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
@Evie: Rocky beat Taxi Driver. Kramer vs. Kramer beat Apocalypse Now. Ordinary People beat Raging Bull. Forrest Gump beat The Shawshank Redemption.
So yes, the people voting sometimes go beyond entertainment (wait a sec…), importance and intrinsic value!
@ longShanks
You are wrong TDK is third after titanic and LOTR TROTK
Ah, stop beating around the bush, stop with this “people in the industry who look more into a film than its entertainment value” stuff, just say it, SNOBS, the Oscars are voted by a bunch of movie snobs that think they know what’s of quality better than us lowly “normal” people.
To them I say phooey!
@ Daniel F
I’m surprised you watched that film at all. When I was deciding what to watch, looking through the list of movies, I passed right by Milk like I would have passed right by The Love Guru. There wasn’t even the shortest bit of contemplation going on in my head when that movie came up…
I am a film nut and watch just about any movie that comes out. Including The Love Guru which had two small parts of laughter and the rest was like “who finds this crap funny ?”
Sorry to say it though Ken You might call me a snob with the sort of films I generally prefer. I thought this year the oscars were bad, but usually I semi agree with their choices. I enjoy action, but 90% of the time I don’t consider action films to be great movies their for popcorn not awards.
Shawshank Redemption, Forest Gump and Schindler’s list are three of the greatest movies of all time.
@ Ken J.
If you want to see awards given out by what lowly “normal” people believe is good, then watch the MTV Movie Awards. The Oscars are voted on by industry professional. Always have, and always will be.
@ Longshanks
It’s my understanding that the Oscars are based off the quality of the movie, not how much profit the movie made. Transformers is at 20, Iron Man 21, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is at 23, and Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End is at 26 for top grossing movies. They all sucked in my opinion (cept for Iron Man, which I found to be just ok).
Anyway, with Slumdog Millionaire gaining so much praise, I should give it a chance. Only movie I watch on that list was The Dark Knight.
I liked the format this year with previous winners introduce the nominees, that was a great idea and it really worked well for the Best Actor category with such greats as DeNiro, Douglas, Hopkins, and Kingsley. Adding, Brody, eh, whatever, but it totally worked and with the Magnificent Seven score, that was pure classic! I agree with Ken J, Penn is a snake, but a talented one, and I can’t dog on Pacman really. (Penn in Colors) He should’ve brought up Rourke on stage it would have made the moment better, and add to the 7 motif with the score!
They should do this format every year it is good and keeps the show moving forward.
Some opinions on this years awards:
1-Hellboy 2 should have got a lot more technical awards! Have you seen this movie on Blu-Ray? On 1080p? DAMN! Even the special featurs on the Troll Market? This is a real shame! Hellboy 2 really is the one picture that got robbed and deserves a lot of technical awards!
2-Marisa Tomei is the hottest Milf and I’d most definately be her slave!
3-Alicia Keys is WAAAAYYYY hotter than Beyonce and I’d mos def’ be her slave!
4-Natalie Portman is SOOOO gorgeous and in that pink dress, mmm, I’d like some strawberry pie please ;D. And I’d be her slave!
5-F Anniston, Jolie all the way!
6-Slumdog really deserves this win! Granted it might not be for everybody, but take a look at that film. From editing, to music, cinematography, choice of camera angles, the subject matter, the people involved, the fact that there is no Hollywood star, hell, this movie was close to not being made! And there is child brutality in it! It really is a breakaway for a traditional Oscar best pic and I hope this type of trend continues!
There is a good reason I heven’t watched the Oscars in 12 years and the reason is this award show is supposedly for the best films of any year regardless of genre. That’s not what happens.
These are just awards and in the grand scheme of things they mean nothing..I really could care less about a bunch of spoiled actors, over-inflated egos, who was wearing what, who was with whom, who was funny, who was faking it, who was hamming it, who looked good, who looked bad, what Brangelina were up to, who went where after the awards were handed out, what designer was on whom, who got robbed, who didn’t deserve it, who ate what, who farted on the red carpet, etc, etc, etc,
These awards are self-serving for the industry and it is an overblown night in which all the egos get to sit on their thrones and pat themselves on the back for what is percieved as a job well done, it is actually quite akin to high school and is just a popularity contest to decide king and queen of the prom..
Bollywood sweeps the Oscars…………YEAH!!!!**sarcasm**
I am very happy for Ledger’s family because he is at least acknowledged for his body of work in Hollywood or more so for what he would have accomplished had he lived, by his peers.
Now let’s give ourselves a tremendous round of applause for keeping all these people in jobs that enables them to live the lifestyles and quality of life they have because we put our butts in seats and thereby make a lot of people rich in doing so.
We need an awards show for we the people that are fans of good cinema but that are not influenced to meet an agenda for the politcal issue Hollywood has chosen as it’s hot potato or flavour of the month.
And no the People’s CHoice awards don’t count..
