Oscar Night Recap
So, apparently the preliminary ratings measurement for last night’s Academy Awards shows an upsurge of 6 percent compared to last year’s numbers. However, the telecast is still likely to be among the three least-watched Oscars shows ever. A bit premature to be negative about it but overall the show was ok. For all the talk about reinvigorating it wasn’t all that.
Yeah, bringing in Hugh Jackman as host was a sort of fresh move since it was expected to capture the attention especially of the female 25-44 demo group. And what about the inclusion of teen hearthrob Zac Efron (High School Musical dude) as well as Twilight star Robert Pattinson. They both made their Oscar debut. Undoubtedly, the Academy was trying to capture a younger demo of tv viewers. I am looking forward to seeing how the effort panned out.
But, hey come on Sean Penn stole the night with the most important acceptance speech of the awards. “We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone” were Penn’s words when referring to the passing of Prop. 8 banning gay marriage rights.
As for the award ceremony, let us give you the lowdown. Here’s the list of winners at the 81st annual Academy Awards,
BEST PICTURE “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight) A Celador Films Production, Christian Colson, producer
LEAD ACTOR Sean Penn in “Milk” (Focus Features)
LEAD ACTRESS Kate Winslet in “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company)
DIRECTOR Danny Boyle for “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM “Departures” — Japan (Regent Releasing) A Departures Film Partners production
SUPPORTING ACTOR Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros)
SUPPORTING ACTRESS Penelope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (The Weinstein Company)
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Dustin Lance Black for “Milk” (Focus Features)
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Simon Beaufoy for “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)
ANIMATED FEATURE Andrew Stanton for “WALL-E” (Walt Disney)
ANIMATED SHORT FILM Kunio Kato for “La Maison en Petits Cubes” (A Robot Communications Production)
ART DIRECTION Donald Graham Burt for art direction and Victor J. Zolfo for set decoration on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros)
COSTUME DESIGN Michael O’Connor for “The Duchess” (Paramount Vantage, Pathe and BBC Films)
MAKEUP Greg Cannom for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros)
CINEMATOGRAPHY Anthony Dod Mantle for “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)
LIVE ACTION SHORT FIRM Jochen Alexander Freydank for “Spielzeugland (Toyland)”, a Mephisto Film production
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE James Marsh and Simon Chinn for “Man on Wire” (Magnolia Pictures) A Wall to Wall production
DOCUMENTARY SHORT Megan Mylan for “Smile Pinki”, a Principle production
VISUAL EFFECTS Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros)
SOUND EDITING Richard King for “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros)
SOUND MIXING Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty for “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)
FILM EDITING Chris Dickens for “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)
ORIGINAL SCORE A.R. Rahman for “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight)
ORIGINAL SONG “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), music by A.R. Rahman, lyrics by Gulzar
February 25th, 2009 at 20:15
It is a shame that the Oscars continue to be a forum for either political activists or personal agendas in which moral issues are involved; and typically the moral issues are from those that have none, and activists that know no bounds within normalcy. They both should have no part of the Oscars. With the country split right down the middle politically, it would serve the Oscars ceremony better by taking control of this situation, which I realize, by the very nature of those involved, would be almost impossible. Maybe it should be added to the list of ceremonies among the celebrities one would just as soon leave off to watch any more!