Oscar Night 2009 is upon us with first-time host Hugh Jackman. Join us as we give almost-live coverage!
To start the awards, Jackman provided viewers with a solid opening that was effective and not too over-the-top. Then we moved right into the ceremony with five previous Best Supporting Actress winners coming on stage to say something nice about of this year’s five nominees. Tilda Swinton who was last year’s winner was the quarterback for this segment and she had the honor of announcing the winner.
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1) Winner for Best Support Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
This was unexpected but not undeserved – It was a rather difficult category to pick this year with all five nominees being almost equally likely winners. Personally, I would have gone with Taraji P. Henson from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Next we have Steve Martin and Tina Fey giving a good little skit to present the nominations for best Original Screenplay.
2) Winner for Best Original screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, Milk
It was a touching acceptance speech and well-spoken (arguably the best acceptance of the night). Not wasting any time, Fey and Martin continue on to announce the nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay.
3) Winner for Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Next, Jennifer Anniston and Jack Black came out and tried to be funny and it didn’t work too well. However, Jack Black did made a joke about animated films and how he earns his money and it was pretty good. After playing a video of all the major animated features of the night, they eventually got to announcing the nominees for best animated feature and best animated short of the year.
4) Winner for Best Animated Feature: Wall-E (which was no surprise at all)
Andrew Stanton accepted the award and again we were a treated to a quick and efficient acceptance speech.
5) Winner for Best Animated Short: La Maison En Petits Cubes
So far, the awards have flown by and I think the Academy’s years of rushing people off stage have paid off (as cruel as that is). They’ve also had some of the presenters do multiple awards to keep things quick as opposed to constantly switching celebrities to announce each of the 24 categories. So far, they’ve tried to keep a light atmosphere with comedic presenters.
After the Commercial Break, Hugh announced the next presenters Sarah Jessica Parker and Daniel Craig (in James Bond attire) who gave a boring presentation just reading off the prompter. They announced the nominees and winners for Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Makeup.
6) Winner for Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
This was the first category we see The Dark Knight involved in and the winner was a no-brainer as this movie clearly had the most extensive set design and behind-the-scenes work involved. The acceptors of the award gave much respect and recognition to director David Fincher.
7) Winner for Best Costume Design: The Duchess
It was almost painful to watch Craig and Parker making multiple mistakes reading off the prompter and missing their cues. As for the winner, it’s not my pick personally but this award does tend to go to the period pieces.
8 ) Winner for Best Makeup: Greg Cannom, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Next we have the Academy desperately trying to appease presenters the younger demographics with Robert Pattinson and Amanda Seyfried on stage to present a vignette of romance films of 2008 which hit many of the mainstream flicks of the year.
After the commercial break, Jackman introduced the presenters for Best Cinematography and to my delight Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller (sporting a funky beard to parody Joaquin Phoenix’s presence on the recent David Letterman show) came on stage. Stiller even re-enacted the gum incident by putting his chewing gum on the stand after Portman confronted him about it.
This was definitely one of the funniest moments of the night and as the beautiful Natalie Portman announced the nominees, Stiller walked around the stage with his cellphone out acting as if he was lost.
9) Winner for Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Next we have another highlight of the night with James Franco and a skinnier Seth Rogen re-enacting a scene from Pineapple Express where they’re now watching all the non-Oscar nominated films and loving it while high on their drug of choice.
It was pretty funny watching them laughing their way through serious moments and terrible films like The Love Guru and it got even funnier when Franco noticed the film crew in his room and invited cinematographer to sit with them and watch. After the video, the three of them came out to announce the nominees for best Live Action Short.
10) Winner for Best Live Action Short: Spielzeugland (Toyland)
After the commercial break we have host Hugh Jackman back to discuss musicals and give a little one himself where he was joined by Beyonce Knowles in a classy red dress doing some great dancing accompanied by mediocre lip-syncing. The performance was later joined by Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical Fame as well as Amanda Seyfried from Mamma Mia.
Another commercial break and we are given a similar to the setup for The Best Supporting Actress award, where five previous winners of the Best Supporting Actor award came out to praise this years nominees of the same category.
Alan Arkin, Christopher Walken, Cuba Gooding Jr. Kevin Kline and Joel Grey were the presenters and Cuba Gooding stood out by harping on (and at the same time praising) Robert Downey Jr.’s performance from Tropic Thunder.
11) Winner for Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (obvious).
Next we have a nice video showcasing the directors of 2008’s best Documentaries.
