I skipped watching the Oscars this year, but I did watch The Genies, which give out awards for Canadian films. What made the Genies a better bet for me:

• Show was just 1 hour long, vs. whatever crazy length the Oscar show is. They do this by not covering all the categories on air; just the interesting ones. Hello. That’s reason enough all by itself.
• It’s not preceded by tons of other Canadian movie award shows, so I had no idea who would win. With the Oscars, thanks to the Golden Globes, the SAG, the Director’s Guild, etc. you pretty much knew who’d be clutching the trophies.
• I’d seen 3 of the 5 nominated Genie movies, vs. only 5 out of 10 of the Oscar ones. So percentage-wise, higher. (I realize that’s unusual.)
• Musical performances that weren’t lame, because, as far as I could tell, they had nothing to do with movies. But they were by Canadian performers.

So there you be.

I was totally thrilled to see the young actress from M. Lazhar win the Best Supporting Actress award, as she was really was amazing in the role. And gave quite a delightful acceptance speech.

And it’s alway fun to see Viggo Mortenson, winner of Best Supporting Actor for A Dangerous Method, who was also very charming in his acceptance  speech.

For Best Picture, though, I have to see that I was really pulling for Cafe de Flore. Monsieur Lazhar won, and I can’t really complain about that, as it was quite a fine film, and it gave the director a chance to give the Oscar speech he couldn’t. But Cafe de Flore spoke to me in a more compelling way. At least Vanessa Paradis was recognized for her work as the lead of that film.