"Slumdog" wins big at Oscars

Here's my late review of the 2008 Oscars where Slumdog took home 8 big awards.

THE GOOD:

Slumdog Millionaire's sweep, especially for best director. I'd be lying if I said they deserved all of them (WALL-E was robbed in the music and sound categories and screenplay should have gone to Frost/Nixon). And the best picture race was looking weak without Dark Knight or WALL-E. Nevertheless it was one of the years best films and seeing it will 8 was nice.

The Dark Knight's Sound Editing win. Ledger's win was deserving as well although that was a very weak field.

THE AVERAGE:

Penelope Cruz' win. She was good and it's always nice to see a comedic performance prevail however the ladies from Doubt gave much stronger turns.

The Dutchess for costumes I guess.

Hugh Jackman did well. He kept things focused on the films nominated for his opening bit and his siging and dancing was great. However he just didn't have the wit or pressence of Billy Crystal (who also does best picture melodies) and his 2nd musical number seemed only thrown in to show off Jackman's singing and dancing chops with very no focus on the nomiabted fare.

THE BAD:

Milk had a good screenplay but no where near the brilliance of WALL-E.

Sean Penn gave a good performance but Langella should have won, making this Penn's 2nd Oscar robbery of the decade.

Kate Winslet is one of the best actor's going around but it really pained me to see her win for a performance that seemd so ridiculously crafted to win an oscar (see Extras). Add to the fact it wasn't that great compared to Melissa Leo's great Turn in Frozen River and you have one of the night's low lights.

Benjamin Button's 3 wins which all should have gone to The Dark Knight.

SUMMARY AND SCORECARD:

Decent year for Oscars despite attrocious Dark Knight and WALL-E snubs.

In every category one of my top 2 predictions prevailed and I picked the winner 15/21 to give me a success rate of 71%. (not including the short categories).