Posted on 02/24/2009
If you tuned in this past Sunday, then you were treated to what were probably the flashiest Oscars of the last 20 years or so. Seems like a bold statement, but even with a few undeserving award wins, the show itself was a spectacle. Huge Jackman provided the Oscar audience with a buzz from the opening get-go that, for once, didn’t have to have a punch line. The talent from his onstage acting days was not held short under the beautiful and luxurious awards set and the always glaring and posh celebrity audience. It was going to be a good night, one might have assumed, just from the first 15 minutes.

Dawning a new look, a new style, and a new presentation, The Oscars showed more of its “pizzazz” right away. Starting a trend that would continue for all the actor/actress nominated categories, five previous winners of the Supporting Actress Award came out to announce (and sort of present) the very strong category. As expected, Penelope Cruz won for her role as Javier Bardem’s crazy-attached ex-wife in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but any of the nominees were worthy. The male category featured another justifiable lock, Heath Ledger, winning for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Cuba Gooding Jr.’s words about Robert Downey Jr.’s role in Tropic Thunder, where he plays an Australian actor who is playing an African-American actor in the most convincing way possible, were all in good fun, “That’s enough of taking the parts from the black people, man! Brothers need to work!” Still, in any other year, this award would’ve been Downey’s.

Milk and Slumdog Millionaire won for Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay respectively. Naturally, Wall-e got snubbed of a well deserved Original Screenplay award while the over-appreciated Milk won for a fairly generic biopic. Wall-e, however, did win (and why wouldn’t it?) for Best Animated Film.

Although it was nominated for the most awards (13), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was never really a favorite to win more than a few. Rightfully so, it won for Best Makeup, Art Direction, and Visual Effects. These award wins showed who the true stars of the movie were: the visual aesthetics. While Button was busy winning those 3 awards, its biggest competition, Slumdog, was busy collecting pairs of awards for music alone.

Indian music legend A.R. Rahman looked like Lauryn Hill at the Grammy’s collecting so many awards. No one was more deserving than Rahman, who took home the award for Best Song and Best Original Score. His soundtrack evolved the movie’s theme and certainly added elements that could not be expressed visually (Slumdog soundtrack review). Friend of OkayPlayer, John Legend, performed Wall-e’s nominated song (originally by Peter Gabriel) and even joined A.R. on stage for a beautiful finish to a melody of the nominated songs. It was very well done.

The biggest disappointments of the night were in the major acting categories. Sean Penn, predictably, won for his role as Harvey Milk in Milk. Sadly, he wasn’t as deserving as Mickey Rourke. Rourke’s portrayal as The Ram in The Wrestler was an absolutely stunning performance loaded with grit and pain audiences felt through the screen. Even Frank Langella’s performance as Richard Nixon was more deserving as he single-handedly dominated Frost/Nixon. Kate Winslett won for what was possibly her worst Oscar nominated role in one of the worst Oscar nominated films of the year, The Reader. It was unfortunate that Anne Hathaway didn’t get an award for her great role in Rachel Getting Married (shout out to Tunde Adebimpe from TV on The Radio for a great performance in that film as well).

The Awards for Best Picture and Best Director were both missing three key films; The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan), Wall-e (Andrew Stanton), and Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman). While an entire article can be made about what the Oscars missed, what they did get right was making Slumdog Millionaire its shining star. By all means, it is a film worthy of the praise and eight award wins including Best Director (Danny Boyle) and Best Picture.

With a night loaded with musical numbers, one would think it was a Tony Award show. However, these performances did put the show nearly 30 minutes over its schedule. A singing appearance from Beyonce seemed unnecessary and some of the presentations to the acting awards took up to 12 minutes to complete. Hugh Jackman hardly did anything beyond his two musical numbers and Will Smith, who presented all of the effect and technical awards, seemed to have more screen time. Regardless, the aim of the Oscar producers was to revamp the award show, and that they did. And hey, the Academy got most of the awards right this time too.

- Sean Deezill