Slumdog and Winslet in Oscar success

Posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Yahoo! News

Slumdog Millionaire has topped of a remarkable awards season by winning eight Oscars

And Kate Winslet, who has also got a clutch of awards under her belt this year, was another British success after picking up the Best Actress Oscar for The Reader.

Mickey Rourke was pipped to the Best Actor Award by Sean Penn for his portrayal of Gay Activist and politician Harvey Milk in the eponymously entitled Milk.

Heath Ledger won the Best Supporting Actor Award for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight - only the second time an acting Oscar had been given posthumously - and Penelope Cruz took the award for best supporting actress for her part in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Accepting his Best Director award for Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle jumped up and down and explained: "My kids are too young to remember this, but I swore that if this miracle ever happened, I would receive it in the spirit of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh."

Photo by Kaushik Biswas

Slumdog’s total of eight Oscars - for best film, director, song, musical score, adapted screenplay, cinematography, film editing and sound mixing - is the best by a British film since the Second World War romance The English Patient took nine in 1997.

Winslet, 33, has been nominated for an Oscar five times but this is the first time she has picked up one of the golden statuettes.

Accepting her award she managed to hold onto her emotions and said: "I’d be lying if I (said I) hadn’t made a version of this before I was eight years old and staring into the bathroom mirror and this (Oscar) would be a shampoo bottle, only it’s not a shampoo bottle now."

"I feel very fortunate to have made it all the way from there to here."

As he picked up his award Penn said: "You commie, homo-loving sons of guns.

"I did not expect this and I want it to be very clear that I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me often."

Penelope Cruz thanked director Woody Allen for "trusting me with this wonderful character".

"Has anybody ever fainted here?" she said. "I think I might be the first one."

Ledger’s family accepted his award on his behalf. His father Kim said: "This is ever so humbling - being amongst such wonderful people and such a wonderful industry.

"This award would have humbly validated Heath’s quiet determination to be accepted by you all here - his peers within an industry he loved."

The one disappointment of the night was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which went into the ceremony with 13 nominations, but came away with just three awards - all in the less prestigious technical categories.

The full list of awards -

Best film - Slumdog Millionaire

Best actor - Sean Penn, Milk

Best actress - Kate Winslet, The Reader

Best supporting actor - Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Best supporting actress - Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best director - Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best foreign language film - Departures

Best adapted screenplay - Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire

Best original screenplay - Dustin Lance Black, Milk

Best animated feature film - Wall-E

Art direction - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Cinematography - Slumdog Millionaire

Sound mixing - Slumdog Millionaire

Sound editing - The Dark Knight

Original score - Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman

Original song - Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman and Gulzar

Costume - The Duchess

Documentary feature - Man on Wire

Documentary short - Smile Pinki

Film editing - Slumdog Millionaire

Makeup - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Animated short - La Maison en Petits Cubes

Live action short - Spielzeugland (Toyland)


Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.