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Actress Natasha Richardson dies at 45 after ski accident

Posted on 18 March 2009 by admin 5 Comments

natasha-richardson

In a truly saddening turn of events, actress Natasha Richardson has died after sustaining injuries in a ski accident that took place three days ago. She was 45.

Richardson, the daughter of British thespian Vanessa Redgrave and director Tony Richardson first gained fame in film for her role in as the eponymous Patty Hearst in 1998 but she also had a successful career on the boards in a revival of Anton Chekov’s “The Seagull.” I personally first saw Richardson in The Handmaid’s Tale, an adaptation of a Margaret Atwood novel when it was assigned to me in a high school English class, and I thought it was an amazing role and she was amazing in it.

A better summary of her work can be found here.

After she divored her first husband, she met and married her Nell co-star Liam Neeson. He and their two children have asked for privacy at this time.

Billionaire makes jazz flicks his way

Posted on 18 March 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

armstrong-bolden If Forbes magazine named you one of the 400 richest Americans (estimated worth: $1.9 billion in 2008), what would you do with that money? If you’re billionaire Daniel Pritzker, you make a silent movie about a jazz artist.

According to Variety, the first-time director wrapped a year-long shoot on a pair of flicks, with Louis being a silent film about the youth of legendary trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong (complete with title cards) and Bolden detailing the life of cornetist Buddy Bolden whom some are saying “invented” jazz music but of whom no recordings exist (yet).

One of the quotes from the article I find the most fascinating is this one:

“I’m in the extremely fortunate position to be able to do this my way,” Pritzker said. “No studio was going to do this, especially now with what’s going on in the economy. Even if this dream dies with me right here, I’m sure happier having my money into these two films than having given the money to Bernie Madoff.”

And while I’m tempted to jump on Variety writer Michael Fleming’s wagon and wonder why a rich white Jewish son of hotel magnates is making films about influential black jazz musicians, when I learned that Pritzker is a musician, too, it started made sense. I mean, how else would he have been able to get jazz artist Wynton Marsalis to not only compose a lot of the music for Bolden but to also be a producer for it as well if he wasn’t able to explain his love for the art form?

No word on if/when/how these flicks will find distribution but if Pritzker’s as ballsy as this article is making him sound, he’ll probably finance the distribution himself. And if that means more money flowing into indie movie theaters across the nation, Pritzker can do whatever he likes with his money.

Disney tunes in to the Monster Attack Network

Posted on 17 March 2009 by admin 2 Comments

monsterattacknetwork The Game Plan and Race to Witch Mountain director Andy Fickman has been attached to another Disney film, this time working on an adaptation of a AiT/PlanetLar graphic novel called Monster Attack Network according to Variety.

The GN, which came out in 2007, is the brainchild of writers Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman and artist Nima Sorat and is the tale of a beefed-up animal control agency, but these animals are rampaging beasts on a balmy Pacific Island — à la Toho’s Monster Island.

From the Amazon product description: “Marvel at the Pacific island of Lapuatu, perfect in every way… except for the giant monsters. Thrill as Nate Klinger and his daring team of first-responders at the Monster Attack Network expertly deal with the frequent rampaging-beast-related crises. Wonder if the shady American industrialist who comes to the island bearing ‘gifts’ and the mysterious, gorgeous Lapuatuan ex-patriate are up to no good. Enjoy the hair-raising adventures of the noble men and the drop-dead sexy women of the Monster Attack Network!”

The two Hollywood scribes who have been attached to this project are newcomers Scott Elder and Josh Harmon, whose previous credits together include one episode of a Cartoon Network show I’ve never heard of called “The Secret Saturdays.”

No other details are out yet, but if this, Fickman’s third film from Disney just happens to star Dwayne Johnson I think I’m going to have to say that I smell a rat.

Or at least a Mouse.

MacGuyver duct tapes himself to feature film project

Posted on 17 March 2009 by admin 7 Comments

macguyver I’m not normally a fan of movie-to-film er, TV-to-film adaptations, and yet, the latest one to be announced from New Line has me grinning in anticipation.

