The Best and Worse in OSCARS

Oh, my, have you seen this moment when this guy did that thing?

Best Performance: Even with the slightly forced "recession Oscars" conceit, host Hugh Jackman delivered a completely winning song and dance to open the show that totally made us forget they didn't hire a comedian. Showing off both talent and a sly sense of humor, Jackman nailed it.

Best Lyric From the Opening Song: "I would swim a sea of human excrement." -- Jackman crooning sweet(?)ly to Kate Winslet

Worst Transition: From the goofily good opener—the techno Reader representation was more entertaining than the movie—the show bogged down with that somber bunch of Best Supporting Actresses intoning like they were going to banish the winner to the Forbidden Zone with General Zod.

Best Brangelina Quip: Jackman drew our attention to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie before saying, "I don't actually have a joke for them, I'm just contractually required to mention them five times during the show." (Not bad; it's 25 times for us.)

Best Present: Copresenters Steve Martin and Tina Fey, who've been funny together on TV and film, delivered a hilarious tribute to writers that made us want to see them make another movie together. Or, you know, read something.

Best Reaction: Jolie looking totally charmed by her Kung Fu Panda costar Jack Black, who was onstage presenting with that actress from Friends.

Best Twilight Crossover: Rob Pattinson brought that undead charm of his to the Oscars, where it was familiar to Twihards and everyone who's ever had lunch with a Hollywood agent.

Best On-Air Design: Whoever thought to put Daniel Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker on stage together.

Best Reaction: Seth Rogen and James Franco's half-baked response to the comedies of 2008. Dude, cinematographer Jadocs Kaminsky was so high!

Joke Least Likely to Reach the Billion People Around the World: Ben Stiller's crazy, bearded Joaquin Phoenix impersonation was funny, but a little inside considering how few people recognize Stiller anyway.

Assault With a Medley Weapon: The top-hat-and-tails number with Beyoncé, Zac Efron and the rest totally summed up the year in movies. And that year was 1936.

Most Likely to Spawn a "Who's in Your Five?" Commercial: The Best Supporting actor nomination five-way was like a presidential debate without all the humor.

Most Heartbreaking: Heath Ledger's family accepting his award.

Biggest Showstopper: Wirewalker Philippe Petit, the absolutely entertaining subject of documentary Man on Wire, balancing an Oscar on his chin while a billion people watched and wondered if it would fall. But for a man who once spent 45 minutes walking between the Twin Towers, well, that's probably no big deal.

Best Commercial: Coming in just ahead of the one for the website that helps you earn $5K a month working at home, the Tom Cruise-Jimmy Kimmel bit was funny like a house on fire.

Best Make-Good Decision: The loud and fast medley crammed full of action and comic book movies, because let's be honest: These were the best things that Hollywood had to offer last year, and The Dark Knight (not to mention Iron Man) got robbed. Take that, Reader.

Worst Make-Good Decision: After that whole medley thing, the movie about the wrinkly old baby beat Dark Knight and Iron Man. Obviously, there is no justice…except that meted out by costumed heroes.

81st OSCAR AWARD WINNERS

The following are the complete list of winners in the 81st Oscars awards conducted last february 22, 2009 at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood with Hugh Jackman (X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Australia) as host.

Best picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Best director

Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant - Milk

Best actor

Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

Best actress

Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Best supporting actress

Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

Best supporting actor

Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

Best foreign language film

Revanche - Austria
The Class - France
The Baader Meinhof Complex - Germany
Departures - Japan
Waltz With Bashir - Israel

Best animated feature film

Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

Best adapted screenplay

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire, Simon Beaufoy

Best original screenplay

Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk, Dustin Lance Black
Wall-E
In Bruges
Frozen River

Best original score

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Best original song

Down To Earth - Wall-E
Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire
O Saya - Slumdog Millionaire

Art direction

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Cinematography

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
The Reader

Costume design

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Australia
Milk
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Best documentary feature

The Betrayal
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble The Water

Best documentary short subject

The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306

Film editing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

Make-up

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Best live action short film

Auf der Strecke (On The Line)
Manon on the Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig
Spielzeugland (Toyland)

Best animated short film

La Maison en Petits Cubes
Lavatory - Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up

Sound editing

The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Sound mixing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

Visual effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award:

Jerry Lewis

The Robbing of Meryl Streep

Twelve Oscars that got away from our greatest living actress

At the 2009 Screen Actors Guild Awards, when she heard her name (Best Leading Actress, "Doubt"), Meryl Streep looked majorly dumbfounded. She fairly flew to the stage, holding her arms joyously aloft. Breathlessly, the radiant lady in elegant evening pants chortled her surprise: "I didn't even buy a dress!" Then, "Can I just say there is no such thing as the best actress, there is no such thing as the greatest living actress ... I am in a position where I have secret information, that I know this to be true."

