The following is a chronological semi-live presentation of the Academy Awards show:
Update 1: Simon Beaufoy wins best Writing (adapted screenplay) for Slumdog Millionaire.
Update 2: Shots of Dev Patel and Anil Kapoor in the audience. Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix is hilarious.
Update 3: Slumdog wins best Cinematography.
Update 4: Heath Ledger wins for Best Supporting Actor, posthumously.
Update 5: Apparently Simon Beaufoy was criticized for not crediting Vikas Swarup after the Golden Globes. He definitely made up for it after his win today by mentioning Swarup on the largest stage. (Anantha via Twitter)
Update 6: Smile Pinki wins for Documentary Short Film. Smile, who? Smile, we blogged about it 2 months back. Desi man in the audience, movie crew or Pinki’s dad?
Update 7: Slumdog Millionaire loses out on best Sound Editing to The Dark Knight.
Update 8: Slumdog Millionaire wins for Best Sound Mixing. Resul Pookutty gives a nifty and heart felt acceptance speech mentioning among others Bombay, India and “Om”.
Update 9: Slumdog Millionaire wins Oscar #4 for best Film Editing.
Update 10: Will “Jai Ho” win an Oscar? If Slumdog doesn’t win for best music and best movie, there will be a sense of being robbed.
Update 11: A.R.Rahman (pronounced Ruhhhhmaaan) wins his first Oscar for best Music (Score). Seems nervous. Shouts out to his mom “mere paas maa hai” and some more shout outs in Tamil.
Update 12: “O Saya” dance item being presented live by Rahman. Rahman also presents “Jai Ho” to a rousing reception from the audience. Perhaps a sense of clairvoyancy?
Update 13: “Jai Ho” wins the Oscar for Best Song. Oscar #2 for Rahman. Oscar #1 for Gulzar. #6 for Slumdog. A major sweep in the making for Slumdog Millionaire? Still wondering who this Ruhhhmaan fellow is whom these presenters are insisting won 2 Oscars for best music.
Update 14: Freida Pinto on-stage with Liam Neeson for presenting awards for best foreign language movie. How ironic that on a day a movie about a Bombay slum kid is sweeping the Oscars, there are no Indian language movies. That’s what we get for sending duds like Jeans to the Oscars in previous years.
Update 15: It’s still sinking in. Gulzar won an Oscar! “Mere paas maa hai” was uttered on the Oscar stage.
Update 16: While Queen Latifa puts us to sleep with her lullaby, we take a short break. In the meanwhile, feel free to listen to our uber blogger Anantha’s chat with Rahman. Ruhhhmaan unassuming presence turns Anantha into excited fanboy.
Update 17: Danny Boyle wins Best Director for, you guessed it, Slumdog Millionaire. #7 for Slumdog. Personification of a British mad scientist. Shouts out to Mumbai.
Update 18: For those of you struggling to understand Will Smith’s “Boom goes the dynamite” reference, presenting one of the most awkwardly funny moments in TV history.
Update 19: Ben Kingsley among others on stage to present Oscar for best Actor. Kingsley incidentally starred in one of the duds of this year, The Love Guru. Kingsley waxes eloquent on Mickey Rourke, most likely the winner of this category.
Update 20: Sean Penn wins best actor for “Milk”.
Update 21: Slumdog Millionaire wins best picture. The crew: Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, A.R.Rahman, the child stars, all join the producer Christian Colson on the stage. Colson shouts out to “the extraordinary city of Mumbai”.
This concludes our semi-live coverage of the Academy awards, a night when Slumdog Millionaire swept the awards with 8 wins (by my latest counts). Congrats to the crew of Slumdog Millionaire.
Looks like you are one of our regular visitors. Here is our RSS feed, just another way to keep up with the new posts.
Loading ...