I did very well in my predictions, missing only the two lead actor categories. In Drama, I had predicted the award going to Sean Penn, but it went, in fact, to Mickey Rourke. I wasn't sure if the Hollywood Foreign Press would get behind him or just think the nomination was enough of a recognition. Rourke's acceptance speach was the best of the night, I believe, at least among the film winners. For a while there, I was worried that the TV stars were going to keep outdoing the movie stars, with their speaches. With regards to Actor in a Comedy/Musical, I highly doubt anyone predicted Colin Farrell. I had predcited Dustin Hoffman, since he's a respected actor, and they haven't awarded him in a while. My second guess would have been Bardem, because of continued love from last year and support of the Woody Allen film, and I thought Gleeson had a shot, since the group really liked the movie and he was a respected, British character actor. In no way did I think Farrell would win, even though a lot of people have been saying it's one of the best, if not the best, performaces he's ever given. I just thought that since he's no longer the it-boy, and it's too soon for a so-called "comeback," they would have passed him over, but I was wrong. I seriously need to
In Bruges now. The other big shocker of the night was Kate Winslet winning both Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. I'm guessing she's now a lock in both categories. A Supporting Actress Oscar nod for
The Reader was pretty much expected, but the Best Actress nod for
Revolutionary Road was kind of shaky. I'd now consider her the frontrunner for Supporting Actress, but Actress, on the other hand, is still completely up in the air. It's exciting. The Academy could surprise us, and throw us a shocker, by nominating her in Lead for
The Reader, which would actually be the correct category placement. What would happen then? Also can everyone now accept that
Slumdog Millionaire is now the frontrunner, and not the underdog. Seriously. Unless there's a huge shock, it's going to win Best Picture at the Oscars, so stop calling it an underdog!
The Winners:
Picture, Drama: Slumdog Millionaire
Picture, Comedy/Musical: Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Actor, Drama: Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
Actor, Comedy/Musical: Colin Farrell - In Bruges
Actress, Drama: Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road
Actress, Comedy/Musical: Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet - The Reader
Director: Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire
Score: Slumdog Millionaire
Song: "The Wrestler" - The Wrestler
Foreign-language Film: Waltz with Bashir
Animated Film: WALL-E
P.S.: On a completely shallow note, can I just add something about Sting and Bruce Springsteen. For two men approaching sixty, they are damn hot. I'd still do either one of them, or both of them together. Now there's a fantasy!
Today's edition of Sunday Blessings is devoted to actor Liev Schreiber, who starred most recently in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, a film which I should have been excited for, considrering the combined hirsute goodness of Schreiber and Jackman, but failed to see because of the horrid reviews. Schreiber has been in the industry since the mid-ninties, first appearing in a number of indies including Party Girl, The Daytrippers, Denise Calls Up, and Big Night. Denise Calls Up, a so-so film, is worth a rental for any Schreiber fan, just for a scene in which he's wearing nothing but a strategically placed phone. Following his indie-film start, he did a number of horror features, some good (Scream, Scream 2) some bad (Phantoms, Sphere), but his career really took off after playing Orson Welles in the HBO televsion movie RKO 281, a role for which he received a Golden Globe nomination in 2000. This past decade has been good to Schreiber in general. He gave the best performance in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, got to write and direct his first feature, Everything Is Illmuinated, won a Tony for his performance in Glengarry Glen Ross, had a successful guest run on CSI, and met his fiancee and mother of his child, Naomi Watts, on the set of The Painted Veil. Even though the film got panned, appearing in Wolverine was also a plus for him, as it gave Schreiber greater exposure, which will lead to more roles in bigger films. Hopefully some of those films require him to show a little skin. Amen.
