I like an Oscar...

I was watching the Oscars last night and didn't have much to say about how things turned out, with the exception of one category--Best Supporting Actor.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I didn't like Little Miss Sunshine much. I didn't think it was a funny movie. I thought it tried to hard to be an indie film by trying to keep an air of "indie-ness" about it. In being intentionally bizarre, the film lost its funny.

For me, the one bright spot was Steve Carrell's performance as Frank, the foremost Proust scholar in the United States recovering from a suicide attempt. I thought that Carrell's performance was nuanced and that he was able to convey Frank's pain without being over-the-top like Greg Kinear and Adam Arkin. More importantly, though, I thought that Carell's performance was a stretch for him. After all, this is the guy who might be best known either from the US version of The Office or for voicing Hammy in Over the Hedge.

I was disappointed that The Academy overlooked Carrell's performance in Little Miss Sunshine. I was even more disappointed that they chose, instead, to nominate Arkin. I didn't feel like Arkin's performance was noteworthy in the least. I thought that his portrayal of the smackhead grandpa was heavy-handed and that we were never exposed to his character's private pain.

Imagine, then, my horror when Arkin won.

When you compare his performance to the other nominees, he falls short in my opinion.

I'm baffled and disappointed.

Then again, I thought that Will Ferrell should have been nominated for Stranger Than Fiction, so maybe my barometer is a little off...