Daily Awards Buzz & Rumors: Monday, February 25, 2008

David Poland on Oscar blogging… Anne Thompson on Cotillard and Swinton… Sasha Stone and David Carr on the winners… Johnny Alba and Nathaniel Rogers on the Cotillard… Glenn Kenny and S.T. Van Airsdale on “Juno” … Lou Lumenick and Alessandra Stanley on the broadcast… Jeffrey Wells on the Coens… Karina Longworth on Diablo Cody

“Liveblogging died today... as every monkey with a keyboard, Traditional Media or New, feels a need to comment minute-by-minute on a show that everyone gets to see live. It seems to me to be about the equivalent of reading a column about sex during sex. Methinks your ‘partner’ would be better served by a little concentration… The day of verbal diarrhea as a communications medium is coming to an end.” – David Poland with a post-show commentary on all the real-time commentary going on during the Oscar broadcast at Movie City News

“Well, you win some, you lose some. I did pretty well on my various Oscar pools, but I missed a lot. I failed to change to the Marion Cotillard horse when it was seemingly catching up to Julie Christie. Tilda Swinton put it very well backstage when the news broke. ‘Why are you glad she won?’ one reporter asked. Swinton replied, ‘She’s great, she’s new, she’s new blood in the gene pool.’” – Anne Thompson surveys her own picks at Variety

“It was a hell of a year, a great game to be sure. The only true headscratcher for me was Tilda Swinton. And it isn’t because I don’t think she didn’t deserve to win but just because I’m stunned that they didn’t award Ruby Dee and if not Ruby Dee at least Cate Blanchett or Amy Ryan. But what surprised me the most was that the hair-brained theory that ‘they want to give 'Michael Clayton' something’ was actually spot on! Again, not saying she didn’t deserve it but just that I didn’t think it was, well, a great choice for the prize. No one will complain, though, I suppose. And it also means that three of the four wins went to villains.” – Sasha Stone surveys the winners at Awards Daily

“Remember in first grade when everybody won a little something? If not first honors, then some kind of very special person award. This Oscars is feeling like that. Little ‘Atonement,’ we have original score award for you. And ‘There Will Be Blood?’ We have a cinematography award for you. ‘Juno,’ we see you, you little dickens back there. Here’s a screenplay win for you. Everybody is a winner here and there are no losers. Not a single movie has anything resembling coattails.” – David Carr surveys the winning tally at the New York Times

“As many of you know, I chose Marion Cotillard as my favorite performance of 2007 but I was sure AMPAS would deny her the Oscar due the foreign language barrier. I'm glad the voters got it right this year and chose the best among the very competitive lineup. Now, what’s next for the likeable Cotillard?” – Johnny Alba sees the upside in the Cotillard win at the Oscar Igloo

“Marion Cotillard’s win, which I confidently predicted without any personal joy, has left me strangely empty rather than angry. I guess after 'Brokeback' vs. 'Crash' I can handle anything. Nothing will be as embarrassing to the Academy / painful to me as that ever again. But still... I think it’d be so cool if the Oscars got away from biopics for awhile. It would really do the film world good to have more than one idea about what constitutes great acting. There are so many ways to express oneself in art. Why must they continually reward the same thing?” – Nathaniel Rogers sees no upside in awarding Cotillard at the Film Experience

“I think we took all that as well as could be expected. Cody’s speech was short enough to suggest she knew that her moment was gonna be at its inevitable end a little sooner than it might have been had she gotten too cute with it. ‘I’m learning from you...’ Learn harder.” – Glenn Kenny still feels the sting of the Cody backlash at Premiere

“All the hype, backlash, and backlash-to-the-backlash should be a not-so-fond memory within the next 48 hours, when ‘Juno’ hops off her hamburger phone and into her pumpkin carriage en route to rejoining the serviceable teen comedies scrubbing floors back at the Fox commissary.” – S.T. VanAirsdale sees the end of the road for the “Juno” bandwagon

“Many Americans probably tuned out of one of the dullest Oscar shows ever, safe in the knowledge that prohibitive favorite ‘No Country for Old Men’ won Best Picture at 11:45 p.m. While it’s certainly a worthy winner, a Weinstein-style campaign at a reported cost of $15 million certainly didn’t hurt. Nor did a controversial ending; of course, ‘There Will Be Blood’ also had one, while a third nominee, ‘Juno’ had a problematic first reel.” – Lou Lumenick surveys the winners at the New York Post

“It was as if they felt they needed an insurance policy against dullness. Yet for the most part, those flashbacks reminded viewers of what they were missing. And showing other actors’ memorable acceptance speeches – especially Cuba Gooding Jr.’s – seemed to leave the new winners self-conscious and subdued” – Alessandra Stanley wonders about the clip-heavy broadcast at the New York Times

“Joel and Ethan Coen, good fellows that they are, were a little too modest and self-effacing last night. Their personalities are their personalities, and that’s fine. But they’re clever writers with things on their minds, and for their acceptance speeches they could have written something that might have cut through to the marrow or acknowledged something other than the state of winning. Anything that might have made people say, ‘Wow...good words.’ But their attitude seemed to be ‘okay, we have to do this so let's be gracious...it'll all be over tomorrow morning and then we can get back to work.’ – Jeffrey Wells hopes for a little more from his friendos the Coen brothers at Hollywood Elsewhere

“Which I guess is all the better to, as Steven Zeitchik puts it, 'solidify their transition from cult directors to Oscar power players.' Because as Diablo Cody has taught us, you can’t win an Oscar without a narrative of upward mobility – and weirdness assimilation – for the publicists to latch on to.” – Karina Longworth just can’t resist one more dig at Diablo at Spout

(Photo courtesy Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)