Pretty much everything else went as expected. There were a few minor niggles (Coraline should have won Best Animated, but Up had to get something) but nothing spectacularly wrong. I even expected The Hurt Locker to beat out Avatar for a number of reasons (voting actors don't like too much CGI, Hollywood wants to overcome the anti-war stigma of the last few decades, Cameron [legendary director to begin with] can cry himself to sleep on the piles of money he has made from the film, etc.). Nothing unexpected. Except for Best Actress...

Sandra Bullock? Is this a joke? To be fair, neither Welsh Girl nor I have seen The Blind Side. We have been watching the Best Picture nominees and each one of us has seen eight. I haven't seen Avatar (and that gnaws at me inside). She hasn't seem District 9 (she's not big into sci-fi, though she loved Avatar more than Titanic and believe me when I tell you she LUUUUUUVED Titanic). But we both chose to skip The Blind Side because it looked like maudlin crap on a stick. I didn't see Helen Mirren in The Last Station either because it wasn't in theaters long here and I couldn't find it by other means. I did see Mulligan and Sibide and both their performances were excellent and, as much as I would like it if the Academy gave people Oscars based on their performance in a year and not based on whether or not their career has earned it, I understand why they held off on those two. And I do think that Meryl Streep pretty much has been phoning in her performances for years. But there's a reason her phoned in performances get nominated year after year. Her phoned in performances are often better than (or at least comparable to) most actresses' hard work, blood, sweat and tears. In fact, I think she loses so often because Streep does it so well, it doesn't look hard and audiences clap louder at that high note if it looks like you're struggling to give it to them.

Sandra Bullock?!?!?! Has her career really earned this? Did you know she won a Razzie this year for Worst Actress? I can count on one hand the number of her movies I like. I can count on one finger the number of those performances she was good in (she was good in A Time To Kill). What were these people thinking?

So I'm going to watch The Blind Side and if I'm not at least OK with her performance, I may never trust the Academy's judgment again. Well, at least until next year.

And James Taylor didn't completely suck, either.

That is all.