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

Here we are updating live with the winners of the 81st Academy Awards! Reactions and ceremony review will be up shortly after! Stay Tuned!

Best Supporting Actress - Penélope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Original Screenplay - Dustin Lance Black for Milk

Best Adapted Screenplay - Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Animated Feature Film - WALL-E

Best Animated Short Film - La Maison en Petits Cubes

Art Direction - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Costume Design - The Duchess

Makeup - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Cinematography - Slumdog Millionaire

Short Film - Spielzeulgland (Toyland)

Best Supporting Actor- Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight

Documentary Feature Film - Man on Wire

Documentary Short Film - Smile Pinki

Visual Effects - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sound Editing - The Dark Knight

Sound Mixing - Slumdog Millionaire

Film Editing - Slumdog Millionaire

Original Score - A.R. Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire

Original Song - "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire

Best Foreign Language Film - Departures (Japan)

Best Director - Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actress - Kate Winslet for The Reader

Best Actor - Sean Penn for Milk

Best Picture - Slumdog Millionaire

And that's it for our live coverage of the winners of the 81st Academy Awards. Tomorrow we'll have a review of the revamped ceremony and some reactions to the surprises (or mostly lack thereof) .

Labels: 81st Academy Awards, Academy Awards, Awards, Danny Boyle, Heath Ledger, Kate Winslet, Man on Wire, Milk, Oscars, Penelope Cruz, Sean Penn, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E

Industry insider, Nikki Finke, over at Deadline Hollywood has been developing an exclusive scoop from yesterday concerning an upcoming surprise choice in the host for next year's Oscar telecast.

The previously described new host was referred to as being "way outside the box" and was not a television personality or any sort of stand-up comedian. As a matter of fact, along with this news comes, in my opinion, a bit of disappointing info that the usual opening joke bits that have consistently stood as the opening act for the Academy Awards is being put aside. And with the announcement of the potential new host, it's fairly easy to understand why.

Next year it looks like the Oscars will be hosted by recently dubbed Sexiest Man Alive, Aussie actor Hugh Jackman.

While negotiations are still in progress, and Jackman hasn't fully committed to the show yet, it seems like it's only the details being sorted out. However, Finke's post gives a bit more insight into the choice to remove the opening monologue that has preceded the awards ceremony. She writes comments by an insider, ""I don't want that for him. He is an actor with big movies behind him and one coming this summer. He didn't work the last 20 years to suddenly be a stand-up comedian."

Personally, I find this comment to be a bit insulting to stand-up comedians or anybody that has any respect or love for the art of comedy. Being a stand-up comedian is quite possible one of the hardest things you can do as an entertainer. You write your own script, perform by yourself, and when you bomb, you can literally hear yourself fail (*crickets*). But oh how lowly and insulting it must be to have to make people laugh...TELL ME A JOKE, MONKEY!

Backing up this position to make Jackman less of a funny man and more of a distinguished host is the use of Laurence Mark and Bill Condon as producers. Last year Mark and Condon worked together as producer and director (respectively) on the much praised semi-biographical musical Dreamgirls. So their musical interest seems to imply the desire to bring the Tony-award-winning performance roots from The Boy from Oz out of Jackman and onto the Academy Awards stage.

While I like the Academy's desire to do something different, especially after the abysmal ratings drawn in by last year's telecast, removing one of the more entertaining aspects of the consistently boring and hours long awards ceremony is not one of them.

If we're going to start with an overhaul of the Oscar telecast, the host isn't a bad place to start, but maybe first the Academy should consider getting a bit more in touch with the average audience and stop pandering to depressing, heavy dramas with the exception of the yearly little-Indie-movie-that-could ( Juno, Little Miss Sunshine). Personally I don't understand why a movie like The Bourne Ultimatum wasn't nominated for Best Picture last year over a similar and far less thrilling Michael Clayton, when in the past thrilling sort of action films like The French Connection and The Sting have been nominated and won the award. Hell, even Raiders of the Lost Ark was nominated. And while there's a lot of buzz around the crowd and critic pleasing The Dark Knight, I feel like most of the praise will go towards the late Heath Ledger, and a potential Best Picture nod will just be a publicity stunt to attract more viewers.

If the Academy really wants to get their audience back, they need to go back to the drawing board and really think about what it's like to sit in a movie theater, bewildered, mesmerized and inspired by a motion picture.

UPDATE: It's official. Hugh Jackman will be hosting the Oscars

Labels: Awards, Hugh Jackman, Oscars, TV News

The Golden Globe nominations were announced earlier this morning, and there are definitely some surprises and disappointments. The Hollywood Foreign Press Association has always been known to throw in some curve balls now and then, but of course there's always going to be some controversy over nominations when motion pictures and television shows are divided into drama or comedy/musical classifications. Also, despite much of the Academy Awards speculation coming from who was honored at the Golden Globes, it's important to note that the HFPA has about 90 members who disseminate information about movies and television to the world through their various publications throughout the world. These are the members who vote on the Golden Globes and because of this The New York Times comments that the HFPA, "functions like an exclusive club, admitting a maximum of five new members a year, though more often...accepting only one. Any single member may object to a new member, making it extremely difficult to join."

