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Screen Best - by Andrew McMurtry

I'm a journalism student just looking to publish some movie reviews. I love movies and want to share my thoughts with the blogosphere. I hope you like my reviews and please comment, positive or negative, any are welcome. All images are found on Google images and all ideas are my own and based on things I've read.

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81st Academy Award Winners (2009)

The 81st instalment of the Academy Awards have come and gone. In a wonderful extravaganza, hosted by Hugh Jackman, the Academy recognised who they saw as the best of the best in film over the past year. The show was theatrical, with Hugh Jackman giving a polished performance, singing and dancing and telling jokes, sometimes being cheeky. The big winner of the night was, without a doubt “Slumdog Millionaire”, winning 8 of its 10 nominations. Other multiple winners were “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with three and “Milk” and “The Dark Knight” with two each.

The winners were:

Best Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire” – Brilliant film. It was the favourite to win for quite a while up until the Oscars and deservedly so. The pace, the intrigue, the story – everything in this film came together beautifully. The use of the instantly recognisable “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” to tell the story was a stroke of genius by the writer. It makes the story approachable. Despite there being no acting nominees in this cast, the acting was tremendous. There is no doubt that this film deserved the honour bestowed upon it. It is just too bad for the other movies in the category that they were up against such a wonderful movie.

Best Lead Actor: Sean Penn - “Milk” – Sean Penn is a great actor. He seems most at easy within the characters he portrays. This is probably the only Oscar I didn’t agree with. Not taking away anything from Sean Penn, his portrayal of Harvey Milk but I felt that it was going to be the year for Mickey Rourke. I guess his past came back to meet him though. It was nice of Sean Penn to acknowledge him in his acceptance speech though.

Best Lead Actress: Kate Winslet - “The Reader” – In an incredibly strong field in which Meryl Streep or Anne Hathaway could have won also, maybe also Angelina Jolie, Kate Winslet has won. I feel this is well deserved. After six nominations, she deserved this award, especially for the role of Hannah Schmitz, a woman having an affair with a younger man over one summer. But their paths cross again, years later when Hannah is tried for war crimes as a result of her actions when she worked at a concentration camp during World War II. The role is critically acclaimed and she has won so many other awards for the portrayal, it was probably on the cards. It was still nice to see her win.

Best Director: Danny Boyle - “Slumdog Millionaire” – Well deserved for this film. “Slumdog Millionaire” left with 8 awards, probably mostly thanks to this guy. His shots, the way he told the story, the great use of the location – everything he did shone through. It was brilliant and thoroughly deserved for him. He is a hard working director, who may or may not be a little eccentric. But he should be proud of his achievement of turning a $15 million movie, which was supposed to go straight to DVD, into the Oscar Winning Best Film.

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - “The Dark Knight” – The talk after this award may shift to: would he have won had he not passed away? Really, it was probably the most brilliant and memorable role in recent memory. To outshine a role made famous by Jack Nicholson and make it your own, it is something truly special. There may have been some compassion shown but he would have needed it. Sure, the other guys worked hard and their roles in their films were undoubtedly brilliant but they are dwarfed by Heath Ledger’s Joker. The intricacies that he brought to the character will ensure that it stays in our memories for a long, long time.

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz - “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” – In a relatively weak field, Penelope Cruz took out the award. I thought that Taraji P. Henson may have taken the award but I have no problem with Penelope Cruz winning it. To be honest, I haven’t seen this film, but she must have had a pretty good to win the award.

The rest of the winners were:
Best Foreign Language Film: “Departures” – Japan
Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black - “Milk”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy - “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Animated Feature: Andrew Stanton - “WALL-E”
Best Animated Short Film: Kunio Kato - “La Maison en Petits Cubes”
Best Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt and Victor J. Zolfo – “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Best Costume Design: Michael O’Connor - “The Duchess”
Best Makeup: Greg Cannom – “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Best Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle – “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Live Action Short Film: Jochen Alexander Freydank - “Spielzeugland (Toyland)”
Best Documentary Feature Picture: James Marsh and Simon Chinn - “Man on Wire”
Best Documentary Short: Megan Mylan - “Smile Pinki”
Best Visual Effects: Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron – “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”

Best Sound Editing Richard King - “The Dark Knight”
Best Sound Mixing: Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty - “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Film Editing: Chris Dickens – “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Original Score: A.R. Rahman - “Slumdog Millionaire”
Best Original Song: “Jai Ho” - “Slumdog Millionaire”; music by A.R. Rahman, lyrics by Gulzar

The whole night was wonderfully presented and hosted by Hugh Jackman. It was good thinking to have the 5 past winners of the award to announce the acting nominees, if a little long winded. There were also great montages to the films not nominated. The scene with Seth Rogen and James Franco was also pretty funny, as was James Franco finding it hard to pronounce “Spielzeugland”. The best acceptance speech of the night was Philippe Petit, who balanced one of the filmmakers Oscar’s on his chin after thanking both men and doing a magic trick. There should also be a special mention to Heath Ledger’s family, who accepted the award on Matilda Ledger’s behalf, in a dignified and very honourable fashion, by looking to celebrate his life and use the award to honour his memory and his remarkable talent.

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February 24th 2009 @ 11:14

Posted By: Andrew McMurtry - Category: No Category

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Comments

1 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Competition Queen

1. February 25th 2009 @ 01:01. Michelle Sweeney Says:

As always the results were interesting. I managed to pick best picture and director and leading actress although like you thought that Mickey Rourke would get leading actor. I picked Heath for supporting although slipped up on supporting actress. Overall a nice mix throughout I thought.

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