The Hollywood Reporter noted that Raffaella De Laurentiis, daughter of Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis and who seems to share her father’s eye for films, will be producing a feature film version of the 1980s hit TV show “MacGuyver” for her Raffaella Productions house, along with her stepmother Martha De Laurentiis and “MacGuyver” series creator Lee Zlotoff and her father as executive producer. No other firm details have been set.

What I loved about “MacGuyver” is what almost everybody seems to love about it: a really smart guy uses his smarts to get himself out of trouble and doesn’t have to kill anyone to do it. It didn’t hurt that series star Richard Dean Anderson was so cute and seemed to have a different girlfriend or kid sidekick every episode (remember, I was 8 when this series first started).

And this may sound too damn fuzzy liberal-minded of me, but I think I like the idea of today’s audiences being introduced or re-introduced to a hero who doesn’t have to torture people to get the job done or brutally kill maim everyone who comes after him—and I’m looking directly at you two, Jack Bauer and Jason Bourne.

The only reservation I have is: who would they get to play the “new” MacGuyver? I know absolutely nothing about actors who play under the age of 25 these days, and I think that in order to play to a mainstream audience, the character would have to be recast as younger with Anderson playing a cameo or minor supporting role—a gambit that worked very well in 1994’s Maverick.

Three more key roles cast in The Last Airbender

Posted on 16 March 2009 by admin 10 Comments

mandvi-toub-curtis In a press release from Paramount sent out on Thursday and reported by Dark Horizons.com very early on Friday, they announced that four more actors have joined the cast of the M. Night Shyamalan-directed The Last Airbender (based on the hit Nickelodeon TV series “Avatar: The Last Airbender”):

Aasif Mandvi: Best known for his correspondent work for “The Daily Show,” Mandvi will be playing Commander Zhao, a leader for the Fire Nation army.
Shaun Toub: Last seen as the doctor who helps Tony Stark build his first suit in Iron Man, Toub will be playing Uncle Iroh, a father figure to the Fire Nation’s Prince Zuko.
Cliff Curtis: Best known for his leading role in the New Zealand indie Whale Rider, Curtis has been cast as Prince Zuko’s father and lead villain Fire Nation Lord Ozai.

Also cast in the film has been Keong Sim, who will play one of the Earthbenders. Sim’s IMDB bio isn’t very extensive, but since he’s a New Yorker, I’m definitely going to keep my eye on him.

Now, for the uncomfortable part.

So far, I haven’t taken an “official” stance in the ongoing debate over Shyamalan and Paramount’s Airbender casting choices, and I don’t think I’ll do so in this post either, because that’s not what it’s for.

If there’s anything that both the argument about racism in the science-fiction and fantasy genres (colloquially known as RaceFail ’09) and Jon Stewart’s televised evisceration of Jim Cramer and CNBC taught me is that the idea of trying to tackle a large important issue in less than 500 words in a forum that isn’t built for such things isn’t fair to anyone to whom this really matters—which should be everyone in the entire freaking world. Hell, there are over 3,800 words alone in this LiveJournal post of “key” links about Race Fail ’09 alone, and that’s only the titles!

However, I’m not going to keep you from wanting to post your opinions, as long as you can be mature about it and refrain from being trollish or total dicks about it. There have been a lot of interesting comments made to the original post about the lead Airbender roles being cast, and I, too, am eager to see if anything will change as a result.

Thanks for your time.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: 3 erotic movies you haven’t seen yet

Posted on 16 March 2009 by admin 4 Comments

There is a shot of bare flesh. It shows her fingernail lightly running along his spine. The shot is held only as long as that would take. It is incredibly erotic. There is a fade after they finish, and then she is standing by the window and saying she is hungry. Do they go to a restaurant? No, they go grocery shopping. When two new lovers go grocery shopping together, they are playing house, and they both know it.

—Roger Ebert, on three films that get eroticism right (Silent Light, Medicine for Melancholy, and Everlasting Moments)

Trisha’s Take: How do you make a Miyazaki film more profitable?

Posted on 15 March 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

ponyocliffsea There really isn’t much meat to this old story Variety posted about the U.S. production team of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea, but there’s an interesting tidbit in there that I’ll get to in a bit.

Joining previously announced producers Frank Marshall (the fourth Indy movie, the upcoming The Last Airbender) and Kathleen Kennedy (Persepolis, Tintin) is Pixar president John Lasseter, and was it honestly a surprise that he’d be involved?

