I haven't finished my workout, I had to record the red carpet . . . not a promising start. And I haven't seen any of the movies except Slumdog Millionaire. That's OK because the buzz is, it's going to win it all.
Hugh Jackman, however, is already proving himself to be an all-round entertainer in the classic manner of the 1930s through 1950s. Confidence, energy, warmth as he works the house, and an infectious chortle. The Aussies really are taking over. We were talking at Althouse a while back about who had the manhood thing -- Russell Crowe.
Robert Downey looks so clean in every way -- clean-shaven, spotless -- he's disinfected. As if his appearance is designed to scream, "I'M CLEAN!!!" Well, God bless him.
Who's taking care of Angelina and Brad's kids? She looks so mature, lately. So grown-up. As if adulthood is coming back into fashion.
Five past Oscar-winning ladies, going all the way back to Eva Marie Saint, jump off the screen (once they get the curtain open) and appear in person to announce the Best Supporting Actress nominees, and each delilvers a tribute, which sounds written by herself, to one nominee. Classy! And unexpected match-ups.
Look how Angelica Huston shimmies as she talks. Her upper body has always looked made of rubber. Goldie Hawn's really is made of rubber. Tilda Swinton is wearing a Grecian tablecloth.
Penélope Cruz wins for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." She's hyperventilating and threatening to faint. She's so beautiful, like a little burrowing owl. I like her upper lip better than Angelina Jolie's.
I have to admit, I watch this partly to review the cosmetic surgery. I have a horrified fascination with the way the preservation of pseudo-youth requires the sacrifice of individuality. Women like Goldie Hawn look pretty good, but they don't look like themselves anymore, or like anybody, really.
Steve Martin and Tina Fey being silly for Best Original Screenplay. Good presentation, the screenplay page super over the scene. It's a weird assortment of movies -- Milk, Wall-E, and three you may never have heard of. The one you have heard of -- Milk -- wins.
Political-religious moment of the night: the screenwriter makes a preach/speech to gay and lesbian kids, promising them they'll have full federal civil rights soon. "No matter what anyone tells you, God loves you . . . thank God for Harvey Milk." Ever since Sacheen Littlefeather, this obligatory moment has led to eye-rolling. The sentiments may be noble but, I don't know, that's not entertainment.
Steve and TIna stick around to present Best Adaptation. Betcha Slumdog gets it. Yep! The little clip from the movie reminds me of what an intense old-fashioned "movie" pleasure that film was. The young stars are in the audience. Simon Beaufoy gives all the Indians lavish credit.
Best Animated Film (Wall-E) and best animated short (always makes me want to see them all) get by me because I'm on the phone for work with this guy about this.
Sarah Jessica Parker's dress looks like a double ice cream cone.
Benjamin Button wins Art Direction.
The costume designer for The Duchess is telling his life story. Apparently he was considered a high risk for the job -- love it when that happens.
Makeup. Benjamin Button.
This presenter is the kid who plays the vampire in that movie teen-age girls are so nuts about. Lovely little love montage, especially the touching bits from Wall-E. The robots in love even have a sparky little fight. Reminds me of the time my Japanese karate teacher looked at a picture of the anxious face of the three-week-old kitten Lucky, just after we fished him out of a garbage dumpster in Romania, and said in better English than we knew he knew, "More than human!" Makes me want to see Wall-E.
Whoever that is presenting Cinematography with Ben Stiller looking like a refugee from ZZ Top and stealing the show from her, she's like the new Brooke Shields -- ah, it's Natalie Portman! Betcha Slumdog wins this one too. The cinematography, with its solarized and hand-colored effects, was really new and powerful. Yep!
. . . distracted by work in progress and the need for food . . . some kind of comedy about comedies (it strikes me that almost all American comedy now is overgrown-adolescent-male; it wasn't always so!) and a musical number about musicals. "The musical is back!!" It must be a Depression.
Best Supporting Actor, again each actor introduced by an actor . . . oh nooo, poor Chris Walken sounds tremorous, like he has Parkinson's . . . Heath Ledger gets the memorial Oscar. We'll never know if his was really the best performance (some of us will have our own opinions) or if they're just paying tribute. His parents and sister receive the award; his sister accepts it in the name of his daughter. Solemnity and pain on faces in the audience.
Werner Herzog and others make it sound as if fiction movies have been taken over by digital special effects, and "reality" has now been entrusted to, or fobbed off on, the documentary, preserver of an endangered species . . . "real life." Herzog ends, "Probably we'll move in the direction of poetry, of something that really illuminates us." (How old is he?? 66. He looks so pink and healthy, the artist as happy vampire.) Bill Maher comes on and explains that the interviews were filmed by the Maysles brothers. Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens . . . Maher says go see more documentaries, eat your spinach, it's good for you . . . start with mine. The winner is Man on Wire, about Philippe Petit's walk between the towers of the World Trade Center. And there's Philippe Petit!!!! With his elfin accent, and he does a magic trick and makes a coin disappear, and balances his Oscar on his chin like a seal! Great moment . . . I missed this film (and most others) but as a New Yorker it's special to me. Petit forever made the Twin Towers something more than two ugly buildings that met a tragic end.