There was more, just as eloquent and gracious, an authentically charming performance. Emphasis on "performance." Anyone familiar with Streep's formidable craft as an actress might be forgiven for noticing how precisely the scene had been paced and shaped, down to her "breathless" delivery, from the very first moment her name was announced!

And there's the rub. America's "greatest living actress" sometimes runs like clockwork, her style too calculating, cerebral, controlled. Streep can armor herself up in a character (and accent), flawlessly acting the hell out of the role. But occasionally, as a non-admiring Katharine Hepburn once snarkily observed, you can hear the "click, click, click" of wheels turning in the actress's head.

Still, no less a diva than Bette Davis claimed Streep as her legitimate heir. And when Meryl Streep is firing on all cylinders, few can match her wattage. Even in a crappy movie that asks nothing of her, this star can suddenly take fire, shining a light on some terrible or beautiful truth.

Oscar fell in love with Streep for the first time for her promising (supporting) performance in "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979). After passionately embracing her for "Sophie's Choice" (1982), Golden Boy has jilted this classy dame a dozen times over a period of 25 years, not even giving her the time of day for what's arguably one of her best and most natural performances ever in Robert Altman's "A Prairie Home Companion" (2007).

What awful irony if, after decades of worthier work, the coveted statuette goes home with Meryl Streep for winding up the dreary clockwork nun in "Doubt"!

(Everett Collection)

Oscar producers promise a new take on the big show

CULVER CITY, Calif. – Bill Condon and Laurence Mark breeze into their offices at Sony Studios for a quick break during another marathon workday. The writer-director and producer, who worked together on 2006's "Dreamgirls," are joining forces again — this time to put on the 81st annual Academy Awards.
It's the first time Condon, 53, and Mark, 59, have produced an Oscar telecast, and throughout the process, they've been making their own rules. They chose entertainer Hugh Jackman to host, rather than the usual standup comedian, and have kept nearly every element of the production — including presenters and performers — secret.
Not even members of the academy staff know who'll take the stage on the night of Feb. 22.
The maverick producers took a few minutes to share their thoughts with The Associated Press about how they're preparing for Hollywood's biggest night.
___
AP: What have your lives been like since you've taken on this Oscar job?
Condon: We've both made a lot of movies, but it's never been as intense as this is. It really is. We're stumbling home at midnight every night and working on the weekends. It's a full-time thing.
Mark: Well because you have this deadline that is, well, finite. You can't fuss around ... You have a little leeway in movies, but you don't have any leeway here.
AP: How do you prepare for a job like this?
Condon: We watched a lot of old shows. We each had our favorites we went back to look at. Some of them held up, some of them didn't. We're both huge theater fans, so all of that stuff, and we both work in some way in live entertainment, so all of that comes in.
Mark: In a way, we do stand on the shoulders of all the Oscar producers before.
Condon: It's vaudeville. It really is putting on a vaudeville act and you've got 30 acts you're putting on basically and you hope that most of them are going to work.
AP: Why all the secrecy?
Condon: We wanted to restore a certain kind of mystery to it. When I look at the old shows, one of the great things is they're all giving this party and we're lucky to be invited to it. Recently it's become more just like a TV show where they promote everything, you know exactly who you're going to see. So I think you have to watch the show in order to find out what's going to happen, in order to see some of the dresses, in order to see some of the stars, and I think that just makes it more interesting as the thing goes on ... It just adds some interest.
Mark: We could just never figure out why you would say everything you were going to do before you did it. Why not just kind of do it and hope people tune in to see what you're doing.
AP: Could it backfire?
Mark: I think people tune in to see the Oscars. I don't think they tune in to see any one person, or any one person perform or present. I think they tune in to see the Oscars and what we're all up to this year with them, so that is our theory.
AP: Did you get any resistance from the academy or the network with that approach?
Mark: It took the academy a moment or two but I think they actually got on board very quickly with it. The academy has been around for a chunk of time and they do have traditions, and we're honoring as many of them as we can possibly manage to honor. But one or two (we're) breaking and they seem to enjoy the fact that things like this are going on, because by the way, you're talking about it, aren't you?
AP: How much room is there to revamp a show that requires 24 awards be presented on camera?
Condon: That is a given and it's a big chunk of the show: we're going to give out awards. The thing is maybe give them out in a different way, find a different way to present them. That's what we're hoping to do across the board, just freshen them up and surprise people again with the way these awards are given.
AP: Let's go through some of the rumors. True that you're taking some things out of the Kodak Theater?
Mark: There may be a bit of that.
AP: Is it true presenters won't walk the red carpet?
Mark: Of course there will be some presenters on the red carpet for heaven's sake. But there will be some surprises, some presenters who won't be on the red carpet. But it's not like there's some edict going on here.
AP: Are you really planning to close the show with clips from forthcoming films?
Mark: We're collecting them. The theory being this was 2008, and look at all the things you may have to look forward to in 2009 so that the show doesn't just end with "Good night."
Condon: It keeps you watching right through. The one rule we have is it's nothing that's appeared on trailers so it will be — if it works — a glimpse of stuff you've never seen before of the movies coming up.
AP: How will you measure success?
Condon: We're very excited by all the things we're doing and if we get close to executing them the way that we're planning, I think we'll feel very good about it. (Veteran Oscar producer) Gil Cates gave us that advice which was you have to please yourself and you're never going to please everybody. That's part of the show too. There's always going to be people who pick at it. We're ready for that.
Mark: One of the things we'll be happy about is if we come in close to three hours, to be very honest and not to be too artistic about it, but we are trying very hard to make that happen. The closer we get, the happier we'll be. It hasn't been three hours in decades.
AP: So you're really keeping all the presenters secret until the big night — except for the ones who out themselves?
Mark: The ones that out themselves will have their all-access passes denied.
___
On the Net:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_en_ot/storytext/oscars_the_producers/30868360/SIG=10nql4du5/*http://www.oscars.org

