80th Oscar Observations

It was an interesting night for the 80th annual Oscar Awards show. The night saw everything from crazy man Gary Busey kissing Jennifer Garner's neck on the red carpet to John Stewart playing Nintendo Wii up on the huge screen backdrop on the show's stage. Stewart has made for a great host of the show in recent years as he uses a great mix of sarcastic political, social and entertainment humor. He mixed jokes about presidential candidates with the writer's strike and typical amusing quips about Hollywood stars. There was even a new award unveiled when Stewart presented "The Baby" to Angelina Jolie. The contenders had been Jessica Alba, Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman, all of whom are pregnant. Stewart joked that Angelina could not be present because it's hard to find babysitting for 17 kids. A new favorite actress could easily be Marion Cotillard (pictured above). The beautiful French actress who performed as a musical star en "La Vie en Rose" was clearly overwhelmed with emotions. She even sang backstage as the press interview her, to show how overjoyed she was at winning the Best Supporting Actress award. "No Country for Old Men" turned out to be the big winner Sunday night as it took home 4 awards including "Best Picture". Other award winners included "Juno", "Bourne Ultimatum" for its impressively edited sound, Daniel Day Lewis from "There Will Be Blood", and actress Tilda Swinton from "Michael Clayton". The movie "Enchanted" had a 3 out of 5 chance to score the Best Song award but fell to a male/female team from the movie "Once" who claimed they filmed their movie on 2 handicams. The song they performed was beautiful, called Falling. The male of the duo remarked how great it was to be in America making music and movies. His female partner added afterwards that it shows how far people can go if they don't give up hope. Read more about the 80th annual Oscars at USA Today's coverage of the show. Also see info about the upcoming Oscars 2012 date and time