12) Winner for Best Documentary: Man on Wire
This was an awesome acceptance by the star of the documentary who gave us a nice little magic trick with his lucky coin followed by a balancing act involving the Oscar award and his chin.
13) Winner for Best Documentary Short Subject: Smile Pinki
Next, Jackman presented a video of many of the big action scenes of 2008 followed by welcoming Will Smith to the stage to present the nominees for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Editing.
14) Winner for Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
15) Winner for Best Sound Editing: The Dark Knight
16) Winner for Best Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire
The Dark Knight earns its first award of the night and Benjamin Button wins another. They’re really trying to get these awards for behind-the-scenes work out of the way quick.
17) Winner of Best Editing: Slumdog Millionaire
Next we have Eddie Murphy come out on stage to announce the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to Jerry Lewis who received an honorable standing ovation from the star-studded audience.
Continuing the need to meet the youth quota, Zac Efron and Alicia Keys came on stage to present the nominees for Best Original Score and Best Original Song.
18) Winner for Best Original Score: Slumdog Millionaire (an obvious winner for its outstanding soundtrack and score)
19) Winner Best Original Song: “Jai Ho”, Slumdog Millionaire (another given for me, this song was awesome in the film and when presented live on stage before the winner was announced).
Next on stage are Liam Neeson joined by Freida Pinto from Slumdog Millionaire to present best Foreign Film.
20) winner for Best Foreign Film: Departures
After a song by Queen Latifah Hugh Jackman honors the present of the Academy Awards who’s stepping down this year. After this, Reese Witherspoon is introduced by Hugh Jackman to announce the nominees for Best Director.
21) Winner for Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Mr. Boyle gave a nice little dance to keep a promise made to his kids. It was cute and he deserved this award.
As we’re in the final stretch of the show, the next major award is for Best Actress and again they brought out five previous winners including Halle Berry and Nicole Kidman to honor this year’s nominees. I like this strategy and it’s better than just having a winner from the Best Actor/Actress category of the previous year.
22) Winner for Best Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Finally, Kate has won! Meryl Streep was amazing in Doubt but she’s had 15 nominations and several wins before. It’s time for Ms. Winslet to share in the glory and you can tell from her speech that she really wanted it.
For the Best Actor award, presenters Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, Sir Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins and Adrian Brody (all past winners) have come on stage to praise this year’s nominees. Robert De Niro was especially funny in talking about Sean Penn and Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley had very nice things to say about Brad Pitt and Mickey Rourke, respectively.
23) Winner for Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk
Sean Penn wins another for his outstanding performance in Milk and he gave a funny opening line in his acceptance speech. He ended his speech touching on a serious note and preaching for equal rights for which he received a loud applause. He also gave credit to Mickey Rourke whom I thought may win this award.
Stephen Spielberg is next on stage to present the nominees and award for the final and most important category of the night: Best Picture.
24) Winner for Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
I’m happy that Slumdog Millionaire beat out The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I thought Button was great but it was missing some elements that Forrest Gump had and that’s what it is always compared to. I thought Slumdog was the best overall film of the year and it did deserve this award.
So there you have it folks, the summary of this evening’s 81st Academy Awards and all of the winners.
All-in-all, the night was a slight improvement over previous years. I think the big problem this year was with the nominations and certain omissions in certain categories.
What did you think of this year’s Oscar awards and what would you like to see improved for next year’s?
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114 Comments
Wow, I agree with just about none of that… Guess I’m no film snob…
I just find it to be really funny (not funny ha ha) that the second highest grossing movie of all time could only muster up 2 awards.
The Oscars are a joke.Slumdog was good,but definitely NOT the best movie of the year.
Hugh Jackman was terrific
@Rob, wow. Its good to have someone that knows about films talk about films. Any other website would have writers saying “OMG The Oscars suck! TDK got robbed!!!!!111!!!1 I really enjoyed The Oscar’s this year. All the awards were given to the rightful winners. The Dark Knight won the awards it should have won, and Heath Ledger deserved the win. I really wanted to see Iron Man win atleast one award but that was just wishful thinking. Hugh Jackman was funny as hell!!!! He even joked about all the TDK fans complaining about the film getting robbed. The funniest part had to have been James Franco and Seth Rogen laughing away at the not so funny movies. Good job btw, i agreed with everything you wrote.
Boring. Zzzzz… The Dark Knight was shut out of noms, but YEAH, HEATH! for The Joker! Too bad Iron Man lost Best Visual FX… And too bad Rourke didn’t win, but Sean Penn gave him mad props, like Nicholson did for Peter Fonda (for his nominated role in the brilliant Ulee’s Gold) in 1998.
heath
@Longshanks, oh, and you actually think TDK was???
