I thought about trying to parse the subtext of Jeff Bridges’ rambling Oscar acceptance speech (spoiler alert: he’s channeling The Dude in a seriously uncanny way), but to no one’s surprise, I decided to try a slightly more…quantitative method.

Behold, the 2010 Oscar Acceptance Speech Word Cloud:

(Click for a larger version)

Statistical insights, after the jump:

The celebrities! The glamour! The inexplicable robot dance to the soundtrack of UP! Since everyone loves Monday morning quarterbacking, we’re giving you an opportunity to share your approval, gripes, jokes, and opinions here, in a special 2010 Oscars Open Thread.

Question 1: The night’s clear winners were Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker, a perfectly creditable film by any standard, but essentially a glorified buddy-cop picture. Did the winningest picture of the night deserve all the accolades heaped upon it—writing, directing, and best picture? How do you think it managed to beat out Avatar for all of those?

Deposed

Question 2: If there was a loser, it was James Cameron. Though Avatar picked up a few little men, none of them went to Cameron, and they were for technical categories—visual effects and cinematography—nothing to do with storytelling and artistic achievement. Did Avatar get what it deserved? Or was it robbed?

Question 3: In the Streeps/Bullock stakes, the victor was Sandra Bullock. Hope you won your Oscar pool with that one. What, exactly, do you think was being honored here? The actress? This particular performance? The longevity and diversity of her career? (By all of those measures, doesn’t Streep have the edge?). Hey, we’re not snobbish—as listeners to our podcast know well, at OTI we are a fan of actors who work. We just wonder if this Oscar was really for Demolition Man.

Bonus Questions for Overthinking

• What did you think of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as hosts?
• This year’s ceremony largely moved along at a brisk—sometimes even a breakneck—clip. Did it lack in character what it gained in speed? Or were you happy that they kept it to a relatively zippy three and a half hours?
• Seriously, what was up with that robot dance to the soundtrack of UP!?
• By what stretch of the imagination is Twilight a horror film? And what was that montage doing there in the first place?

Nothing Oscar-related is off limites, for it is your… Open Thread!

In grand Overthinking It tradition, Matthew Wrather and Peter Fenzel cover the 2010 Oscars by barely talking about them, concentrating instead on the rapidly decentralizing media landscape, the counterproductive use of racial and gender distinctions (e.g., first woman “Best Director”), and career advice for Busta Rhymes.

→ Download Episode 88 (MP3)

Don’t miss the podcast recording livestream on the Overthinking It Podcast Ustream Channel every Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT).

Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401 to leave a voicemail.

You find a thread at the end of your week. Open? (Y/N)

Nothing really interesting happening in the world of pop culture this week. Everything’s at sort of a standstill. So you can talk about … oh, wait, there’s the 82nd Annual Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Award Ceremony coming up on Sunday. We could probably talk about that.

We’ve talked the Oscars to death in a lot of other posts, so let’s just focus on recent Oscar news:

• Mo’nique, odds-on favorite for Best Supporting Actress (Precious), made gossip columns for refusing to campaign for votes. Why a successful comic actress wouldn’t want to associate herself with the child-abusing role that made her a star, I have no idea.
• Nicolas Chartier, producer of Best Picture nominee and critical darling The Hurt Locker, has been forbidden from the Sunday night ceremony for e-mailing Academy members urging them to vote for his movie. So first we’re supposed to campaign for the Oscar, now we’re not. Unbelievable! If you can’t count on consistency from the body that’s nominated Meryl Streep for a dozen Oscars, what can you count on?
• Finally, Sacha Baron Cohen has lost his slot as an Oscar presenter, after the Academy nixed a skit spoofing James Cameron’s Avatar. Cameron claims that he would have been okay with the gag. Having seen a description of the proposed skit, though – where Cohen plays a female Na’vi knocked up by Cameron, who confronts him a la Maury Povich – I’m glad it got axed. Where’s the punchline?

Question: list your picks for Oscar winners!

Submit the most accurate list of Oscar picks, and you could win the respect of the smartest people on the Internet! And isn’t that worth more than anything? Well, except winning an Oscar. Or getting paid to predict who’ll win the Oscars (which we aren’t). Discuss these and other quandaries in the comments, since this is your … open thread.

It's hard not to want one, isn't it? Think how that'd look on the XBox.

"Buddy cop blocking"

Mild spoilers for The Hurt Locker will follow. Although if you haven’t seen it and aren’t planning on seeing it tomorrow, I’m not going to give away anything that will ruin it, and I might help you understand what all the fuss is about.

Is this familiar to anybody?

Sergeant [JT Sanborn] is an [aspiring] family man and sensible veteran [soldier] just trying to make it through the day unscathed. [Staff] Sergeant [William James] is a suicidal loose cannon [bomb defusing specialist] who doesn’t care if he even lives to see the end of the day. Reluctantly thrown together to solve the mysterious [bombing of a street in Iraq], the unlikely duo [encounters] a dangerous ring of [Iraqi insurgents] employing ex-military mercenaries. After a tragic turn of events, the mission becomes personal and the mismatched investigators must learn to trust one another as they wage a two-man war against [ennui, meaningless death and the inhumanity of neocolonial geopolitics].

