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By Lee Pfeiffer
The 81st annual Academy Awards is now history and
Slumdog Millionaire was top dog in the winner's circle with 8 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director for Danny Boyle. Kate Winslet won Best Actress for
The Reader. In the Best Actor category there was a clear upset with Sean Penn winning the prize for playing the gay rights activist in
Milk, despite the smart money being on sentimental favorite Mickey Rourke for
The Wrestler. Best Supporting Actress was Penelope Cruz for
Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The late Heath Ledger was awarded Supporting Actor for
The Dark Knight. In a moving and bittersweet moment, his family accepted on his behalf. Refreshingly, Kate Winslet, one of the most brilliant actresses working today, finally learned to deliver a concise and genuinely moving acceptance speech instead of the rambling nonsense she had mumbled through at previous awards shows. Similarly, Sean Penn was gracious and clearly surprised at his win. He praised America (perhaps just to deprive Fox News from having their talking points tomorrow morning) and confined his social activism to a statement that those who oppose equal rights for gays will someday realize they have shamed themselves and their families.Â
I'll go against the annual trend of bashing the Oscars and say I thought this was a highly entertaining and briskly-paced show, devoid of long-winded speeches and that God-awful "spontaneous" patter between presenters that generally induces groans all over the world. The show still lacks a strong host, though Hugh Jackman was handsome, versatile and extremely talented in the dancing and singing numbers. What he doesn't possess is the razor-sharp wit exhibited by Steve Martin, who relegated himself to being one of the presenters. (His not-so-veiled smack at Scientology was hilarious, though he'll probably be trailed by men in black for the rest of his life.)Â In the build-up to the show, much was made over the absence of star power. No Hanks, Ford, Eastwood or Nicholson on the podium. However, the producers did scrounge up some pretty impressive names. Among them: Robert DeNiro, Anthony Hopkins, Eva Marie Saint, Daniel Craig, Alan Arkin, Jack Black, Ben Stiller (whose comedic appearance promised more than it delivered) Ben Kingsley ...er, Sir Ben Kingsley (apparently even his children are required to refer to him as Sir Daddy), Michael Douglas, Goldie Hawn, Shirley MacLaine, and a genuine legend, gorgeous Sophia Loren, still looking like she walked out of time capsule. To the delight of older women everywhere, both Loren and Hawn proved that their bosoms are capable of defying Newton's Law of Gravity. A highlight of the show was the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award given to Jerry Lewis, who was very humbled (that's right, humbled!) by the honor. Lewis was presented with the award by Eddie Murphy, long regarded as one of the most unpleasant men in show business. Thus, by bringing out Murphy's softer side, maybe Lewis is not just a humanitarian, but a miracle worker.
There were some innovative changes this year. It was a great idea to have five previous winners in each acting category appear on stage to honor this year's nominees and to present the awards. I also liked the orchestra's consistent use of famous movie themes throughout the evening, and it was a nice touch to actually hear them play excerpts of this year's nominated scores. The blending of the three Oscar nominated songs into one production number worked far better than I had anticipated, as did a nice, classy production number in hat and tails that honored the great musicals. The well-directed and slickly-produced show had only one annoying segment: the generally moving memorial montage to artists who passed away in the last year. It was shown as Queen Latifah sang a lovely version of I'll Be Seeing You, but the director couldn't figure out where to zoom in and it turned out to be a botched hodgepodge of long shots of Latifah and postage stamp-sized images of the artists being nominated.(Maybe I missed it, but it didn't seem as though Heath Ledger was included in the tribute clips!)
From a fashion standpoint, there were few embarrassments or head-turners. The women looked rather blandly attired, but the men seem to (finally) be trending back toward the traditional black bow tie-with-tux look instead of that straight tie, which always makes the wearer appear under-dressed for such an occasion. There were a couple of major gaffes in fashion statements, however. Tilda Swinden, who has the complexion of Casper the Friendly Ghost, came on stage attired in what could only be charitably described as the slip cover of a living room couch. She probably paid a fortune for it, but the gown reminded me of that home-grown concoction that Carol Burnett's Scarlett O'Hara made up out of a pair of drapes (complete with curtain rod still in it) in her classic variety show sketch based on Gone With the Wind. The male fashion embarrassment of the evening came when the camera panned to nominee Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was attired in black with a doo-rag on his head. In his quest to look funky, he may have thought he was evoking memories of Isaac Hayes, but ended up looking like a white drag version of Aunt Jemima. Â
What the show still lacks is an opening. Jackman tried hard with a somewhat clever comedic ode to the nominated films, but it wore thin quickly. Similarly, his bizarre notion of going into the audience to greet certain stars reminded me of a struggling night club comedian. I half expected him to shout, "Anybody here from New Jersey?". Still, he was a good sport, looked dashing and kept the action flowing without hamming it up. In all, this may well prove to be the lowest rated Oscars of all due to the abundance of art house films, but the Academy has nothing to be ashamed of regarding the presentation. It was one of the best in quite some time, though don't expect many other critics to say as much. The Oscars are the low-hanging fruit in terms of writing up lively reviews - and the temptation to use those good one liners writers come up with in advance to criticize the ceremony is just too much for many to resist. Oh, and for those of you who were paying attention, I did pretty well in my predictions, having been accurate in fifteen categories and wrong in only five, the most notable being Sean Penn's win over Mickey Rourke.
Click here for a complete list of winners. Click here for red carpet fashion photos.