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I didn’t see the Oscars last night, but I’ll play Monday morning quarterback anyway. Even though I know that most of the people reading this post don’t care one whit about the show – “where are the latest pictures of Jonathan and Emma?”, they’re asking – this blog gives me an outlet for expression that I don’t have in the real world. (Because very few people I know in real life care about the Oscars either.)

So just humor me for a minute. Your patience will be rewarded.

Even though the ultimate outcome (“No Country for Old Men” taking Best Picture) was inevitable, there were a few surprises along the way. Like, who would have thought “The Bourne Ultimatum” would be the second-biggest winner of the night with three Oscars (Sound Editing, Sound Design, Film Editing)? Or that “The Golden Compass” would steal the VFX award from both “Transformers” and “Pirates of the Caribbean”? Or that European actors would take all of the acting awards? (I think that’s pretty neat, by the way.)

I have no personal stake in the Oscars, as I wrote previously here. I am glad that “Ratatouille” got some Best Animated Film love, though its French-Iranian competitor “Persepolis” looks absolutely amazing and deserves attention from a larger audience, which a win in that category would have provided. French actress Marion Cotillard was the surprise Best Actress winner for “La Vie En Rose,” as many people considered Julie Christie a lock for “Away From Her.” (For the record, I’ve seen three of the five Best Actress movies – “La Vie En Rose,” “Away From Her,” and “Juno” – and Cotillard’s performance was easily the best of them all.) So while I have no chance of winning the “Outguess Ebert” Oscar game, there were some nice surprises and I’m happy for the winners. And you can bet American audiences are going to start seeing a lot more of Marion Cotillard over the next several years; she’s quite attractive and a heck of an actress.

[More after the break.]

One of today’s Deseret Morning News editorials (yes, I still read them from time to time) is squarely a rant against Hollywood. It treads a lot of familiar ground, but it makes an interesting point:

“[T]he leading candidate for best film this year, “No Country for Old Men,” is so gruesome and graphically violent that a good half of the film would have been banned by the Motion Picture Industry a generation ago.

That’s scary.

Is this who we are now — people who sit in the dark eating popcorn with our wives and husbands while unbearable mayhem plays out before our eyes — complete with buckets of blood and severed limbs?

Apparently it is.

Apparently, being a sophisticated moviegoer in 2008 means being able to take a body punch and — without wincing — appreciate the acting and effects. It’s the spook-alley code of honor now — tough guys don’t blink when the going gets gory. And a person who thinks the whole enterprise seems to teeter on madness is automatically dismissed as provincial.

It’s a brazen new world. Until a majority of people are willing to stand up and tell Emperor Hollywood about his so-called clothes, the future promises films even more stark and graphic.

Barring such a backlash, it is the American movie that will remain ‘no country for old men.'”

Now, I’m not going to comment on the film in question, simply because I haven’t seen it. I doubt the writer of the editorial has either, so the phrase regarding “buckets of blood and severed limbs” may be a slight exaggeration. I just don’t know.

[More after the break.]