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Writer Geoffrey Fletcher becomes first African-American to get Oscar for screenplay, defying predictions
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal popular culture writer
Published on Monday, Mar 08, 2010
Precious: Based on the Novel ''Push'' By Sapphire scored a major breakthrough early on Oscar night with a win for best adapted screenplay. And Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win a best-director Oscar, for The Hurt Locker, which also won for best picture.
Mo'Nique, widely acclaimed for playing an abusive mother in Precious, won the Oscar for best supporting actress. That was not a surprise, since she had already won several awards for her role and was considered a prohibitive favorite to win the big movie prize.
Bigelow's win — heralded by the band playing I Am Woman — and that of The Hurt Locker as best picture were also less than surprising.
Jeff Bridges' win for best actor was long expected; even George Clooney, nominated in the same category, said he voted for Bridges. The winner was euphoric as he thanked family, friends and collaborates, and spoke of acting as a ''groovy profession.''
Sandra Bullock's best-actress win had been anticipated in many circles; in addition to honoring a good performance, it was a nod to Hollywood's financial side, since Bullock has been very big at the box office lately.
But screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher defied most pre-Oscar expectations when his Precious script won for best adapted screenplay — with his first nomination to boot.
Conventional wisdom had the Oscar going to Up in the Air, the movie version of the novel by Akron native Walter Kirn. Instead, Fletcher became the first African-American to win a screenplay Oscar.
And no one seemed more stunned at the turn of events than Fletcher himself, who began his acceptance speech: ''I don't know what to say.''
He rallied to thank members of his family before finally settling for thanking ''everyone.''
The win also caught the telecast's makers off guard, and they went scrambling for reaction shots. Their strategy boiled down to focusing on any African-Americans in the audience, from Gabourey Sidibe, who stars in Precious, to Morgan Freeman, who had nothing to do with Precious.
But that was not the only unfortunate moment in the intermittently creaky telecast, which ran longer than last year's 3 hours, 23 minutes. The lead acting awards came with tributes from the nominees' former co-stars, with some good stories — but a lot of time eaten up.
Cameras often seemed to be in the wrong place — for example, focusing on celebrities whom hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin joked about, before they had made the joke.
And the audience as a whole was caught off-guard when two honorary Oscar recipients, Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman, were introduced from the stage after a taped piece about the previously given awards. It took the crowd (and the cameras) a moment to catch up to Bacall's and Corman's being seated with the audience instead of going onstage.
But the weirdest moment in the first half of the telecast may well have been a microphone fight onstage between two Oscar recipients. After Music by Prudence won the Oscar for best short documentary, producer-director Roger Ross Williams took the stage and began his acceptance speech, only to see producer and co-winner Elinor Burkett arrive onstage a moment later and start talking over Williams. Some viewers immediately said Burkett had Kanye'd Williams.
On the other hand, there was some amusement, including witty banter between Tina Fey and Robert Downey Jr. about screenwriting. And best-supporting-actor winner Christoph Waltz of Inglourious Basterds observed that he was getting an Oscar from beautiful actress Penelope Cruz and called it ''uber-bingo.''
Martin and Baldwin stuck mainly to standard-issue Oscar jokes, and more than a few could have been delivered more effectively in a sequence from a single host. But Martin and Baldwin often made even the cornball work with their zest.
There was an extended tribute to the late John Hughes by Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick, who had starred in Hughes' films, as well as a reunion of other Hughes actors following Ringwald and Broderick. But that reunion also made clear how many years have passed since Hughes' heyday, and that these once-young stars now look ancient in comparison to Oscar presenters like Miley Cyrus.
Of course, the Oscars ceremony is just one part of an evening-long TV event, including extended preshow coverage on E!, ABC and other networks and the last of Barbara Walters' Oscar-night specials.
Walters assured viewers at the end of her telecast that she was not going away, and she was right. She did a voiceover for a sketch during the Oscar telecast itself.
Ryan Seacrest, hosting E! coverage, was his usual fawning and mistake-prone self, getting corrected at least twice by actors he was interviewing, and needled by Meryl Streep for his cheerleading for Bullock as best actress — who was up against Streep. But he proved more amusing than ABC's preshow crew, generally wooden and awkward.
Rich Heldenfels writes about popular culture for the Beacon Journal and in the HeldenFiles Online blog at http://heldenfels.ohio.com, on Facebook and on Twitter. He also does a weekly video chat for Ohio.com. He can be reached at 330-996-3582 or rheldenfels@thebeaconjournal.com.
Precious: Based on the Novel ''Push'' By Sapphire scored a major breakthrough early on Oscar night with a win for best adapted screenplay. And Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win a best-director Oscar, for The Hurt Locker, which also won for best picture.
Get the full article here.
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