Some random thoughts/observations on tonight's Academy Awards (friends outside the borders, your indulgence please)
- In the pre-game show, ABC showed a series of movie montages, asking the audience to guess the pictures portrayed and then teasing them to find out the answers by going to oscars.com - AS IF. Jeez, these guys just don't get it
- Props to my homeland, South Africa, with the win for Tsotsi.
- Extra props to Tsotsi's Director, Gavin Hood, who upon accepting his Oscar, "directed" people to go to tsotsi.com to see the full list of people who should be thanked (as opposed to rattling all their names in his small allotment of time) A smart way to boost awareness and ticket sales!
- A brilliant American Express 2-minute commercial, featuring M. Night Shyamalan. I was TiVo'ing through the awards, but somehow I found this and couldn't help but watch...rewind...and watch again. Although I struggled to find the commercial online using traditional search keywords, I eventually did and you can view it here. Additional props to American Express for the behind the scenes footage, plus the ability to download to hard drive/iPod etc. (and additional props for having the kajunas to purchase 2 minutes of airtime...
- ...speaking of which: for those who watched the Oscars (and especially ones with a DVR), can you name 3 commercials you saw? Just curious...
