Oscar Wrapup - A Day Late

Sorry this is late, I had a crazy day on Monday.

God is Great
"Slumdog Millionaire" won Best Picture and 7 other awards. I would be more excited if I wasn't expecting it for weeks.

As for my predictions, I went an embarrassing 15 for 24, which is a paltry 62.5%. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. To be fair, I did know that "Toyland" would win Live Action Short and Kate Winslet would win Best Actress, but I refused to acknowledge them, continuing my firm stance against Holocaust films.

There's some absurdly hilarious about Kate Winslet winning an Oscar for her role as a German prison guard at Auschwitz. She appeared on Ricky Gervais' TV series "Extras" a few years ago. In the show, she was playing herself, starring in a movie about Nuns in Nazi Germany. Winslet explains to Gervais' character why she's really starring in a Holocaust film:
(You NEED to see this video)

I don't know what to think of this. Was real-life Winslet taking the advice of her "Extras" counterpart? Or did she genuinely love the character she played in "The Reader"? Either way, she won the Oscar and the world keeps on turning.



Hugh Jackman was the best host in years. He balanced humor, energy, and extravagance perfectly. I loved the opening number, parodying the various Best Picture nominees and admitting that nobody really saw "The Reader." The other sequence, a Broadway style piece wasn't as fun and Beyonce's pants were way too short. I'm being serious. They were off-putting.


Here is the opening sequence in all its glory.

Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway peforms at the Opening of The
Uploaded by greenbearwithit

The compilation of Best Song nominees wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. I'll attribute it to the fact that M.I.A. was busy doing other things. A.R. Rahman lost his bewildered look from other ceremonies, as by now he must have been accustomed to winning. He looked confident during his two acceptance speeches and while he performed his two Oscar-nominated songs. I was hoping that Hugh Jackman would have joined in the Bollywood dancing. That would have been a hoot.

For all four acting awards, five past winners came to present and gave a short speech to explain why each nominee was so great in their role. For Best Actor, Robert DeNiro, Anthony Hopkins, Adrian Brody, Michael Douglas, and Ben Kingsley stood on stage to give Sean Penn his second Oscar. I have mixed feelings about this format. It was like the Heisman trophy presentation, welcoming a new member into the pantheon. It did chew up a big chunk of time though. I'll give it a few more years before I decide to like it or not.

Another change up was the ingenious order in which the awards were given out. Each category was placed in order of it's position in the production of a real movie. They started with the Screenplay awards, as that is the first step in making a movie. Next they did Art Direction, Cinematography, etc. that occur during the filming of the movie. Finally the categories moved to post-production, with Visual Effects, Editing and such. Then of Best Picture and the "important" awards. I liked this.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" won three technical awards and that's it. Kind of disappointing for a movie with such great expectations. It was tailor-made to win Best Picture. I'm going to blame its failure on the length and lack of spectacle. The tugboat shootout was cool, but it wasn't enough.

During the credits, we were given a glimpse of movies releasing in 2009. We got first looks at Michael Mann's "Public Enemies" with Johnny Depp as real-life gangster John Dillenger and Guy Ritchie's "Sherlock Holmes" adaptation with Robert Downey Jr. I'm most excited about "Whatever Works", the Larry David - Woody Allen collaboration. And the video had a song by Beck in the background. I'm pretty sure it was Beck. I'll do a proper 2009 movie preview very soon.

Jai Ho!

And oh yeah, these guys are so cute...

Oscars 2009 Slumdog Kids
Uploaded by tvguide