It's Crunch Time

Less than a week until the big night now!! I'm so excited. Over the last week and a half I've seen 10 movies up for Oscars this year. Yes, that's right. It's crunch time. The Olympics have ended and now I can focus all of my extra time on the Oscars. This week I'm going to try and focus on a few categories each day and pick my final predictions Sunday afternoon.

First though, I've been remiss at writing about the BAFTAs. They happened a little over a week ago, but things have been busy this past week, plus I was watching a lot of movies. However, I had a few thoughts to share.

1. I always love how adorably British the BAFTAs are. They give out awards for the Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Contribution to British Film, and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer. I love that all of these awards are "outstanding" versus the "best". Stephen Fry has been hosting for years and he is outstandingly British in his presentation. It's always hilarious to see the American stars not sure how to react to the British humor. I just want to tell them to loosen up and laugh a little more.

2. The theme of the night seemed to be missing winners having their speeches read by their movie's directors. Youtube the acceptance speeches given by Alfonso Cuaron on behalf of Gravity's Best Cinematography winner, Emmanuel Lubezki, and David O. Russel on behalf of American Hustle's Best Supporting Actress winner Jennifer Lawrence. Both are funny and charming.

3. Lupita Nyong'o  needs to learn how to have a more gracious losing face. She was nominated for two awards, Best Supporting Actress, which clearly she lost to Lawrence, and the EE Rising Star Award. That award is given to an actor or actress who's up and coming in the business and is voted on by the British public through texting, phone calls, and online. Nyong'o looked pretty pissed when she lost the first award to Lawrence, but when she lost the EE Rising Star Award as well, she looked really upset and annoyed. She even leaned over to her companion and muttered something while the kid who did win, Will Poulter (Son of Rambow, We're the Millers) walked up to the stage. Poulter was genuinely surprised and excited that he won and gave a slightly flustered and sweet speech. Nyong'o has won a lot of awards this season and deservedly so, her performance in 12 Years a Slave is heartbreaking, but she's not going to win them all. Her reaction made me start to root against her a little for the Oscars.

4. Cate Blanchett gives great speeches. She, of course, won for her performance in Blue Jasmine, but I think her best performance this Awards Season has been her acceptance. She's been humorous and classy throughout, but this speech made me cry. She accepted the award and gave the speech in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman. This one is worth Youtubing to see an example of a class act.

The Oscar category I want to focus on today is Best Original Song.  This year seems to have produced a lot of "rock stars" as nominees with the exception of one Broadway vet. I've seen all of the nominated movies except for Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, however, I did listen to the U2 penned song, "Ordinary Love". I like U2, even if Bono has become synonymous with pretentiousness over the past few years, and the song was a good U2 song, but not quite Oscar worthy. Pharrell Williams is up for his song "Happy" from Despicable Me 2 and it's a delightful song. Pharrell is also on a winning streak right now after his four Grammy wins earlier this month. Honestly, I don't care if he wins or loses the Oscar, as long as he can get the whole Dolby Theatre to clap along because they're happy. The third rock star up for an Oscar this year is Karen O of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs for "The Moon Song" from Her. This was a sweet song and fit in perfectly with the movie. I really love Karen O and think she's fabulous so I would sort love if she won an Oscar. It would be like when Trent Reznor won for Best Original Score for The Social Network in 2010. I'll admit, I yelled with excitement in my living room. Finally, the last nominee for best song is "Let it Go" from Frozen. As I've said before, I think it would be great if Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez won for this song. It's a fun song and has all of the pizzazz of a Broadway hit.

Well, that's enough for tonight. I plan to be back tomorrow with a few more Oscar category thoughts and hopefully a couple more movies seen.