2008 Academy Awards Recap

These Academy Awards saw the film nobody saw coming until its release, Slumdog Millionaire, dominate the ceremony taking home 8 Oscars out of 10, the most by a film since Return of the King. Hugh Jackman was a very warm and charming host giving us so many dance and song numbers we're bound to see again on YouTube. A very good call by the Academy on that front. No big surprises on the Acting awards. Some people will be upset Mickey Rourke did not win, but Sean Penn was wonderful as Harvey Milk. By the time Hugh started his first number we have forgotten The Dark Knight was not in contention for Best Picture, but everyone stood on their feet when Heath Ledger's name was called for Best Supporting Actor and his family gave a very moving speech of his memory. Jerry Lewis was very humble in his speech for the Jean Herseholt Award. Perhaps a slight problem in this year's ceremony might have been its predictability for the winners. Indeed I'm sure a lot of critics and bloggers will have a very high score in predicting the award recipients. I had a score of 17 out of 24 myself, but I missed 2 of the categories I usually have no idea who'll win, being Animated Short and Documentary Short Subject. I did however miss 2 of the acting categories, predicting Viola Davis instead of Cruz and prefering Rourke to Penn. A nice concept was born tonight, with 5 winning actors presenting the nominees and giving a short description of their performances. I hope this will continue for many years to come. I hope next year's ceremony will be as entertaining as this year's.

Well, what did you think?