Oh, I know where I saw this! It was drawn from an IMDB Plot Summary:

Sergeant Roger Murtaugh is an aging family man and sensible veteran police officer just trying to make it through the day unscathed. Sergeant Martin Riggs is a suicidal loose cannon cop who doesn’t care if he even lives to see the end of the day. Reluctantly thrown together to solve the mysterious murder of a banker’s daughter, the unlikely duo uncovers a dangerous ring of drug smugglers employing ex-military mercenaries. After a tragic turn of events, the mission becomes personal and the mismatched investigators must learn to trust one another as they wage a two-man war against a deadly criminal organization.

Look familiar? Unless you’re one of OTI’s valued younger readership, it should. It’s from 1987’s Lethal Weapon, perhaps the definitive “buddy cop” movie of the last forty years, made back when Mel Gibson was the sexiest man alive.

Yeah, the world has turned upside down several times since then. I hear there’s an iPhone app that can measure the rotational velocity. But one thing has held constant – the buddy cop movie is still close to all our hearts. Oh, except now they give it Academy Awards (or maybe they will – check out the Oscars next weekend).

How far does the similarity between The Hurt Locker and Lethal Weapon go? (Farther than you think) What are the differences? And what does this say about how we’ve changed as people since the salad days of Riggs and Murtaugh? Read on…

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, and Josh McNeil to overthink Academy Award Nominations, with detours into what makes an Oscar-worthy performance, the meaning of meaning, and movies Fenzel has always wanted to make.

→ Download Episode 86 (MP3)

We’re still livestreaming the podcast recording on Ustream (on the Overthinking It Podcast Page, where it will return next week on Sunday at 9:15pm ET (6:15pm PT). (In two weeks, we’ll be watching the Oscars.)

Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call (203) 285-6401.

Update Feb 22, 2010 10:49am: Oscars are two weeks from today, not one week. We’ll be livestreaming like normal next week.

Is it cold in here, or is it just the bitter windchill cutting across the American Northeast? Or did I just answer my own question? Maybe I should shut the window and OPEN up a THREAD, perhaps?

Two items of note this week: first, the 2010 Oscar Nominations were announced on Tuesday. Avatar and The Hurt Locker both have 9 nominations, ranging from Best Sound Mixing to Best Picture and Best Director. James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow going head to head – talk about drama. Fortunately, they’re at least on speaking terms; Will Ferrell and Mo’nique have yet to reconcile.

Question: A movie about a Hollywood couple who divorces, then goes on to direct two movies both of which are nominated for Oscars, gets nominated for an Oscar: too meta, or not meta enough?

Oh, Jimmy; it's so funny when you pretend you can hurl lightning.

Second, a big game of American (that is to say, “padded”) football will be played this Sunday: the AFC/NFC conference championships, colloquially known as the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl ads, typically some of the most expensive commercials sold throughout the year, continue to draw controversy, with Tim Tebow’s anti-abortion ad, as well as ads from CareerBuilder and GoDaddy, already making headlines. Even more shocking? The two teams with the best regular season records are playing in the Super Bowl! You know how rarely that happens?

Question: Do you know how rarely that happens? Without consulting Wikipedia?

You think they'll let me star in commercials if I win this Super Bowl, Peyton?

In a postscript, can someone explain what’s going on with Overthinking It’s Facebook page? We’ve gained 800 fans in the last week and it’s just not slowing down. We don’t want it to stop, but we’re sort of scared of where it’s leading us. Anyhow, if you want to say that you were a Facebook fan of Overthinking It “back when it was still cool,” join soon. At this rate, we’ll have 35,000 fans by the end of 2010 and then it’s just going to be a mess.

Do you have answers regarding Facebook? Perhaps you can share some Oscar predictions? Care to lay a wager on the Super Bowl? Or have we once again missed that important news that you crave so much? Sound off in the comments, for this is your … Open Thread.

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, Josh McNeil, John Perich, and Jordan Stokes to overthink the two year anniversary of OTI, rise and fall of Conan, and the apotheosis of Sandra Bullock in this year’s awards season.

Want new episodes of the Overthinking It Podcast to download automatically? Subscribe in iTunes! (Or grab the podcast RSS feed directly.)

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Download Episode 82 (MP3)

Your loyal OTIers stayed up and livetwittered the Oscars last night. You know we love movies a heckuva lot, and it was a pretty special night. With musical numbers and stuff.

And a bunch of us also helped move one of our key contributors to a new apartment. [N.B. We didn't actually help him, Pete. He hired moviers. But we were totes with him in spirit. —Ed.]

So, while we usually upload a fresh podcast on Monday morning for you all to enjoy at the top of a fresh week, it’s going to have to wait a day.

Because if we’re ever going to pull down that coveted Best Actress Oscar, we’re going to need our beauty sleep.

Here’s what we twittered. Is this self-indulgent? Maybe. But it was pretty entertaining—at least for us—and we hope you enjoy it too.

In this Oscar Week edition of the Think Tank, the Overthinking It writers announce the first annual OTIs Awards for the year 2008.