81st Annual Oscar Awards

Last night, the Oscars aired on ABC.

"The Dark Knight" won 2 awards, "Slumdog Millionaire" won most of the awards (8 total), and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" picked up pretty much everything Slumdog didn't (3 total).

~Penelope Cruz won best supporting actress for her role in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona,"
~Heath Ledger won best supporting actor for his portrayal of the Joker in "The Dark Knight,"
~Kate Winslet won best actress for her role in "The Reader,"
~Sean Penn won best actor for his portrayal of Harvey Milk in "Milk."

A few changes that I enjoyed this year were how they announced the winners for best actor, best supporting actor, best actress, and best supporting actress. For those that didn't watch, they played a short video montage of previous winners for that category. Then they had 5 of the previous winners appear from behind the screens on stage to read this year's nominations. Each previous winner spoke about 1 of the nominees and why their role was nominated for the award.

I also liked the 'yearbook' montage they did of each film genre, highlighting scenes from all of the big movies of last year. They had video montages for Animation, Romance, Documentary, and Action films, as well as a musical number highlighting songs from previous musicals as well as the two big ones this year - "Mamma Mia!" and "High School Musical 3" with the main couple of each joining Hugh Jackman, Beyonce and the chorus on stage for the number - my only complaint is that they completely left out songs from "Repo! The Genetic Opera," which had 3 songs considered for Oscar nomination this year - I'm sure they could have had Sarah Brightman, Paul Sorvino or Alexa Vega sing part of one of the songs. Seth Rogen and James Franco also reprised their roles from "Pineapple Express" for a montage highlighting scenes from the comedy films of the 2008, which was put together by Judd Apatow. I also enjoyed the preview during the credits of upcoming films in 2009.

Hugh Jackman did a great job as host this year - he was both funny and clever, taking active parts in the song and dance numbers. Anne Hathaway also did great when Hugh dragged her out of her front-row seat to join him in a musical parody of "Frost/Nixon." His techno number of "The Reader" (where he states he didn't see "The Reader") was hilarious as well!

Other funny highlights include Tina Fey and Steve Martin presenting together with humorous monologue for Best Screenplays; Ben Stiller dressed up and acting like Joaquin Pheonix from his most recent interview on David Letterman while Natalie Portman struggles to stay focused on presenting the award for Cinematography; and James Franco butchering the name of the winning film for the Live Action Short category while his fellow presenter Seth Rogen laughs at him - the film was called Spielzeugland (Toyland), so can you blame him?

Jerry Lewis won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award; Queen Latifah sang "I'll Be Seeing You" while the In Memorium tribute to actors who died in the last 12 months played onscreen; Heath Ledger's mother, father and sister came up to accept his award on behalf of his 3 year old daughter, in which the award will be trusted to her when she turns 18.

The only thing that really bothered me was the logo this year - I'm sure the black glittery, sparkly number 8 with the Oscar statue being a 1 seemed like a good idea... but honestly, at first glance, the number looked more like an 8 instead of 81.

I don't often watch the Oscars, as for awhile they seemed to bore me, but this year's was definitely amusing and I felt worth watching.