Watched Michael Clayton last night, which makes me four of five on the Best Picture nominees for the first time in years. Tom Wilkinson was great. Tilda Swinton was great. The script was kind of Networky, but okay. My biggest problem was with the Michael Clayton character. I didn't believe for a second that such a person exists. I thought the loan shark bit and the gambling addiction felt tacked on to give fake grit to an implausible character. The ending left us wondering what he was going to do now not in the good way that moral dilemmas often do, but in the bad way that we had no idea who or what this person was in the first place. That said, I thought George Clooney did well enough, and I cared about his character. Of course, I cared about the characters in The Golden Compass, and none of that made a lick of sense either.

I noticed the In the Valley of Elah was available through On Demand so I swallowed my pride and watched in pan and scan.

Paul Haggis took a pretty good murder mystery movie and tried to make it a bit too socially significant at the end but then Haggis is all about slapping you about the shoulders with message.

It is a good performance from Jones, though maybe a bit too similar to his role in No Country For Old Men. Really, I can easily envision both characters as the same person. And the events of this movie feeding into how he responded to the events in No Country.

Charlize Theron was good too, but sadly just a bit too pretty for the environment she was in so it was kind of distracting.

Once was my favorite movie last year (though I'll grant that No Country for Old Men was better) so I'm very happy they won in the only category they were given an opportunity.

Very international group of winners tonight. I wonder if this this the first time that not one of the acting awards went to an American?

I thought it was as well, as remarked (well before he could have known it), by Stewart.

Again, one of the better Oscar ceremonies in my memory.

To answer my own question (and having done so the hard way), I only went back to 1950 but since then it has happened one other time. In 1965 Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, and Peter Ustinov all won having been born in the UK (using birthplace s the standard, don't want to get into citizenships) while Lila Kedrova born in Russia was the fourth.

Twice in that time frame 3 out of the 4 were foreign-born. 1957 (Yul Brynner, Ingrid Berman, and Anthony Quinn) and then again in 1990 (Brenda Fricker, Jessica Tandy, and Daniel Day-Lewis).

So, what was the most-winning film? If it was Bourne, I'm going to die.

OK, now I'm answering my own question. No Country received 4 awards and Bourne received 3.

I need to defend Bourne Ultimatum. It's a fine action film. The dialogue, the editing and the action scenes were exceptional. Loved it. Best of the three films.
:)

I'll never hear the end of this, because it's a Universal Studios movie...