In November 2008, the English voice cast was announced with such names as Cate Blanchett, Liam Neeson, and Noah Lindsey Cyrus—the eight-year old sister to Miley Cyrus and my pick for the lead character of Ponyo (since IMDB doesn’t have that info yet).

What is interesting is the second paragraph of the Variety article, which contains this line from writer Mark Schilling:

The goal is to boost both the number of screens and the box office take beyond [Studio] Ghibli’s record for a U.S. release set by Spirited Away, the [Hayao] Miyazaki toon that earned a little more than $10 million on 714 screens in 2002 and 2003.

However, as much of a Miyazaki fan as I am, I think that goal is doomed to failure.

I’ve been an anime and animation fan for quite some time, and I have always thought that one of the common problems of the medium is that while fans can appreciate the art and artistry of a film like Persepolis or Steamboy, the general public has traditionally thought that any movie that was animated was going to be a movie for children—and the box office numbers have reflected this.

Back when I was writing for Anime Insider, I remember we did an article on the comparative box office grosses for the top 10 anime films that have been released in the U.S. Unfortunately, I can’t find that article right now—and besides, it would be five years old—but I did find something similar online that was written for the Associated Content website (a sort of clearing house for freelance writers to get noticed).

North Carolina screenwriting graduate student Will Wright took a look at the 15 highest grossing anime films of all time, and he discovered that out of the top five anime films, the first four slots were taken up by kiddie franchises Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! and Spirited Away has the fifth slot.

When you click through to the Box Office Mojo page, though, you notice that figure of “a little over $10 million” represents only 3.7% of the total gross that Spirited Away achieved. In contrast, Pokemon: The First Movie (which I did see, and yes, I did enjoy it at the time) has a domestic gross of over $85 million which represents 52.4% of its total gross.

Kinda makes that $10 million dollar figure for an Academy Award winning movie look kinda paltry, doesn’t it?

Here where I live in the U.S., we have made some great strides towards creating cel or cel-like animation that audiences other than children can enjoy, but those strides have been almost entirely in the sitcom form, lead by “The Simpsons” and continued by “King of the Hill,” “Family Guy” and even “Drawn Together.”

The only animated show I can think of in the last 20 years that is sophisticated enough to be more than just a sitcom was “The Boondocks,” but that’s not very surprising considering its source material was the left-leaning, politically-minded comic strip by Aaron McGruder. Other people will probably chime in and say that “Avatar: The Last Airbender” is a show that adults can (and do) enjoy, but I’m actually not counting it in my list because it’s a show aimed squarely at the kid audience.

The bottom line is, the mainstream U.S. audience still isn’t there enough to get behind a cel-animated film that isn’t by Disney, which is something that even Disney knows because the last time they made a full-length one was 2004’s Home on the Range which grossed only $50 million on a estimated budget of $110 million. And to get that Disney-like audience might require a whole bunch of changes that would piss off the already existing fanbase.

In any case, I’m definitely waiting to see what Lasseter has up his sleeve and praying that it will be enough to help justify the idea of re-introducing 2D animation back into our film lexicon.

Mad Max to get new life as a 3D anime film

Posted on 5 March 2009 by admin 1 Comment

madmax When we last heard from director George Miller, he and his people were busy refuting rumors that he’d been kicked off of the Justice League movie and that — as we quote from the original Coming Soon article — “he’d like to work with Mel Gibson again [on another Mad Max film].”

Oh, what a difference three months makes!

For Thursday afternoon, Eric Ditzian at the MTV Movies blog scored an interview with Miller where he reveals that not only will Mel Gibson not be part of the next Mad Max film, it will be a 3D anime extravaganza, complete with its own video game.

From the site:

For the anime release, Miller isn’t looking simply to mimic Japanese-style animation but rather to adapt it for Western audiences. “The anime is an opportunity for me to shift a little bit about what anime is doing because anime is ripe for an adjustment or sea change,” he explained. “It’s coming in games and I believe it’s the same in anime. There’s going to be a hybrid anime where it shifts more towards Western sensibilities. [Japanese filmmaker Akira] Kurosawa was able to bridge that gap between the Japanese sensibilities and the West and make those definitive films.”

