I want to kick this off with a quote from last night's show that I feel did an amazing job summing up my feelings towards movies and cinema:
"I love the movies. They entertain us. They offer us hope. They give us dreams. They can take us places we've never been and, just even for a few moments, they can take us away when you want to get away. Movies inspire us. They challenge us and, despite our differences, they are a common link that touches the humanity in all of us." -Jack Nicholson

As promised, here is Old School's 2008 Oscars recap. There were some nice moments in the 80^th anniversary of the Academy Awards. Nielsen says that preliminary ratings for the telecast were 14% lower than the least-watched ceremony ever which was 2003 when still 33 million viewers tuned in. I was obviously one of them.  There were not a lot of good movies this past year, but the ones that were good happened to be really good. Those films were honored, but like I predicted in yesterday's issue No Country For Old Men was the big winner. If you did not read the pre-Oscar issue, please go check that out before reading the rest.

My predictions were very accurate except for the actress categories. As I predicted, No Country For Old Men won four major awards including Best Picture, Best Directors, Best Supporting Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. The amazing performance by Javier Bardem was justly rewarded and the Coen Brothers were able to come to the stage three times for the other awards. This is very impressive and very well deserved. Juno won for Best Original Screenplay which I also felt was extremely well deserved. I was actually happy to see that Michael Clayton won at least one of the seven awards it was nominated for when Tilda Swinton won Best Supporting Actress (though I was hoping that George Clooney would have pulled off the upset in his category). The biggest surprise of the night had to be that Marion Cottliard won Best Actress in a Leading Role with her performance in a film La Vie En Rose which very few people have even seen. A pleasant surprise to me, The Bourne Ultimatum swept all three categories it was nominated for taking home Oscars for Best Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. It is great to see movies that you have seen and enjoyed win the awards.  That pretty much quickly covers the actual awards though the ceremony unnecessarily dragged on for over 3 hours. I honestly feel those lower ratings could be solved if they shortened the program and focused on the major awards.

The show began with a cool intro with a delivery truck bringing the Oscar statues to the theater, but not as cool as when Billy Crystal hosts the show. Here is a link to view this year's intro. Jon Stewart was the host of this year's ceremony and I feel he did an admirable job. I enjoy his sense of humor and he kept the show moving for the most part. Being Oscar's 80^th anniversary, George Clooney introduced a nice montage showing some of the highlights of the past 79 years. I enjoy these sorts of videos much more than many of the other portions of the program, so here is a link to watch the video yourself. Then about 2 hours into the show Jack Nicholson marched out and delivered that perfect quote that I began this issue with. He proceeded to introduce a video that recapped all 79 previous winners of the Best Picture award. Here is a link to the video that includes Jack's introduction as well. Jon Stewart had some decent jokes sprinkled in throughout the evening, but I though the funniest part was an exchange between Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill as presenters. The premise was that Halle Berry and Dame Judi Dench were supposed to present that particular award, but could not be there so they were the replacements. The funny part was how they seemingly argued over who is more like Halle Berry. You would have to see it to really appreciate it, but I could not find a video of this part yet. Take my word for it, they were very funny.

I thought most of the attendees were dressed very nicely for the event, but it would not be an Oscar recap if I did not at least comment on the best (and worst) dressed. It seemed to me that most people were rather safe. For the ladies, I felt that Jennifer Garner and Katherine Heigl were the most stunning. Taking into consideration that they were pregnant, I felt that both Nicole Kidman and Jessica Alba looked very nice. If I had to pick a worst dressed, I would give that to Tilda Swinton who wore a very unflattering black frock. For the guys, I feel that most look very nice when you put them in a tuxedo. Not that I pay all that much attention to these sort of things, but George Clooney always seems to exude coolness. Other guys that seemed to stand out include: Dwayne ‘The Rock' Johnson, Javier Bardem, Johnny Depp, Jason Bateman, Sean ‘P. Diddy' Combs and Denzel Washington. Again, if I had to pick a worst dressed, I would give that to Daniel Day-Lewis. I am not a fashion expert, but those are my opinions from last night's red carpet.

If you have read most of my Kickin' it Old School articles over the past two months, you will quickly notice my love of movies. (If you have not, then where have you been??? Be sure to click on the Archive buttons and get caught up!) I could not have captured the reasons for that love any better than that opening quote from above. I feel that magic when I experience a great movie and the Oscars always seems to bring a little bit of that magic for me as well. Hopefully some films in the coming year will approach the greatness of No Country For Old Men and the other films I enjoyed so much from this year. That will do it for the Kickin' it Oscar recap. Thanks for reading and please continue to give me lots of feedback. Have a great week. Peace and much love.

Check this out: WARNING again! This is a bit crude again, but oh so funny. In the "Check this out" section of my February 13th issue I included a link to watch an extremely funny video that Sarah Silverman created with Matt Damon for her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel. Well, last night after the Oscars Kimmel premiered his hilarious rebuttal. Here is a link to watch it. It features some very funny cameos that make it even more comical. I am a big Damon and Affleck fan and this type of display just makes me appreciate them both that much more.

Quote of the day: see the beginning of this article

Download this: "Keep It Loose, Keep It Tight" by Amos Lee - I am a big fan of Amos Lee and this is my favorite song of his