Digital Feature Wins Oscar

February 23, 2009

Lol. Maybe Christian Bale and Shane Hurlbut would have made a more effective duo?

I'd have loved it if Bale on his own presented the award for best cinematography! That certainly would have redeemed himself, somewhat.

I'm curious to hear more about Loveleen Tandan on SDM. Elsewhere on the net someone claimed that she directed most of the slum scenes and wrote the Hindi dialogue.

Has the recession hit the academy, by the way? The stage and seating area looked tiny, and the winners were literally hopping up to receive their awards.

Hal Smith · February 23, 2009

I was a bit offended that they used the Cinematography Oscar presentation to make unrelated jokes, as if no one really cared about that category.................And I'm speaking as an AMPAS member...

I thought that it was awfully tacky myself. It would have worked if Stiller had spent about ten seconds with the act and then took the props off and played it straight

They didn't exactly treat Janus with respect either. I got a kick out of them doing a reverse and showing Janus and crew during the bit but they sure as heck followed it up with disrespectful cr*p.

For every winner who said something nice about their crews there were probably ten non-nominees and also-rans who relished the opportunity to dis the techies.

On balance though I thought it was a great show. The critics hate it, but then they hated Gower Champion's 1969 breakthrough show that's now considered by some as one of the best.

John Brawley · February 23, 2009

l, but to give Slumdog a bunch is politically proper because I think that this is one of the first times that an Indian company has won this many Oscars before.

John i think this is a bit simplistic.

It's a British company (and director) telling an Indian story.

jb

Brad Grimmett · February 23, 2009

to give Slumdog a bunch is politically proper because I think that this is one of the first times that an Indian company has won this many Oscars before.

As far as I know no Indian company won any awards, or had anything to do with producing the movie. Slumdog was produced/financed by Celador (UK I believe), Film4 (UK), and Pathe (French). The producer, director, and DP are from the UK, as is most of the key crew.

Slumdog makes for an interesting story, because here are a group of people that were from India that made a low-budget film. So they gave most of the awards to the underdog, and in turn, probably made a lot of money off of the reviews and how many ppl watched it.

Cheers!

First of all, the people that made this film are not from India, as I stated above. Also, it's not that low budget. I think it was around $15 million. And the Academy doesn't make money off of the films they give awards to.

I think you're pretty confused about how the Academy and the Oscars work, not that I'm an expert.

Brad Grimmett · February 24, 2009

Stiller's bit would have been OK if it was even remotely funny, but it wasn't. It was just dumb. And he was making fun of a guy who may actually have a serious issue. I would have preferred a Christian Bale imitation.

I did think the Janusz Kaminski bit was funny. "They made me do it Mr. Spielberg. It's slow in town."