So the Oscars have been and gone without any real surprises. Slumdog Millionaire exceeded far beyond even what the most optimistic fan would have guessed at with 8 awards and Kate Winslet finally nailed her flag to the Oscar mast.
Firstly, to go over my predictions from before the event in last week’s blog entries – I decided to make the evening a bit more interesting my a succession of bets on the results. The trouble was that nearly all the awards were odds-on certs so it was difficult to make any money. Certainly getting 10p back for every £1 on Slumdog was poor value.
The trick is to sign up for a new account somewhere (I did at bluesq.com) and get a free £25 bet if you bet a similar amount on something. I staked my own money on Penelope Cruz at 2/3 on and the free bet on Kate Winslet at 1/3. For fun I also put ten £1 bets on all the rest of my predictions and preferred choices (if I’d put £25 on Sean Penn rather than a quid I would have made a killing). Overall, I got just under £60 back from my £35 stake – not bad for a bet with little genuine risk.
Sean Penn, then - the only real surprise of the night with the award previously looking destined to be dedicated to Mickey Rourke’s deceased dog. In reality, it wasn’t that much of a surprise – the acting awards are voted for by actors and Penn had already been rewarded by the Screen Actors Guild (which makes up the majority of the Oscar voters).
Ultimately, I think that Oscar voters were put off by the unpredictability of a Rourke acceptance speech. The whole show is the biggest and best advert that Hollywood has each year and the image is paramount. They weren’t willing to take the risk that primetime TV would be taken up by Rourke swearing or embarrassingly talking about Marisa Tomei’s figure. Sean Penn is the easy choice and fortunately for the Academy, the right one – although I doubt that really played much of a part.
Obviously it wouldn’t be an Oscars story without talking about Slumdog in more detail. While I’m still unconvinced by the film, it made for a great night for British film and all of the winners gave fantastic speeches – especially Danny Boyle who is perhaps the most likeable man in the industry. You couldn’t help but be pleased for everyone involved in the picture and at FilmFour who backed it, now rightly receiving plaudits for the amazing job that they do to get film projects to the big screen.
And Kate won too! I was pleased for her because she deserves the acknowledgment that I don’t think anyone realised was so important to her. I would rather that Kate have been rewarded for Revolutionary Road instead of The Reader or for one of her previously deserving works as I still stand by my opinion that Anne Hathaway was the best out of the five performances.
Firstly, to go over my predictions from before the event in last week’s blog entries – I decided to make the evening a bit more interesting my a succession of bets on the results. The trouble was that nearly all the awards were odds-on certs so it was difficult to make any money. Certainly getting 10p back for every £1 on Slumdog was poor value.
The trick is to sign up for a new account somewhere (I did at bluesq.com) and get a free £25 bet if you bet a similar amount on something. I staked my own money on Penelope Cruz at 2/3 on and the free bet on Kate Winslet at 1/3. For fun I also put ten £1 bets on all the rest of my predictions and preferred choices (if I’d put £25 on Sean Penn rather than a quid I would have made a killing). Overall, I got just under £60 back from my £35 stake – not bad for a bet with little genuine risk.
Sean Penn, then - the only real surprise of the night with the award previously looking destined to be dedicated to Mickey Rourke’s deceased dog. In reality, it wasn’t that much of a surprise – the acting awards are voted for by actors and Penn had already been rewarded by the Screen Actors Guild (which makes up the majority of the Oscar voters).
Ultimately, I think that Oscar voters were put off by the unpredictability of a Rourke acceptance speech. The whole show is the biggest and best advert that Hollywood has each year and the image is paramount. They weren’t willing to take the risk that primetime TV would be taken up by Rourke swearing or embarrassingly talking about Marisa Tomei’s figure. Sean Penn is the easy choice and fortunately for the Academy, the right one – although I doubt that really played much of a part.
Obviously it wouldn’t be an Oscars story without talking about Slumdog in more detail. While I’m still unconvinced by the film, it made for a great night for British film and all of the winners gave fantastic speeches – especially Danny Boyle who is perhaps the most likeable man in the industry. You couldn’t help but be pleased for everyone involved in the picture and at FilmFour who backed it, now rightly receiving plaudits for the amazing job that they do to get film projects to the big screen.
And Kate won too! I was pleased for her because she deserves the acknowledgment that I don’t think anyone realised was so important to her. I would rather that Kate have been rewarded for Revolutionary Road instead of The Reader or for one of her previously deserving works as I still stand by my opinion that Anne Hathaway was the best out of the five performances.
Similarly, I would have loved In Bruges to beat Milk in the Original Screenplay category and it was disappointing that the Academy chose to ignore the controversial Israeli film Waltz With Bashir in the Foreign Language category, but then every year they make a mess of that category.
The show itself was a sharp improvement on previous years of the likeable but ultimately not very glamorous Jon Stewart. Hugh Jackman made an excellent host, albeit one who was on screen for seemingly less time than it took Will Smith to present four technical awards. The song and dance numbers were vintage Hollywood, recession-busted good family entertainment. It's still a shame that it takes four hours to get through (I can't believe I stayed up until nearly half five in the morning) but it had enough about it to
The show itself was a sharp improvement on previous years of the likeable but ultimately not very glamorous Jon Stewart. Hugh Jackman made an excellent host, albeit one who was on screen for seemingly less time than it took Will Smith to present four technical awards. The song and dance numbers were vintage Hollywood, recession-busted good family entertainment. It's still a shame that it takes four hours to get through (I can't believe I stayed up until nearly half five in the morning) but it had enough about it to
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