oscars

I couldn't watch the Oscars live at 8:00 am because of school, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to watch it replayed in the evening. But in the end, although I'd already read the results online, I decided to watch some of the Academy Awards. I'd only seen 2 of this year's nominated films -- "Babel" and "Little Miss Sunshine" (oh, and I guess "Borat" was nominated too, huh?) -- so didn't have many strong feelings about who I thought should win. I was quite pleased with most of the results (I liked Alan Arkin in LMS, and I think Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker are great actors, though I have yet to see the movies they were nominated for) and was very happy to see Ennio Morricone win an honorary Oscar (I've never grown tired of the music he wrote for"The Mission"). Then of course, there were other moments I'm glad I didn't miss, like the Will Ferrell/Jack Black/John C. Reilly musical number, and those crazy Oscar acrobats.

But probably the moment that will stand out most in my memory from the 79th Academy Awards was when "The Departed" won for best adapted screenplay, and a female announcer explained that it was based on the Japanese movie "Infernal Affairs." I was shocked that they would make such an error at the Oscars. Even a quick check on IMDB will tell you that it "Infernal Affairs" is 100% a Hong Kong movie. Didn't one of the Academy's writers have a minute to do a quick search on Google? Come on! But in spite of the magnitude of this mistake, somehow it doesn't surprise me. Instead, it just reminds me of the countless times I've been asked whether or not I ever picked up Japanese, or if I had a happy childhood in Japan. It was all I could do to restrain myself from screaming at the TV, "Hong Kong is NOT in Japan!!"

So it seems that the Oscars really hit a nerve with me this year... :)