There’s something a little off about that statement, partially because the only “sea change” that’s coming to the anime industry is its dawning realization that the overseas fanbase doesn’t want to pay money to see it anymore. The plot will be recycled from the plot for the original fourth movie, which was to be made in 2003 but production was halted when financing became an issue. So when will this come out?

“I’ve got a couple of years left,” said Miller. “We’re in the early stages writing and designing. A really good game you need two and half years. And for good anime you need two years.

And there you have it.

Woody Allen adds Pinto and others to cast of latest film

Posted on 2 March 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

freidapinto After starring in the sleeper-hit of 2008 and taking the awards circuit by storm, what do you think former model-turned actress Freida Pinto would do for her next project?

Why, star in a film directed by Woody Allen, of course!

Mere hours after the stragglers came in from celebrating at the Oscars-after parties last week, Variety reported that the Slumdog Millionaire star would take the ingenue role in Woody Allen’s next unnamed ensemble picture.

Also joining the cast will be Naomi Watts, and announced later that week, Antonio Banderas, who will join previously announced actors Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins.

Hell of a sophomore effort by Pinto and her agents. Let’s hope that she continues to make good acting choices (I’m looking at you, Mira Sorvino).

WB rolls out release dates for Hex, Green Lantern and more

Posted on 27 February 2009 by admin 4 Comments

I hope you have your calendars handy, for it’s movie release date updating time!

From Jeff Bock at ercBoxOffice.com comes a list of release dates for several Warner Bros. films, and which of the other mainstream movies they’ll be up against, courtesy of ComingSoon.net and IMDBPro.com:

December 25: Sherlock Holmes (moved from November 13)
Also scheduled for that date: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, The Princess and the Frog, an untitled Nancy Meyers romantic comedy

March 26, 2010: The Clash of the Titans
Also scheduled for that date: How to Train Your Dragon (an IMAX 3D film), Law Abiding Citizen

July 16, 2010: Inception
Also scheduled for that date: Thor

August 6, 2010: Jonah Hex

October 8, 2010: Suckerpunch

December 17, 2010: Green Lantern
Also scheduled for that date: The Smurfs

July 15, 2011: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
Also scheduled for that date: The Avengers

Gore Verbinski to direct new Clue movie

Posted on 25 February 2009 by admin 8 Comments

clue-the-movie I’ll just say this now: This project must be stopped. Why? Because we don’t need another Clue movie, as reported by Variety.

Even though the fact that it had three endings which were shuffled among theaters was a gimmick and it only made $2 million in its opening weekend ($3.8M, if you adjust for inflation), 1985’s Clue: The Movie as written and directed by Jonathan Lynn, and starring such fantastic character actors as Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Martin Mull, and Lesley Ann Warren is a great example of what one can do with a great concept that doesn’t really have a rich story or plot: You cheese it up.

And I am very fond of cheese.

Instead, production studio Blind Wink senior vice president Jonathan Krauss was quoted as saying that this new version of the classic 1948 board game Clue will be “a global thriller [emphasis mine] and transmedia event that uses deductive reasoning as its storytelling engine.”

I hope he can hear me rolling my eyes over there.

Astro Boy film back on track

Posted on 25 February 2009 by admin Leave a Comment

astroboy-still Anime fans rejoice! For the Astro Boy feature film is back on track, according to Variety, after Imagi Entertainment completed a round of financing, garnering $25 million and hiring back most of its staff members to complete the work after they called a halt last month.

With the cash influx, the film—which will be directed by David Bowers (TMNT) and feature the voices of actors including Kristen Bell, Nicolas Cage, Eugene Levy, Donald Sutherland—should be on schedule to make its October 23 release date.

Additionally, these additional funds will also help the company develop previously announced projects Gatchaman and Tusker for the big screen.

Is this the kind of economic stimulus President Obama meant last night?

Related Posts: Trailer Watch: Astro Boy teaser trailer

Green Hornet gains director Michel Gondry

Posted on 24 February 2009 by admin 3 Comments

michelgondry I have to say that while Gordon is over the moon, I’m not entirely sure what to think of the news that Hollywood Reporter‘s Borys Kit laid on us Tuesday afternoon: Michel Gondry will be directing the new Green Hornet movie from Columbia Pictures.