OSCARS 81st Annual Academy Award Nominees and predictions

Get set for the 81st annual Academy Awards to air live from Hollywood at the Kodak Theatre on February 22, 2009 on ABC at 8 PM ET.

This year's host is "Australia" star and Sexiest Man of the Year, Hugh Jackman.

Oscar nominees are usually revealed on a Tuesday about four weeks before the live ceremony, but In 2009 that particular Tuesday was Inauguration Day on January 20.

So this year nominees were announced on Thursday, January 22 with the Oscar ceremonies airing live on Sunday, February 22, the earliest ever.

One young actor gave his last major (and now very haunting) Hollywood film appearance — with universal praise for the over-the-edge performance by Heath Ledger as The Joker in Dark Knight.

Ledger has already won for Best Supporting Actor at the 2009 Golden Globes, and the Critics Choice Awards, usually an accurate harbinger of what's to come from Oscar voters.

Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Night.

Posthumous Oscar trivia

Other notable actors nominated for posthumous Oscars include James Dean with two acting nods after he fatally crashed his Porsche on September 30, 1955. He later received nominations for Best Actor in 1955 in East of Eden (1955) and for Giant (1956).

The first and only actor to actually win a posthumous Oscar was Peter Finch in 1977 for his best actor performance in Network (crying the immortal, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!")

2009 Oscar Nominations

Slumdog Millionaire is this year's "feel good movie of the New Depression" which transformed itself from obscure import to one of the most nominated films of the year with a total 10 nods from the Academy.

More predictable nominees also include:

Frost/Nixon - Frank Langella and Michael Sheen act their heads off in this Broadway-to-film adaptation opening in Christmas Day.

Milk - directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, who was later assassinated in 1978.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton in a weird tale about a man who starts aging backwards.

The Reader - Kate Winslet puts in a strong performance as a former SS guard in concentration camp who years later is put on trial for war crimes..

Wall-E - A no-brainer win for best animated film.

Below, check out the complete list of this year's nominees along with links to red carpet pictures & video clips, forum postings & discussions, and related expert commentary on the movie industry's most coveted prize ...