Well the 81st Academy Awards have come and gone as you may have seen from our list of winners from yesterday's ceremony. But with the show taking on a new face and having so many changes throughout, I only thought it appropriate to go through some of my favorite highlights of the night. Overall it wasn't a spectacular ceremony as the Oscars are always a bit dull, but it could've been way worse without a comedian at the helm.

I must say though that while Hugh Jackman put on some spectacular musical performances and really showed his theatrical chops, what really was annoying was his constant reference that "The musical is back!" It's always back at least once a year. Along with that, I have to say that he didn't really do much hosting. Will Smith was practically on the stage longer for the technical awards presentation. These new additions and formatting didn't really revamp the show (it was still slow and mostly boring even for a movie buff) but that doesn't mean there weren't things to enjoy from the ceremony

Before I go on with the list of pros from the show, I have to comment on the actual awards themselves. Basically there were no real surprises. After all, I had 10 correct predictions out of the 11 I made on here (Damn you Best Foreign Film).

But the one award that there's a lot of backlash and seemingly unnecessarily so, is that Mickey Rourke didn't get Best Actor. Let me just say that I had all my eggs in the Mickey Rourke basket for a long time, but changed my tune after I saw Milk. Sean Penn's performance was one for the books. In speaking with some friends, I slowly came to change my mind in that Rourke's performance, while stirring, isn't too much of a departure from his real life. He had a lot of inspiration to pull from in his own life for those emotions on screen. That's not to discredit his performance because putting that much heart-wrenching drama into a character is not easy. But Sean Penn's portrayal of Harvey Milk was just a complete departure from anything he's done before. I was pleased with this outcome, and don't think that the Penn-Hate-Train has any steam,.

Anyway, here's some of the stuff I really dug from the ceremony:

• The opening musical number was really fun. The stage pieces and progression through each film was like watching Michel Gondry tackle the Academy Awards with his patented "Sweded" production quality straight from Be Kind Rewind. It was great to see Jackman comment on The Dark Knight for fanboys, especially as a star of comic book movies himself
  
  
• The 2008 Film Yearbook montages were edited together so meticulously. I can't imagine going through the hours of films and coming out with those montages which so brilliant play off one another. Each cut made the films interact with each other and it was just fantastic. There are some low quality captures of these montages for the Action and Romance movies of 2008 here and here (one is mislabeled on YouTube but it's the correct video). Comedy received a special treatment we'll highlight below.
  
  
• Very cool presentation method for the acting nominations. Having a previously awarded actor or actress prepare a personalized nomination sort of speech was slightly long winded, but was also a personal touch to the usually borning nomination reels. You can see the nominations presented by 20 other actors for Best Actor/Actress and Best Supporitng Actor/Actress right here
  
  
• Tina Fey and Steve Martin presenting the awards for adapted and original screenplays had some of the greatest laughs of the night. Also I always love seeing the clips with the script content superimposed over them like they were subtitles.
  
  
• This commercial for Jimmy Kimmel's show featuring Tom Cruise. It's not Oscar related. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?
  
  
• Will Smith screwing up reading the teleprompter and making a reference to Boom Goes the Dynamite. Oh to be Internet famous!

Finally my most favorite part of the entire ceremony is the video I've embedded below that highlights the comedy films of 2008...sort of. It's an original short by Judd Apatow featuring Seth Rogen and James Franco as their characters from Pineapple Express. All I have to say is Janusz Kaminski needs to do more comedy...you'll see what I mean.

What did you guys think of all the changes and new approach to the show?

Labels: 81st Academy Awards, Academy Awards, Awards, Hugh Jackman, James Franco, Judd Apatow, Oscars, Seth Rogen, Steve Martin, Tina Fey, Will Smith