The Oscars are such a joke. Honestly it is a night for actors/actresses and everyone involved in film making to pat themselves on the back and tell themselves how great they are. Why the film industry insists on having the awards is beyond me. On top of that their nominees were impossibly predictable. Seriously there are so many good movies out there that never receive Oscar nods.
As for trying to draw in young crowds to watch the Oscars by having stars like Zac Efron and Robert Pattinson present, I am not entirely sure that it worked. Perhaps if the Oscars weren’t so dull and predictable more people would watch.
Congratulations Hollywood on patting yourselves on the back.
Ledger and Winslet were the sure-things for tonight and both got what they deserved. The acting categories were very well-rounded this year.
Iron Man was fun and one of my favs of the year but it had relatively weak special effects shots in terms of its CGI use in my opinion. The scenes where he’s fighting that tank and fighting Iron Monger seemed a little outdated.
btw, thanks Oscar!
I think Aniston was off cue with her lines .
Jack Black did the best he could.
why wasnt Javier bardem part of the Best Supporting Actor segment?
didnt he win last year?
Sorry The Dark Knight didnt win more
but Heaths win is HUGE and I think his family needed that.
I was glad for them more then anything else.
Did any body notice that Angelina was decked out in EMERALDS?
She had an an emerald ring on her finger and emerald earrings as well.
just some random thoughts .
@ Oscar
Yes,I do.
Your welcome
, some people let their fanboyism get in the way of realizing who the real winners were. But some people(like you) actually pay attention to other films and not just comic book ones. And understand them. Just like how Vic admitted that although it was a very very very good film, it wasn’t gonna win anything. 2 good writers from one of the best websites on the net. 
Wow, I, I, I love you Rob. Lol jk jk
@Longshanks, LOL!
My issue is not really TDK, you know I’m not a TDK fanboy, but I simply thought movies like Milk and Slumdog Millionaire are not that great… I didn’t see Milk because I can’t stand that snake Sean Penn but I saw Slumdog Millionaire and thought it was ok AT BEST. Probably a little on the boring side, and the whole jumping around the timeline thing is a bit overdone and not really as clever as all of these directors and writers think…
justice won, slumdog won and marketing efforts lost, which is a splendid sign for any future film which is being done by individuals with hearts, brains and talent.
I can only wish for Rhaman to continue in our lives by creating scores for westernized movies from now on, not just for his home country movies. that score was SO creative, very very juicy…;-)
Yeah!
that’s exactly what I mean , how the hell can you say Milk isn’t that great and in your next sentence admit that you haven’t seen it yet?????
@ Ken,
If it’s not TDK, and you don’t like Milk or Slumdog, what are you 5 top movies of the year?
Milk and Slumdog are two of the best of the year in my opinion. Of the nominees, I only found The Reader and the end of Benjamin Button a touch on the boring side.
Milk, I mean Penn’s speech was so arrogant and nsulting to the vast majority of this country it could have made me scream. I and millions of others should be ashamed and our children and grandchildren won’t be able to look at us? What the hell?
Slumdog was great technical movie. It has great editing and camera and music. And great direction. all actors acted exceptional. i don’t like that story. hahaha. i do not think there was any great movie than slumdog. Dark knight was great movie entertainment but not oscar material because there is not much creative work there excep heath ledger.
I still do not know why sean penn keep getting awards. I can’t understand his acting style. Rourke was robbed!.
I saw both Slumdog Millionaire And Benjamin Button Yesterday.
Slumdog was indeed just OK, but I am glad it beat out Benjamin Button.
Button was an interesting technical acheivment but the story was weak,
especially the ending.
I hope we have a higher quality of movies next year.
Um, I don’t have to watch Milk because I don’t care at all about a movie starring Sean Penn’s mightier than thou self in a movie about a gay person. I am not against them, I just don’t CARE enough to waste 2 hours of my life to see a boohoo feel sorry for gay people movie. Same reason why I had 0 interest in watching Brokeback Mountain…
But nice dodging Slumdog Millionaire though, strawperson usually works pretty well with people who don’t know any better…
Oops, mightier than thou? I’m on drugs, I meant holier than thou…
Stupid night shift…
@Rob, all of my top movies are action movies, not really oscar bait movies so I don’t expect them to win big. But that’s why I don’t watch the oscars, I hate oscar bait movies and I’m not a film snob, I go to watch movies to have a good time, but I do have my standards in the action genre.
