Like Kathryn Bigelow, recipient of the Oscar for Best Director, I’m utterly speechless.  Last night the Academy decided, under pressure from the big moneymakers and unique genre films, to select the best-made film for best picture.  Going into this, I was almost certain that it was going to be Kathryn Bigelow for Best Director and Avatar for Best Film.  I am so glad that I was wrong.

To quote Jake’s succinct and neatly-put Facebook summary:

“All and all, not a bad oscars. The best film won, a woman won best director, avatar won the stuff it actually did well, up in the air went home empty-handed… Mo’Nique is awesome, maybe Sandra Bullock can adopt her?”

Last night may prove to be a turning point for the Oscars, in which discerning judgement came back into the game.  The Academy made a call not to act as the “People’s” (that’s a capital-p) award , or as the “Industry” (that’s a capital-i) award, but as an award given by a body of artists in Hollywood.  There was chatter in the bars, there was word of mouth, and there were actual opinions of the work produced in 2009.  That — not an Oscar campaign — gave out the Oscars last night.

One could make an argument that Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar was nothing if not political, but Hurt Locker‘s best picture Oscar was not.  Last year, Slumdog Millionaire won out of an odd mixture of guilt and sentimentality–the same mechanism that pops in our brain when we see poor and starving children on the streets.  It had little to do with the filmmaking and much to do with triumphalism of a little film that could take down the big dogs to win the awards.

Avatar was essentially a special installation at the Universal Studios Orlando theme park.  It was a 3D visual feast, and big-screen entertainment in its fullest incarnation.  But it never attempted to identify itself within the tradition of Hollywood and the film arts; that was James Cameron’s hubris.  He complained that the press never took his actors seriously and that there was a conspiracy to belittle motion-capture technology.  You can’t have it both ways, Jimbo.

The Hurt Locker is not a perfect film.  Kathryn Bigelow is not a perfect director.  But sometimes, the Academy manages to act as a legitimate voice and point out excellence in filmmaking.  And when that happens, it’s a good night.