So Slumdog Millionaire triumphed at the Oscars. As we predicted (and, yes, so did almost everyone else), Danny Boyle’s mutt of a movie was top dog in Hollywood last night, winning Best Film, Best Director and six other gongs – adding up to eight of its ten nominations, including Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Song and Best Score.
Here at Movie Talk we singled out Slumdog for attention last October, when it was chosen as the closing night film of the London Film Festival, and we chose the film as our first free preview screening back in December, which allows us to pretend that we have a tiny bit of a stake in the victory of this low-budget, British-funded movie.
And Kate triumphed too confounding my last-minute fears that Meryl would overhaul her at the last minute. Clearly, I needn’t have worried. Kate herself had it all sussed when she appeared in Ricky Gervais’s Extras: “If you do a film about the Holocaust,” she confided, “you’re guaranteed an Oscar.” Turns out she didn’t even need the nun’s habit. (Didn’t work for Meryl, did it?)
Sean Penn beat bookies’ favourite Mickey Rourke to carry off the award for his performance as murdered gay rights activist Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s biopic Milk.
As expected, Heath Ledger won the award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight – only the second time in history that an actor has won posthumously (Peter Finch was the first, winning Best Actor for Network in 1976).
And Penélope Cruz, again as forecast, scooped Best Supporting Actress for Vicky Cristina Barcelona.
Here are the awards in full:
Best film:
Slumdog Millionaire
Best director
: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best actor:
Sean Penn, Milk
Best actress
: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Best supporting actor:
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Best supporting actress:
Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Best adapted screenplay:
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Best original screenplay
: Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Best cinematography
: Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best song
: Jai Ho, by AR Rahman and Gulzar, Slumdog Millionaire
Best original score:
AR Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Best makeup:
Greg Cannom, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best costume design
: Michael O’Connor, The Duchess
Best art direction:
Donald Graham Burt and Victor J Zolfo, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Best animated short
: Kunio Kato, La Maison en Petits Cubes
Best animated feature:
Andrew Stanton, WALL-E
Best documentary short:
Megan Mylan, Smile Pinki
Best documentary feature
: James Marsh and Simon Chinn, Man On Wire
Best live-action short
: Jochen Alexander Freydank, Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Best foreign language film
: Departures, Yojiro Takita (Japan)
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian award:
Jerry Lewis
