Once at the Oscars

Not much to comment on about the Oscars Sunday night. Without question, Cate Blanchett should have won the supporting actress award for playing Bob Dylan in I'm Not There.

And No Country for Old Men, rightly, won for best picture, director(s), adapted screenplay and supporting actor and should have won for its cinematography, which was by far the best I've seen in as long as I can remember. (There Will Be Blood, which won, looked great too, to be fair.)

The one thing that made me glad I watched was the duo of Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from Once. They performed "Falling Slowly," which was nominated for best song, and soon thereafter won.

Both were so happy, and Hansard's acceptace speech was the definition of gratitude. Irglova got cut off by the music leading to a commercial, but Jon Stewart, in a truly classy move, brought her back out after the break and gave her all the time she wanted.

No Country and Once were my two favorite films of 2007, one dark and bleak, the other hopeful and real.

Here's my June 6, 2007 column for the Baltimore Examiner written a day or two after I saw Once.