Unfortunately I can't weigh on much of the bigger nominees for now since many of the awards contenders haven't made their way to our neck of the woods here in Indiana, but as time goes on we will certainly have reviews and commentary on awards season and a growing amount of firsthand knowledge on these praised films, and as the awards themselves draw closer, predictions will most certainly be made. There may be an incoming write-up from myself and our resident TV guru, Harry Nelson venting/praising about the nominations that we can competently comment on, but that's in the future.

For now, we'll just let you soak them in. The 66th Annual Golden Globe Awards will take place on Sunday, January 11th, 2009 and will air live on NBC at 8 PM EST.

Motion Picture Nominations

Best Motion Picture (Drama)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Revolutionary Road
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy
Burn After Reading
In Bruges
Happy-Go-Lucky
Mamma Mia
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Supporting Actor
Tom Cruise - Tropic Thunder
Robert Downey Jr. - Tropic Thunder
Ralph Fiennes - The Duchess
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

Best Director
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Steven Daldry - The Reader
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Sam Mendes - Revolutionary Road

Best Actor (Drama)
Leonardo DiCaprio - Revolutionary Road
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best Actress (Drama)
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kristin Scott Thomas - I've Loved You So Long
Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road

Best Original Song
"Down to Earth" -- WALL-E
"Gran Torino" - Gran Torino
"I Thought I Lost You" -- Bolt
"Once in a Lifetime" -- Cadillac Records
"The Wrestler" -- The Wrestler

Best Original Score
Defiance
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Slumdog Millionaire
Frost/Nixon
Changeling

Best Animated Film
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

Best Foreign Language Film
The Baader Meinhof Complex
Everlasting Moments
Gomorrah
I've Loved You So Long
Waltz with Bashir

Best Actor - Musical or Comedy
Javier Bardem -- Vicki Cristina Barcelona
Colin Farrell - In Bruges
James Franco -- Pineapple Express
Brendan Gleeson - In Bruges
Dustin Hoffman - Last Chance Harvey

Best Actress - Musical or Comedy
Rebecca Hall - Vicki Cristina Barcelona
Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Frances McDormand - Burn After Reading
Meryl Streep - Mamma Mia
Emma Thompson - Last Chance Harvey

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Best Screenplay
Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
David Hare - The Reader
Peter Morgan - Frost/Nixon
Eric Roth - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley - Doubt

Television Nominations

Best Television Drama
Dexter
House
In Treatment
Mad Men
True Blood

Best Actor - Television Drama
Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
Michael C. Hall, Dexter
Jon Hamm, Mad Men
Hugh Laurie, House
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors

Best Actress - Television Drama
Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
Mariska Hargitay, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit
January Jones, Mad Men
Anna Paquin, True Blood
Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

Best Television Musical/Comedy
30 Rock
Californication
Entourage
The Office
Weeds

Best Actor - Television Musical/Comedy
Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
Steve Carell, The Office
Kevin Connolly, Entourage
David Duchovny, Californication
Tony Shalhoub, Monk

Best Actress - Television Musical/Comedy
Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

Best Mini-Series - Television
A Raisin in the Sun
Bernard and Doris
Cranford
John Adams
Recount

Best Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture - Television
Ralph Fiennes, Bernard and Doris
Paul Giamatti, John Adams
Kevin Spacey, Recount
Kiefer Sutherland, 24: Redemption
Tom Wilkinson, Recount

Best Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture - Television
Judi Dench, Cranford
Catherine Keener, An American Crime
Laura Linney, John Adams
Shirley MacLaine, Coco Chanel
Susan Sarandon, Bernard and Doris

Best Supporting Actor - Television
Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
Denis Leary, Recount
Jeremy Piven, Entourage
Blair Underwood, In Treatment
Tom Wilkinson, John Adams

Best Supporting Actress - Television
Eileen Atkins, Cranford
Laura Dern, Recount
Melissa George, In Treatment
Rachel Griffiths, Brothers and Sisters
Dianne Wiest, In Treatment

Labels: Awards, Golden Globes, Movie News, TV News

With Dreamworks pushing back of The Soloist, which would have brought two very strong Oscar contending performances to the table from Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey, Jr, it looks like the studio is now pushing for Downey in the Best Supporting Actor category, albeit with a little bit of viral marketing for Downey's character, Kirk Lazarus, from Tropic Thunder. Clever for sure, and while his performance was surely one of the highlights, is it Oscar worthy?

A larger version of this advertisement, and two television spots promoting the award campaign can be found over at /Film

Labels: Awards, Movie News, Oscars