On the one hand, it’s good that even after Stephen Chow stepped down from being its director—but is still in the cast as Kato to co-screenwriter Seth Rogan’s Britt Reid—executive producers Rogen and co-screenwriter/co-executive producer Evan Goldberg have enough clout and power to secure another director so quickly, and one of Gondry’s caliber to boot.

On the other hand, while I fell in love with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and even braved the bitter, bitter cold last March to watch the elephants walk through the middle of New York City on their way to Madison Square Garden just like Clementine and Joel did, I don’t know if Gondry’s directorial style will work well with Chow’s acting style or Rogen’s acting/writing style. It’s just too weird for me to even try to imagine.

So I guess the jury’s still out on this film for me.

Director Howard Zieff dies at 81

Posted on 24 February 2009 by admin 2 Comments

howardzieff

Best known as the director of Private Benjamin and both My Girl movies, American director Howard Zieff died on Sunday in Los Angeles from complications due to Parkinson’s disease. He was 81.

Zieff started out as a stills photographer the 1960s and moved into being a TV ad director, creating such memorable spots as the Alka Seltzer ad where an actor is forced to eat meatball after meatball when he flubs his lines, leading to of course, his need for the plop-plop, fizz-fizz.

Called the “master of the mini ha ha” but also a trailblazer for introducing the idea of having regular, everyday people be the focus of ads rather than perfect blonde-haired, straight-teethed ingenues, Zieff parlayed his 30-second spot talent into feature films, starting with Slither in 1973, starring James Caan and Peter Boyle.

But it was 1980’s Private Benjamin which was perhaps his most-recognized film, and his skillful direction earned Academy Award nominations for lead actress Goldie Hawn and supporting actress Eileen Brennan.

One of the last films Zieff made was My Girl in 1991, a coming of age film which starred Anna Chumlusky and included a somewhat controversial scene where then-“It” boy Macaulay Culkin gets stung to death by bees. After making the sequel three years later, Zieff retired from making movies.

He is survived by his wife, and his talent will be missed.

Liveblogging the Oscars

Posted on 22 February 2009 by admin 12 Comments

oscars-09 This is a new experiment for us here at MovieMake-out.com, which is our liveblog of the 81st annual Academy Awards ceremony. I’ll be your host and lead blogger and I’m hoping that Gordon will be able to chime in from time to time when he’s not working on Monday’s Multiplex comic. (Sorry, Trisha! I was swamped. — gm)

To join in on the conversation and fun, you can either respond below or holla at me by sending a message to “@trishalynn” on Twitter.

Click for the liveblog! (All times are Eastern, ’cause I’m in NYC.)

5:46 pm So I’m destressing before the actual pre-show event by watching “Ace of Cakes.” I do not have any preconceptions about how the actual show will go, despite the producers’ hope of an actual party atmosphere. And as for the rest of you who are actually watching this in your homes or someone else’s homes (and are over the age of 21) here’s a link to the first Oscars drinking game I found via Google that I liked. Alas, I only have one bottle of beer and one bottle of wine in my apartment and must blog, so I can’t play along. Boo responsibility!

6:50 pm Switched over to ABC’s coverage, and man is this boring. One thing that must not be forgotten about this year’s Oscar night is that this will be the first year that advertisements for upcoming movies can be shown during the telecast.

And as we noted in one of our previous posts, we may get to see even new trailers for movies like X-Men Origins: Wolverine (May 1), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (June 26), and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (July 17). The question is, of the sole ad spot each distributor will get, which movies will they go with?

6:53 pm And speaking of ABC’s coverage, the audio from the microphone has just cut out during Melissa Leo’s (Best Actress nominee for Frozen River) interview. Let’s hope that Taraji P. Henson’s (Best Supporting Actress for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) interview goes better. Aw… her namechecking was so cute.

7:14 pm Say what you will about Barbara Walters, but I do love her first follow-up to the dating question she asked Nick Jonas because gave a direct quote for him to rebutt, and though he didn’t, it makes him and the rest of the Jonas Brothers look evasive for not answering. She was a serious journalist once upon a time, and for that I still have a modicum of respect for her.

