84th Annual Academy Awards

Awards season is over.  Oscar has come and gone.
The Artist won the Academy's highest honor of Best Picture along with several other awards, including Best Director, Actor, Costume Design, and Original Score.  In fact, the silent picture, which is only the second in Oscar's history to win Best Picture after Wings received the award for Outstanding Picture at the inaugural event, tied with Hugo for most statues won at five.  The only other film to win multiple awards was The Iron Lady, which received Best Actress and Makeup.
Billy Crystal did a reasonably good job.  The nine-time host seems very relaxed on stage and gives a natural performance when delivering his jokes.  Even flubbing a line last night, he simply stopped, stated he would start again, imitated being rewound a few seconds, and started again like nothing had gone wrong.
Crystal's replacement hosting duties (which came after Eddie Murphy bowed out following the release of director Brett Ratner from a producing postion) inched him a bit closer to Bob Hope's record total of 18 as the ceremony's emcee.  In third place is Johnny Carson with five gigs as host.
The most disappointing portion of the evening was the poor sound quality.  During Crystal's opening musical number, his vocals were too low to be heard over the booming instruments and throughout the entire ceremony feedback could be heard coming from the microphones during award presentations and acceptance speeches.
Normally I try to see as many of the movies nominated as I can, but this year was a tough one due to having a baby.  It's true what they say that your social life ends when children enter the home.  While our lives haven't completely come to a halt because of Jack, Joanna and I have seen a downturn in date nights.
In the Best Picture category this year I was able to watch The Help, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, and The Tree of Life.  My favorite of that group was Moneyball, but The Help and Midnight in Paris were both really enjoyable movies.  I can't say the same for The Tree of Life.  It was a chore to watch that tedious film.  A lot of critics who loved The Tree of Life have compared its scope with Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, but where Kubrick differs from director Terence Malick is that 2001 includes an engaging story in between all the ostentatious photography and epic classical music.  Malick failed to connect with the audience when it came time to actually unravel the narrative of his movie.
Hopefully by burying the details of this so far down it will be overlooked by many, but after reigning supreme in our Oscar ballot picking game every year I was taken down by my friend Danny.  I knew going in I would likely lose, but falling five behind the winner was a tough thing to swallow.  Danny got 16 correct and I came in second with 11.  My wife brought up the rear of the six participants with only four right selections out of 24 categories.  Not a good night for Joanna, but she made up for it with her awesome menu of movie-themed dining foods and snacks.
The final talking point for this post will be how nice it was to see The Muppets win an Oscar for Best Original Song.  Go Kermit and the gang!