Okeley dokeley..I am done ranting!
greenknight,
There IS such an awards show .
Its called The Spirit awards.
What about the Blockbuster movie awards ?
they are pretty much based on popular choices.
@ Gary
I thought the SPirit awards were awarded to independent films or low key smaller budget really arthouse films..not really what I had in mind..
Blockbuster..have they got anything to do with the movie rental franchise..corporate influenced so doesn’t really count, hey let me revise my post..why do we need award shows at all? I know so the industry can remind us what we should be supporting..
Icantjudge penns performance because I havent seen Milk yet,
But I am sure the recent passing of Prop.8 here in California which is considered a ban on Gay marriage
played a factor in Seans win,
It may have been just the edge he needed in a tight race against Mickey Rourke.
Greenknight.
Oh,
Then its DEFINITELY the Blockbuster Awards then.
I really wanted to see Mickey Rourke win because I was cringing in anticipation of Sean Penn’s speech – and it was what I expected. When he mentioned “shame” my thought was man does he have it backwards.
Another thing that stood out to me was when they showed the industry people who died last year – NO applause for Charlton Heston.
Cold.
Vic
Vic ,
Yeah , I noticed that too about Heston.
It would have been great if there had been massive applause when they showed the scene of Moses parting the Red Sea.
i totally disagree with the best make up and best sound mixing
Dark Knight and iron man should have won them respectevely
i am glad Heath won best sup actor, but second to him was RDJ
I was doing homework at the same time as the montage nof deceased film stars. No applause for Charlton Hestion? He is the epitome of Hollywood legend. What a shame!
Will Kate star in a Horror or Action film now that she has won?
It seems to be a tradition for recent winners of that category.
Agree with you Vic, shame on them for not applauding Heston! No matter what, you cannot take away the fact that Heston was a true powerhouse and legend for films! The pictures he was involved in were groundbreaking! Ben Hur, 10 Commandments, Planet Of The Apes, Omega Man, Soylent Green, El Cid, Touch Of Evil, Greatest Show on Earth, and he basically played Nic Fury in True Lies!!!
“Sweet Jesus, Harry, you surely screwed the pooch last night, didn’t you?”
First off, Jackman was awesome last night. Everything he did worked. He is such a great stage talent.
Second, did I miss it, or was Heath not on the montage of people who died last year?
I loved the end of Hughs first number,
I AM WOVERINE!
Very Nice!
I LOVED the end of Hughs first number,
I AM WOLVERINE!
Very Nice!
Hugh was awesome,
I wonder if he’ll be back next year?
It’s obvious that we all have our own tastes and opinions about the movies, actors and the awards shows that honor them. I often will not watch certain movies until I have seen the People’s Choice, Golden Globes and Academy Awards (Slumdog). I enjoyed the Oscars format this time, but felt a little sorry for Jennifer having to stand there and try to be funny in front of Brad and Angie. I definitely will see Slumdog because I know that 8 Oscars is not something to sneeze at. And maybe I will see TDK just because all you guys seem to think it’s a great movie. But I have to wonder: would the wonderful Heath Ledger have won if he had not died? I’m happy for his family and I think he deserved an award for all his body of work, esp in Brokeback Mtn. It’s harder for a straight man to play a gay guy (Ledger,Penn) than to play a crazed evil
clown! And since Ken J brought up the D Chicks, I too think it was political when they won. But I also think their music is 10 time betr than Carrie’s. Natalie as a soloist is not as good as Carrie, but the group is awsome. It’s a matter of taste. As for C Heston, I would not applaud him because of his political stand on gun control. And I hate to break it to you but he was not God.
@arrell: I’m not sure of your point. The list you have of movies beating others was more than just entertaining. Schindler’s List was just an extreme example.
@Tricia: Yes, Heath did deserve the Oscar hands down. Once you see it you will know what I (we) mean.
@Doom: I also noticed the omission, but thought I was looking away or something. Was not a fan of how they did it since half the time I couldn’t see them.
He deserved the OScar, but had he not died he would not of won. The Dark Knight would of been completely blocked out from any major award for it’s genre alone.
“As for C Heston, I would not applaud him because of his political stand on gun control. And I hate to break it to you but he was not God.”
The funny thing is I don’t really like his movies at all. However his stand on guns is the exact reason I would applaud him. Maybe he was a little extreme, but unlike Hollywood these days he stood up for our freedom and our rights.
A lot of people mentioned there was no applause for Heston and the obvious question I have to ask is why? Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Dixie chicks suck
Carrie Underwood sucks
Country music released past 1980 sucks
remember it’s just my opinion but give me Waylon, Willie, Johnny, Marty, Hank Sr, ALabama Tom T Hall any day over the wussy music that is being passed off for country music these days..
ANy one see the English Patient..that won all kinds of Oscars and IMO was an awful movie..
@greenknight: it is because he was pres of the NRA. In other words: his political views were why. I won’t say more because I don’t want to get in a discussion about politics on my fav entertainment site
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