The Oscars: What Got Awards, and What We Think of That

Look, everyone! The Academy Awards! Remember how deserving most of the nominees were last year, getting recognized for things they were deserving of being recognized for? They decided to switch it up this year, so a lot of nominees were right on the fringes of being worth noticing, but not quite. Winners:

(in order of Wolverine's presentation)

Best Supporting Actress:

Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Penelope Cruz

Best Original Screenplay:

Milk's Dustin Lance Black

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Slumdog Millionaire's Simon Beaufoy

Best Animated Feature:

Wall-E

Best Animated Short:

Les Maison en Petits Cubes

Art Direction:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's Donald Graham Burt and Victor J. Zolfo

Costume Design:

The Duchess' Michael O'Connor

Make-Up:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's Greg Cannom

Cinematography:

Slumdog Millionaire's Anthony Dod Mantle

Best Short with Human Beings In It: 

Spielzeugland

Best Supporting Actor:

The Dark Knight's Heath Ledger

Best Documentary Feature:

Man On Wire

Best Short Documentary:

Smile Pinki

Visual Effects:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's Eric Barba, Steven Preeg, Burt Dalton, and Craig Barron

Sound Editing:

The Dark Knight's Richard King

Sound Mixing:

Slumdog Millionaire's Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, and Resul Pookutty

Editing:

Slumdog Millionaire's Chris Dickens

Best Original Score:

Slumdog Millionaire's A. R. Rahman

Best Original Song:

Slumdog Millionaire's Jai Ho by A. R. Rahman, Gulzar

Best Foreign Film:

Departures from the Far East (Japan)

Best Director:

Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle

Best Actress:

The Reader's Kate Winslet

Best Actor:

Milk's Sean Penn

Best Feature:

Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog wins everything. Eight. Eight awards is how many a Slumdog wins. That's too many. Too many undeserved. Best Actress? Should have been Streep. No way does a performance as nunny as hers should go overlooked like that. I say this not having seen The Reader, so I'm just talking based on Streep-love. Cinematography? I'd have preferred Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The Dark Knight should have been in there so much more. Rourke should have beat out Penn, and I'm confused as hell why The Wrestler wasn't nominated for way more. If anything it should have been amongst Best Picture. We already knew Synecdoche, New York wasn't going to even get a bit of notice, but I say Best Picture, Best Screen Play, and Best Actor should have been owned by it. It's funny that Benjamin Button was up for Editing, what with them forgetting to take out a whole 40 minutes. I couldn't have guessed further from Ledger winning. I thought Brolin had it in the bag. An outright lie, I just made. Ledger deserved his Joker, and got it. Next year better bring a load better nominations. I rest my ramble.

 - Eric T. Voigt, Charlie Kaufman Was Raped