A huge contratulations to artist Australian author/illustrator Shaun Tan, whose adaptation of his award-winning children's book The Lost Thing
won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short. The film, co-directed by Andrew Ruhemann, tells the story of a boy who finds a misshapen creature on a beach and tries to find a home for it. If I'm not mistaken, Mr. Tan was the lone Asian face represented among tonight's Oscar winners. I was rooting for Ruby Yang's short documentary The Warriors of Qiugang and Black Swan cinematographer Matthew J. Libatique, but it was not meant to be. But hey, congratulations to The King's Speech, the Caucasianest movie of the year.
Libatique, who is Filipino American and a frequent collaborator with Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky, did pick up the trophy for Best Cinematography on Saturday at the Independent Spirit Awards, so big props for that.
But the biggest winner of the weekend, in my book, was director M. Night Shyamalan and The Last Airbender which was showered with accolodes at the Razzies, which honors Hollywood's worst film achievements of 2010. Last summer's steaming pile of cinematic turd led Saturday's Razzies with five awards, including worst picture, worst director and worst screenplay: 'Last Airbender' rules Razzies as worst picture.
Congratulations, Mr. Shyamalan. You've come quite a long way from The Sixth Sense, which was Oscar-nominated for Best Picture in 1999. I'm guessing he did not show up to the Razzies to collect his prestigiouis awards.