7:41 pm The money quote from the Barbara Walters interview with Mickey Rourke, about what it would mean to him if he won the Best Actor award: “You can’t eat it, you can’t fuck it, and it won’t get [you] into heaven.” Word.

8:02 pm Oh hooray! Tim Gunn is doing the live red carpet stuff on ABC. I’m good with that, and Kate Winslet is wearing a dress that’s an updated version of the schizoid dress that Kim Basinger wore years ago. Sarah Jessica Parker has vagina-boob arms going on, and it’s kinda sad. [Edit: Perhaps this is pre-taped… but that’s okay by me.]

8:17 pm Mickey Rourke is so freaking hot in Jean-Paul Gauthier. I do not know why the kids from HSM or Miley Cyrus are doing interviews on the red carpet, but if Hannah Montanna: The Movie does get an Oscars nomination next year, I think I will have to puke.

8:27 pm Okay, playing the accountancy sea shanty from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life while introducing the Pricewaterhouse Coopers guys? Well played, ABC. Marissa Tomei looks like she’s wearing a bunch of cocktail napkins stitched together. And this montage about what the Oscars are going to look and sound like? WTH?

8:28 pm Here we go… after these words from our sponsors.

8:38 pm No opening video montage, and the first song sounds like a mash-up of “Sing, Sing, Sing” and some Aaron Copeland piece. Not a good start, imo. RDJ applauding himself? Awesome. Hugh with a disparaging joke about Australia? OH YEAHHHHH… I think my ovaries are combusting right now. Craigslist dancers? Cheap little backgrounds, and Anne Hathaway singing and doing a Nixon pose? And the finale? Okay, I take it back, this Oscars telecast could be very, very awesome.

8:47 pm Okay, five presenters per award? This could get somewhat tedious, but I think I like the idea of these elder stateswomen passing the torch to the next actresses. Goldie Hawn, I really wish that you had taken a brush to your hair. And the first award goes to…Penelope Cruz.

9:02 pm Well played, Tina Fey and Steve Martin. But I do have to wonder abour Fey’s hair because she reminds me of the woman in the pre-show film for the Star Tours ride at Disneyland. Goddamn, I really want WALL-E to win… and am disappointed when Dustin Lance Black wins for Milk. Lots of applause for Black’s speech and yes, yes, yes! for the equal rights moment in his speech. And is this the beginning of the Slumdog Millionaire steamroll?

9:07 pm Strangest presenter combo of the evening? Jennifer Aniston and Jack Black. I really wanted to pour one out for the Iron Giant mention, because if there’s a movie that really deserved some kudos, that was it. And the Dreamworks/Pixar joke? Would have probably worked coming out of a different presenter’s mouth. Hooray for WALL-E, which was a shoo-in. And look how cute Kumio Kato is… thanking his pencil, and doing a Mr. Roboto joke after winning the best animated short film award.

9:24 pm I think I really like the format for these Oscars, going through them in the order of how a film is made, because a lot of people do forget about the little people. Having the music play under the intro speeches? Is very freaking distracting. I am still not in love with Sarah Jessica Parker’s dress or boobage. Benjamin Button picks up the art direction and make-up awards, which means that it’s trending to be honored more for its technical aspects than its acting ones. The Duchess gets the costume design award, and I’ll bet this screws up a lot of people in their office pools.

9:29 pm Teeny-boppers presenting a movie montage above love? Ugh… and I don’t even know who the girl presenting with SparklyVampire was.

9:35 pm OMGWTF, Ben Stiller?! What the hell is up with these weirdo presenter combos? And Slumdog racks up another win, this time in cinematography.

9:40 pm And… once again, the Sci-Tech award winners get shafted. They didn’t even show more than two of its winners? *rolls eyes* But at least we know that Dreamworks and/or Paramount won’t be able to show any other trailers during this broadcast because they shot their wad with The Soloist.

9:47 pm Comedy montage? Not bad… best moment was when the cinematographer guy got involved, both in the montage and on stage. And here’s another office pool breaker… Spielzeugland (aka Toyland), for best live-action short.

