The littluns from "Slumdog Millionaire"
I pretty much sucked with my predictions, getting a whopping 50% correct (12 out of 24). I wasn’t surprised by the huge night for “Slumdog Millionaire,” but I wasn’t exactly rooting for it. At least the cute little kids were there for the celebration.
“Slumdog” led the night with 8 wins (80% of its 10 nominations), including 3 of the top categories (Film, Director, and Adapted Screenplay) but no acting awards (largely due to the fact it received no acting nominations, mostly deservedly, not to say only deserving performances are recognized by the Academy).
In a distant second place was “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with 3 wins (23% of 13), all from “periphery” categories (Art Design, Makeup, Visual Effects). “Milk” and “The Dark Knight” each wound up with 2 wins, including the first posthumous trophy since Peter Finch for Heath Ledger.
I don’t have much more to add other than Hugh Jackman was decent (I like that he made a joke about not watching “The Reader,” for which I envy him) but I preferred Jon Stewart’s politically incorrect candor; the changeup in the acting presentations was okay (5 previous winners present, each taking turns panegyrizing a candidate; for the leading acting awards, this replaced the winner from the previous year presenting the category for the opposite sex, which likely eliminates the potential for improvised osculation); I was almost as unimpressed with some of the winners as I was with those nominated (goddamit Kate Winslet); and lastly, the best winner’s speech was given by Kunio Katô after receiving the Animated Short Film trophy:
which brings to mind a song infinitely better than ‘Jai Ho’:
***
The winners are as follows, with my successful picks in green:
Film: Slumdog Millionaire
Director: Danny Boyle
Actor: Sean Penn
Actress: Kate Winslet
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz
Original Screenplay: Milk
Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire
Foreign Film: Departures
Animated Film: WALL-E
Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire
Original Song: Slumdog Millionaire (‘Jai Ho’)
Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Cinematography: Slumdog Millionaire
Costume Design: The Duchess
Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Documentary: Man on Wire
Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire
Sound Editing: The Dark Knight
Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
Animated Short Film: La Maison en Petite Cubes
Live Action Short Film: Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Documentary Short: Smile Pinki
Well you did pretty good on the major awards and could have done even better if you had gone with what you thought was going to be the favorite(i.e. Kate Winslet). I’m somewhat upset at the academy about how the Oscars went. I feel that unless a film is clearly a step above all the other nominees it should not win the number of awards that Slumdog won. And I don’t think it was. It kind of cheapens the awards in my opinion. Oh well.
It was nice to see your blog.Just Keep Writing!
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