Special Effects (and other aspects of post-production), presented by Will Smith: Benjamin Button.
Sound Mixing: Slumdog Millionaire. It's nice to see that an actual Indian actually worked on the picture behind the camera. "This is not just an award, this is history being handed over to me." He's flanked by two Brits who don't say a word.
Film Editing: dollars to doughnuts this will be Slumdog too. It had a pace and dazzle that was not quite like anything you'd ever seen before. Yep. There's a sense that Britain is now sucking much of its vitality from the Subcontinent. Shrunken, vitiated imperial powers still clinging like pale leeches to their burgeoning, bustling, ascendant former colonies, abjectly grateful for the fresh blood.
Jerry Lewis gets the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Best original score. Likely to be Slumdog again . . . Yep! The composer, A.R. Rahman, also Indian -- South Indian, a Tamil speaker, the "Mozart of Madras," a born Hindu who converted to Sufi Islam -- says he's "excited and terrified" as never before since his wedding.
Best original song: two from Slumdog, very Bollywoodesque, one from Wall-E. Between this and Obama's election, it gives you the feeling the White Era has definitely ended. (Fine by me.) The human era, on the other hand, has only begun to end. We've still got robots outnumbered two songs to one. Jai Ho! -- "Let there be victory!"
Foreign film. Departures, Japan -- a film about a musician working in a mortuary. The director barely speaks English: "I -- am -- here -- because -- of -- films! . . . We wir be back, I hop!" The presenter sounds surprised. The politically-correct choice probably would have been Waltz With Bashir.
In Memoriam. Cyd Charisse, Bernie Mac, Michael Crichton, Harold Pinter, Kon Ichikawa, Abby Mann, Roy Scheider, Robert Mulligan (directed To Kill a Mockingbird), Claude Berri, Richard Widmark, Isaac Hayes, Jules Dassin, Charlton Heston, Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Paul Newman, and a number of people whose names you don't know but whose work you do.
Best Director introduced by Reese Witherspoon, who doesn't look so hot to me. She has pasty arms and raccoony eye shadow. Will Danny Boyle get it? The others all look sort of grimly starved -- hoping against hope, but resigned. Danny Boyle! "I'm an idiot" for leaving the guy who choreographed the final number off the credits. Longinus is his name, like a watch.
What a lineup to introduce the Best Actress nominees! Sophia Loren!! Shirley MacLaine speaks directly to Anne Hathaway (up for "Rachel Getting Married"). I don't know the young woman who speaks to Kate Winslet. But these little tributes look as if they're almost as gratifying to the actresses as winning. Halle Berry addresses Melissa Leo. Sophia Loren speaks to Meryl Streep -- what a thrill! (Probable winner, in my sight-unseen opinion.) Nicole Kidman to Angelina Jolie. KATE WINSLET gets the Oscar! She asks her dad to whistle so she can find him, and he does. She's very genuine. (She's British and doesn't have to starve herself or dread aging, which probably helps.)
Now male actors are addressing the Best Actor nominees. This is a really excellent innovation. You can see that the actors await their little tributes with almost as much anxiety as they await the winner, Michael Douglas doesn't really have much to say to Frank Langella (Nixon in Frost/Nixon). Langella looks disappointed; so am I. Robert DeNiro: "How, for so many years, did Sean Penn get all those jobs playing straight men?" Women are better at expressing themselves than men -- they actually say something unique and thoughtful, not just "Magnificent job, my friend," as Anthony Hopkins does to Brad Pitt. Except that Adrien Brody speaks rather well to the unjustly unrecognized Richard Jenkins, and Ben Kingsley does well by Mickey Rourke, "a fiercely honest actor." Sean Penn wins. Not having seen the film yet, I can't tell if this was a political or artistic judgment, or both. Apparently there were "signs of hatred" along the route to the venue. It's interesting how they interleave images from each Best Picture nominee with images from others on the same theme. In the case of Milk, it's struggle: Gandhi, union . . . it does make you feel that gay equality is the last cause, the one minority that scandalously many are willing to leave behind and Hollywood, to its credit, is not.
The Oscar goes to Slumdog Millionaire, as buzzed. The infectious "Jai Ho!" is playing. A good chunk of the cast and crew, including the police interrogator and the "host" of the "Millionaire" show from the film and the beaming little boy.
UPDATE: Here's a proposal for a "compassionate compromise" on gay marriage.