And about my top movies, the only one that I would think could be considered for oscars would be Gran Torino, but not sure if the official release was 2008 or 2009. I saw it in 2008…
In retrospect, perhaps TDK should have been shot entirely on the explosive ferrys and Winslet blown to the bejeezus belt in the warehouse…
I personally switched to the people’s choice awards right about the time they Dissed “Dude, where’s my car?” in favor of “Moulon rouge” (A film that in my mind was every bit as stoopid as “The Spirit” …
@ Diane – I feel your pain. I just can’t justify getting all spun up over decisions made by geriatric bozos with past or current ties to all the major studios, who cast thier “votes” in order that we, the movie going pulic can have their deffinition of value and art rammed down our throats…
Props to Heath!
Bring on Watchmen!
Well covered Rob. Kudos!
@ Diane: a quote for you from Richard Dreyfus: “We’ve all participated in two rituals: one is watching the Academy Awards, and the other is putting down the Academy Awards. Both are very sacred and traditional American events.”
Yeah, the Awards are dodgy but they’re so embedded in our society (a necessary evil). Didn’t care much for who won or who didn’t, was more interested in the entertainment via Jackman and other presenters. I was half cringing at all of Jackman’s singing and dancing, but it made for alright viewing.
I hate to say it, but I thought TDK was probably the best movie of the year as well. As much as I loved TDK the reason I say this isn’t because of some rabid fanboy issue it’s simply because this was a terrible movie year. Slumdog and Milk in my opinion were just barely ok films. The Wrestler was an awesome film and Curious case was pretty good, but overall this was a terrible year for good movies. I usually enjoy the oscars, but this year i couldn’t support them at all for a number of reasons some of those were the oscars fault and some were just the industry in general.
1. Lack of good movies this year.
2. Not the best nominations they could of picked better.
3. Disagreed with a the majority of winners.
On top of all of that, I feel that a lot of these award shows are politically motivated. THE most obvious was when Dixie Chicks took home 5 awards in the Grammy’s.
1. Their lead singer can’t sing. Sorry, they pick catchy songs and know how to market them, but if you put their lead singer Nathalie Maines, or however you spell it, on American Idol that English guy Simon would rip her a new one.
2. They won best album when their album was not at all the top selling, top played, or top anything. Frankly, I thought their songs sucked, and apparently a lot of other people felt the same way because everyone bought Rascal Flatts instead, but they lost of course.
3. They won best single, and again, their singles sucked, and again, several other artists had songs that were liked much more, played much more, requested much more, and sold much more than their singles, yet they all lost.
4. I think they won for best female artist, against Carrie Underwood… Sorry, but Underwood has a voice in that cute little package, she can actually sing, unlike that lead singer of Dixie Chicks. Her voice is so high pitched and shrilling that it feels like it’s drilling into your brain at the ears when you try to listen to their garbage.
We ALL know why they won big that day… And it has NOTHING to do with their music.
I kind of feel that the Oscars is no different, I rarely watch it, so I can’t say for sure, but I know the “judges” more or less get to inject their own political opinions into their votes. I don’t know, you guys who watch the Oscars, do you find any kind of weird political pattern in the movies that typically win? Just curious.
@ ken
had that feeling when sean penn won
i preferred mickey rourke..
but i think penn won cause of this whole proposition 8 thing
hollywood wants to make a statement of their stand in the situation.
Why did you leave out the tributes to those whose passed away. It wasn’t just a song by Queen Latifah. What did you think about it? I would like to know.
You are correct Ken. It’s all very political. What ever movie is pushing the hot topics of the most recent couple of years usually comes out on top. Also usually the more outspoken you are the better the chance of winning. Honestly I watched Milk and it wasn’t very good and no where near Penn’s best performance.
I did enjoy the Oscars this year. The skits and such were very good.
I did find myself more than once going ‘why am I watching this? I haven’t seen most of these movies?’ yet… I was still in front of the TV.
Of the movies up for Best I have only seen The Wrestler. It was a good film. However, I feel Gran Torino was ripped off. Definitely an Oscar-worthy film and I was greatly disappointed it was left off the list.
We all know what to expect out of the Oscars and you have to remember WHO is voting for it. Not the general public, but people in the industry who look more into a film than its entertainment value. Like Schindler’s List: was that film entertaining? Nope, but it is one of the most important films of our time, just to give an example.
The awards given out for entertainment value are the MTV Movie and People’s Choice Awards… So I will continue to watch the Oscars and be happy when films like Lord of the Rings make the inner circle.
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