Oscar Hangover 2008

Most years, I eat good pizza (usually ordered from Marie's), drink cheap beer (Red Dog, my all-time fave) and watch the Oscarcast until about 10:30, when my energy drops, my resove weakens and I wander off to bed, certain that I can read about the winners in Monday morning's Sun-Times on the train ride to the job.

This year, though, I played it a little differently.

There was still good pizza. There was still cheap beer. And there was still the drop in energy. This year, though, the resolve stayed firm, mostly because I decided to take Monday off of work and stay up as late as I wanted to Sunday night. And it was well worth staying up for.

Not that the show was that exciting. Jon Stewart did a fine job of hosting, there wasn't as much dead air as usual, and the ceremony came in at a comparatively tidy three hours and fifteen minutes, but it seemed like I wasn't the only one suffering from a lack of energy. Maybe everyone was exhausted from the lengthy writers' strike, or maybe the awards season is so long now that everyone feels like they're breaking the tape at the end of a marathon, minus the dubious comfort of a Dixie cup full of Gatorade or Aquafina. Whatever the case, the whole affair was low-key, but still had enough to keep me there for the duration.

I did pretty well on my picks: I called Best Picture (No Country for Old Men), Best Director (ditto), Best Supporting Actor (ditto) and Best Actor (Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood). I blew Best Supporting Actress, but can't feel too bad about it. It was the most wide open of all the acting categories this year, and it would be interesting to see the vote totals--I'll bet there wasn't much of a spread from the winner (Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton) and the second or third runner-up.

I also missed Best Actress, but I wasn't all that surprised that Marion Cotillard won. As I said when I made my predictions, Cotillard had an outside shot at winning if Julie Christie and Ellen Page split enough of the votes--and I'll bet that's exactly what happened.

There were two other moments that I loved last night. The first was when Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won for Best Original Song for Once, my favorite movie of 2007 (should have been nominated for a lot more awards, but at least in won the one it was nominated for). After Hansard gave his acceptance speech, Irglova stepped up to the mic...and was promptly cut off by the orchestra. Cut to commercial. When the telecast came back from commercial, Jon Stewart did something unusual and amazing: He called Irglova back to the stage to give her acceptance speech, which was short and sweet and utterly charming. It was a beautiful moment.

Then, there was Diablo Cody. I became more and more anxious as the evening went on, and by the time her category (Best Original Screenplay) came up (presented, appropriately enough, by Harrison Ford, himself a former Chicagoan), I was literally shaking with excitement and anticipation--and then, when Ford read her name, with unrestrained joy.

Congratulations, Diablo. I know I've said this before, but it bears repeating one final time: I could not be happier for you, nor more proud of you.