners before anyone else. Therefore, I don't think Streep, Kidman, Fonda, or Washington will return for nominations and Redgrave won't get a dual one. Conversely, I think Nicholson will make up for his "snub" this year by getting another nod for The Bucket List. Also, Roberts for Charlie Wilson's War? How about Amy Adams? (We need to hope...) But uh, I hope Rescue Dawn makes a splash--just more so for Christian Bale.

Jesus, cinemaniac, let's not analyze it that deeply YET.

Camel, you couldn't have read a guy like Gore more wrongly. Though at least Chad has some valid points about the guy. Regardless, he was on stage because there'd be no film without him. He deserved to be there, producer or not. And Guggenheim did the classy thing by indicating as much.

Furthermore, Gore on stage with Leo talking about what they did is much more needed than Celine Dion putting us to sleep or Jerry Seinfield auditioning for a hosting gig. It was brief, to the point, and had a funny punchline. We need more of that in the Oscar telecast.

Roman, even though you're dreadfully wrong about The Departed [;)], I nontheless agree with your vision of the Academy awards. But a step like Departed (HARDLY "safe") winning is the best we can hope for on the way to something like A Clockwork Orange winning the big award. Otherwise, you're living in a fantasy world.

Basically, I'll take what I can get.

Chris, I won't argue how safe or unsafe the Departed win was. Considering that "Infernal Affairs" wasn't even nominated for "Best Foreign Film" (even though it was offered by Taiwan) I have to wonder a. How many of people actually seen it or are actively aware of it, and b. How many of the nominations bestowed on "The Departed" are due to it being a Scorsese film.

I won't argue the merits of this movie, to me it's great (and I did enjoy it), but let's face it: lately Scorsese is nominated for absolutely everything he's done. Half of all his best director nominations are for a period between 2002-2006. That's a love of love for a short period of time, especially considering that one of these movies is the overrated "Gangs of New York".

And what's "safe" anyway? Everything can be percieved through comparisson. Compared to "Babel", I think "Departed" is safe. Compared to "Queen", it's safe. Compared to "Letters" it's safe. You see what I'm doing here? And yes, it's safer than "Little Miss Sunshine".

Yes, by itself "The Departed" may not be the most Academy (read: older voter) friendly film on the surface and I may even believe that it wasn't meant to be a movie for Awards, but remember: "Silence of the Lambs" got there first ;).

P.S. And I'm not living in a fantasy world, I've matured the moment I realized that my beloved "A.I." was never going to be nominated for anything it deserves.

I'm very sorry Kris, I didn't mean to misspell your name. That was a typo :).

I honestly can't believe you find a film as graphic and genre as Departed "safer" than the rest of the field (MAYBE Letters). But that's your own interpretation and you're welcome to it.

As for Scorsese, I think he's deserved every nomination he has received. And in many cases, he should have won.

I think that it's the safest out all of the other nominees because even at the time of the nominations, it was by the most popular film (most those who haven't seen it thought that it should have won) and also the most American (together with LMS). There is very little controversy surrounding its win, most people and media outlets take consider it the right choice. Nobody is calling it an "upset". I believe that there would have been a lot more controversy had any other movie won. That's why I view it as the safest of the bunch but, yeah, taken by itself I agree that it's not your average Oscar Winner.