One of the advantages of living in Europe is that the Oscars are perpetrated while Europe sleeps, amd OC is grateful for that. But we must give mad propsicles to signor Dante Ferretti, visionary genius of cinema and opera, who together with la signora Francesca Lo Schiavo has won the Oscar for Art Direction; Sweeney Todd is indeed a stunning nightmare , a creepy specimen of otherworldly design (old skool design, since Ferretti still works the old fashioned way, drawing everything by hand ("I use the computer for email", he likes to say).
Ferrettavo's is our favorite Oscar, this year, by far.
It's also nice that hottie Italian composer Dario Marianelli has won the Oscar for Atonement's score -- the only thing, in that sn00zefest of a movie, that didn't put us to sleep. (He's also a friend of Jessica Duchen, lucky!)
Our least favorite Oscar: the Diablo Grody victory for Best Original Screenplay, not because we didn't like her film Roe v Juno -- we didn't like it at all, ok ok but this is beside the point -- but because if you're too cool for the Oscars you either don't show up and send a fake Native American to pick up your little golden bald guy or, if you do show up, you take the time to wear something other than a Dior leopard-print shower curtain and golden slippers.
She also slammed Stuart Weitzman for, like, doing his job. Now, US$ 2,500,000 shoes may very well be a "cheap publicity stunt". But the Oscars are one, too.