9:57 pm “The musical is back, ladies and gentlemen!” Oh yes, I love it when he dances. But honestly? Wasn’t the very first part of this song a take on “All I Need is the Girl”? It’s a shame that I don’t know who the hell this woman is– oh wait, that’s what the High School Musical kids were doing on the red carpet and whatnot and that’s Beyonce. I am such a dork. ABBA done as a drum and bugle corps number? Not bad, but it’s a shame that you really can’t see the real musicals that are showing on the scrim behind the dancers at the top of the stage. And I totally should have guessed that Bah Luhrmann was behind that.

9:59 pm Green Card + Two Weeks Notice = The Proposal. And there’s Touchstone’s wad blown.

10:08 pm And here we go with the best supporting actor award nominees, and man! I’m actually very happy to see Joel Gray up there. Oh, Cuba Gooding, Jr. Thank you for saying everything we wanted to say when we first heard about RDJ’s part in Tropic Thunder. So glad Heath Ledger won this award, and yes, he did deserve it. *sniffle* Nicely done, Ledger family.

10:15 pm Apparently no one’s surprised that Man on Wire wins best feature documentary. But nicely done, Philippe Petit for not only doing a magic trick on the stage, but balancing the Oscar on your chin. Smile Pinki wins best short documentary; I have to think that Megan Mylan memorized her speech.

10:35 pm Action montage was mostly all superhero movies, and that’s fine with me. Once again, Benjamin Button gets the visual effects award here. I honestly think that when it comes to geek-awards, we shot our wad with The Return of the King and won’t get another chance for two more decades. Whoops, I take that back, we got sound editing with The Dark Knight. And Slumdog Millionaire gets one more for sound mixing, in a category I doubted they’d win. Nice job, giving most of the speech to Resul Pookutty. And here’s another one to Chris Dickens for film editing on Millionaire.

10:50 pm The more I see the promo for “Castle” the less I want to see it, even if it does star Captain Tightpants.

11:01 pm Musical score montage ends with Slumdog Millionaire; is that a sign it’s gonna win? Love Alicia Keyes’ pronunciation. Yep… another one for Millionaire, for original score. Wait, why are there taiko drummers on stage with Hindi dancers? I think that I really like the fact that they were able to blend the songs so well into one song. Hooray for mashups? Will this be yet another Slumdog win? And…. yep. This is starting to get boring.

11:10 pm Though I’m sad that Ploning didn’t get a nomination and glad that Waltz with Bashir was able to be nominated, I know nothing at all about Departure.

11:15 pm Oh, damn… I do believe I detest this new format for this part of the show because I want to see the full images of the people who have died. What the hell is up with this damn sweeping camera bullshit? So pissed off.

11:23 pm Reese Witherspoon is wearing a very strange dress tonight. David Fincher looks like he doesn’t think he’s going to win. Hah! Nice of Danny Boyle to start with a light moment. And he is right that it’s been a pretty good show so far.

11:33 pm Marlee Matlin winning her best actress Oscar was one of my favorite moments. But why did they use the theme from Tara during the announcement of which five previous best actress winners? And Shirley MacClaine’s speech to Anne Hathaway is why I think I love this new idea of having the previous winners present to the present nominees. Of course Sophia Loren is presenting to Meryl Streep. How could she not? But is it just me, or does Loren look like she’s on something? I’m sure Dr. Pauly or Change100 would know. And yay for Kate Winslet, because Anne Hathaway will indeed be back in a future year to win. Oh, how cute is her father for whistling like that? Love his hat.

11:43 pm I hope Adrien Brody kisses the winner of this category, because that would be awesome. And now I’m so curious as to how exactly they matched up these previous presenters with the current nominees. Michael Douglas’ father played opposite Frank Langella. I do not get the DeNiro/Penn connection, unless it’s a Tribeca Film Festival thing. And I also don’t remember when Brad Pitt worked with Anthony Hopkins. Kinda disappointed Mickey Rourke didn’t win, but this is definitely going to make me try and catch Sean Penn in Milk if they decide to show it again. “I do know how hard I make it hard to appreciate me,” “Commie homo-loving sons of guns” and his admonishment at the end to the Proposition 8 supporters makes this one of the best speeches ever.

11:53 pm And finally, at the end of the evening, our grand prize winner is… Slumdog Millionaire, with almost the entire cast and crew coming up on stage to accept the film.

And we’re out of here…!

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