Award Season - Next Day Reactions

February 26, 2007

Last night's Oscars were a interesting mix of clear favorites and surprising upsets. There were enough surprises to keep people talking for a while while enough favorites won that most will be satisfied with the overall outcome.

Here are some more notes and reactions now that the awards have had time to settle.

  • The Departed was clearly the big winner of the night, taking home three major awards in Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and one technical in Best Editing.
  • Pan's Labyrinth won three technical awards, coming in second place for the evening. It is also one of the few films still playing in a significant number of theaters and should see a pretty big bounce this coming weekend.
  • Other repeat winners last night include Little Miss Sunshine, (Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay); Dreamgirls, (Best Supporting Actress and Best Achievement in Sound); and An Inconvenient Truth, (Best Documentary and Best Original Song).
  • All three two-time winners were a bit of a shock with Little Miss Sunshine and An Inconvenient Truth winning one award where they were the favorite and one where they were serious underdogs.
  • Dreamgirls was shocking for the opposite reason. Despite winning two Oscars, it was a tough night for the film, which had Oscar bait written all over it. Many people thought it would be the big winner and had done so for the past year. Granted, the buzz cooled considerably just before its release, but this was still disappointing. On a side note, losing out on Best Original Song may have been an issue of vote splitting; in fact, that is the most likely culprit.
  • Babel also had a rough night as that film went one for seven, winning just Best Original Score. On the other hand, out of all the winners last night, it had some of the weakest reviews. Reviews so weak, in fact, that it was arguably an overachiever when it grabbed seven nominations.
  • Biggest shocks of the night: An Inconvenient Truth winning for best song, Alan Arkin winning for Best Supporting Actor, Happy Feet winning for Best Animated film.
  • Least shocking wins: Helen Mirren for The Queen, An Inconvenient Truth for Best Documentary, Pan's Labyrinth for Best Makeup.
  • While Martin Scorsese finally won for Best Director, it is hard to call that a surprise. A lot of people assumed that he would finally take home the award this year after missing out so many times in the past, but a lot of people said the same thing about The Aviator, and to a lesser extent, Gangs of New York.
  • Speaking of bridesmaids, Kevin O'Connell lost again this year. That makes it 19 nominations without a win while Peter O'Toole has gone eight nominations without an individual win.

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Filed under: Happy Feet, The Departed, Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen, El Laberinto del Fauno, Babel, An Inconvenient Truth