THE OSCAR'S!
Last night's Academy Awards were far superior to the last few years of long, boring, monstrosities.
The red carpet pre-show was the perfect length with only a couple awkward moments brought on by incompetent interviewing. A brunette Ryan Seacrest tripped up with Jack Black & wife, Miley Cyrus forgot to mention the name of the movie she was touting, Marisa Tomei gave Seacrest the death stare-no love lost there! Introducing us to the program's stage producer and music producer was a super bonus that emphasised new details in the evening.
On to the show...
Hugh Jackman was delightful. He began with a
fantastic opening, claiming he built it in his garage Saturday night as the Academy couldn't afford an opening with the recession. The pizza boxes, paint rollers, and lamp shades assisted in creating the image of Hugh staying up all night with his hot glue gun making the sets. Anne Hathaway's "impromptu" performance as Nixon made it all the more adorable.
The first award set the stage for the entire show. The Academy had kept the presenters a secret, with good reason. The new format brought out 5 past winners of each award to speak about the individuals nominated. It was much more interesting and fascinating to see the awards presented in this way. See the
Best Supporting Actress award presented. Supporting Actor, Best Actress, and Best Actor were all presented in this fashion. It was gorgeous.
One of the lesser developed ideas for the evening was to take the audience through the process of movie making with the awards. This seemed a little half-baked and we lost sight of it a few times. The highlight was by far
Tina Fey and Steve Martin's screen play presentation. Some other great presenters were
Jack Black/Jennifer Aniston for best animation and Natalie Portman with Ben Stiller who was
channeling Joaquin Phoenix for cinematography. Hilarious.
Seth Rogan and James Franco, spoofing their own Pineapple Express, replaced the recent Will Ferrel and Steve Carell comedy duo in a
Judd Apatow short film.
Michael Moore moments were provided by Bill Maher (presenting documentaries) and Sean Penn (upon winning the best actor award).
The Musical is BACK! was a huge number staring host Hugh Jackman, Beyonce, Zac Ephron, Vanessa Hudgens (both from High School Musical), Amanda Seigfred, and Dominic Cooper (both from Mamma Mia). Created by none other than Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge & Australia). Definitely the highlight of the evening!
Back to the movies Heath Ledger rightly won the
Best Supporting Actor for his work in the Dark Knight as Joker.
The movie montages were fantastic showcasing not only nominated movies but other
romances,
action movies, and animations that weren't nominated.
The sound track presentations by Alicia Keys (was adorable and awesome) and Zac Ephron were amazing with
performances of the songs by the original artists.
Queen Latifa sang over the
"In Memory" video montage, lovely. Much better than having only a score.
One of the best impromptu moments was when Kate Winslet, upon winning the
Best Actress Award told Meryl Streep (with a record of 15 lifetime nominations) that she would just have to "suck it up" after not winning this one.
Slumdog Millioniare was the big winner of the night, the best speech by it's
director Danny Boyle who accepted Best Director in the spirit of Tigger per a request from his kids. The picture also took home Best Picture Award.
A complete list of winners can be seen
here.
"One Missed Call" tells the story of Beth Raymond, a college student whose friends begin to mysteriously receive voice mails from the future recording the sounds of their impending deaths. She goes to the police, who think she's crazy, except for Det. Jack Andrews, whose sister has apparently met the same fate. They team up to figure out what the crap is going on. And then, in true horror movie fashion, Beth hears the creepy ringtone on her phone, and guess what? She's got a new voicemail.
