Monday, Mar. 08, 2010
Ben Stiller as a Na'vi
Introducing the Best Makeup award, Ben Stiller shows up in blue paint and a plug-in tail, with the vexed look he wears in most of his movies. He earns big laughs by promising to stand well behind the winners so as not to demean their moment. He had prepared a slightly different bit, with Sacha Baron Cohen, that the producers nixed as being too raunchily anti–James Cameron. Two nights earlier, before announcing Precious as the winner of the Independent Spirit Award for Best Picture, Stiller brought along three actors who pretended to be in a porno film while he gave a speech announcing that the indie film was over about a decade ago. Points for comedy and truth-telling.