81st Academy Awards winners and show

First, the awards.

Best Picture
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor
Sean Penn, Milk

Best Actress
Kate Winslet, The Reader

Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Original Screenplay
Milk, written by Dustin Lance Black

Best Adapted Screenplay
Slumdog Millionaire, screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Best Animated Feature Film
Wall-E

Best Score
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Original Song
"Jai Ho", Slumdog Millionaire, Music by A.R. Rahman,
Lyric by Gulzar

Best Film Editing
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Art Direction
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Cinematography
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Costume Design
The Duchess

Best Makeup
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Visual Effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Sound Editing
The Dark Knight

Best Sound Mixing
Slumdog Millionaire


"Slumdog Millionaire" won in eight of the ten categories in which it received a nomination.


OK, now, my thoughts on the red carpet pre-show and show itself.

Josh Brolin and Diane Lane came together, and I had no idea they were married. So, if James Brolin and Barbara Streisand are still married (are they?), then that would mean that Diane Lane is Barbara Streisand's stepdaughter-in-law. How weird is that?



I loved Amy Adams' dress, and she had on a stunning jeweled necklace. It was pretty big, and she's very slender, but it looked amazing on her.



The cast of "Slumdog Millionaire" being all together was cool. Those little kids are just too cute.

Meryl Streep's daughter's dress was pretty, but I thought her dress and hair were awful - very unflattering on both counts.



Overall, I liked Hugh Jackman as the host. He can sing and dance and be personable, and he kept the show moving along, which was good. I still think it's weird to listen to him with his normal Australian accent, though, since that's not what I'm used to him as. His low-key opening number was pretty cool, and they even managed to fit in a plug for "Wolverine"! Oh, and Anne Hathaway was good with him. Hmmm, maybe they should make a singing/dancing movie together.

I kind of liked that for the acting awards, prior winners were there to present, but I thought the speech to each person took a really long time. When they did that for Best Supporting Actress, I wondered if they would do that for every single nominee, which would mean the show would take FOREVER. But, they only did it with the acting nominees. Maybe just the actors needed that kind of attention, or they figured the actors were the only ones the viewing audience would know? On the one hand, it was probably nice for the nominees, but as the audience, I could have done without.

HAT.ED Whoopi Goldberg's dress. WTF? I was hoping that Amy Adams would win for "Doubt". Oh well.



Steve Martin was funny presenting with Tiny Fey.

I thought it was cool that "Milk" and "Slumdog Millionaire" each won a screenplay award as I figured those were the two mostly likely to win Best Picture. Really liked the speech by the writer of "Milk".

Loved the new footage of Wall-E finding the Oscar statuette (which he tossed away) and the Oscar videotape, which made sense for him to be interested in. So glad that "Wall-E" won for Best Animated Feature. Yeah, Andrew Stanton! That's two for him - "Finding Nemo" also won for Best Animated Feature.



Even though I'm not a Jack Black fan, I did think he was pretty funny. And when Jennifer Aniston was on, there were the obligatory shots of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Awk.ward.

I really didn't care for Sarah Jessica Parker's dress. The ballgown look of the bottom seemed kind of out-of-date, and the bodice just pushed her breasts out too much, but not in a flattering way, I don't think. Oh, and husband Matthew Broderick seemed out of it on the red carpet.



On the other hand, I loved Natalie Portman in her purple dress. So pretty.



For the cinematographer who won for "Slumdog Millionaire", I was so distracted by the handkerchief in his pocket. With the coloring and the way it was situated, it totally looked like a dinosaur head, like he had a miniature T-Rex sticking its head out of his pocket. Weird.

I absolutely hated Jennifer Biel's dress. It would have been fine without that bag that looked like it was hanging off the front of her dress.



I liked the production number about musicals. Hugh Jackman and Beyonce were good together.



As expected, Best Supporting Actor went to Heath Ledger. I almost cried when his family gave their speeches. I had read previously that if he won, the statuette would be going to daughter Matilda.

I am still pissed off that they decided to do a medley of the three nominated songs. OK, so they had movie montages - here were the action movies and comedy movies and blah blah blah movies this past year. OK, these films were just released last year - did you think we forgot about them already? Either we saw them or we didn't. It's not like it was a retrospective, like with the acting awards. They took all that time to show us movies that were out just 12 months ago, but they couldn't take a couple of minutes to let the three frickin' nominated songs be performed? Yeah, ok, I'm mostly pissed because Peter Gabriel declined to perform his nominated song from "Wall-E" because of the medley, and I really wanted to see Peter sing it. But I get why he said no. They medleyed them and then had them sing two of the songs together. They're such different songs. They could have done both songs from "Slumdog Millionaire" one after the other and than had the song from "Wall-E". Stupid Academy.

Really loved Reese Witherspoon's blue dress. It looked great on her, and her blue eyeshadow was a really nice accent.



I was really rooting for Meryl Streep for "Doubt", but I thought Kate Winslet had a really nice acceptance speech. It was surprising to me that she won, given that Meryl Streep had won the SAG Award, but then, for the SAG Awards, Kate Winslet was up for her role in "The Reader" as Best Supporting Actress, which she won for, so they didn't compete against each other in the SAG Awards.

I really liked Sean Penn's acceptance speech, and it was also nice to see him take some ribbing during the announcement of the nominees. He was also a bit self-deprecating, which was nice. I'm wondering about his reference to people with signs outside - some protestors or something? He really did do an amazing job in that film. He looked very calm and collected as he started talking, but when he pulled out his cheat-sheet of notes, you could see his hands just shaking - he must have been so nervous. That was cool to see.

And Best Picture went to "Slumdog Millionaire". How amazing. Warner Bros. originally had the film and was going to send it straight to DVD. They must be kicking themselves HARD.