Last night was our Super Bowl, the 81st Annual Academy Awards, or The Oscars, for short.

We had our 4th annual Young Adult Oscar Party…about 30 people at the house watching our favorite awards show of the season. 

What a great show! Slumdog Millionaire won 8 of its 10 nominated awards, although it only could have won 9 since it had a double nomination in the Original Song category. 8 out of 9 possible wins is just about as close to a sweep as you can get. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (my favorite movie of the year) was the most nominated of the night with 13 nominations, but it only managed to win 3 awards. 

This 81st installment of “Hollywood’s Biggest Night” was about as good as I’ve seen. Even though there was a really rough start (whoever missed that curtain opening probably got an earful), Hugh Jackman did a great job as host, opening the show with a “low-budget” opening number that was absolutely hilarious.

I was so impressed with the production of the show. They really did some great things, especially the way that they did the Acting nominations with previous winners talking directly to the current nominees. I thought that was a brilliant touch and it seemed to move all of those nominated. Very cool.

My other thoughts about the show:

• Nice call having Tim Gunn host the ABC part of the red carpet. He’s better than any of those clowns on E!
• Baz Luhrmann’s musical number and Judd Apatow’s short Pineapple Express film were nice additions.
• Loved the “this year in this genre” and how they connected it to an award. Action 2008 = Visual Effects. Terrific.
• Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix…just hilarious.
• Tina Fey and Steve Martin…also hilarious.
• Jen Aniston looked a little uncomfortable presenting with Jack Black considering Brad and Angelina were right in front of them.
• LOVED that they brought all the kids from Slumdog Millionaire to the show.
• There were some bad dresses, but Amy Adams looked terrific. Marisa Tomei looked good as well.
• So glad that Kate Winslet finally got her Oscar. It’s been long-deserved. She is, by far, the most talented working actress around. And that includes Meryl Streep. She has surpassed even Meryl.
• Domo arigato Mr. Roboto. That guy wins hands down.
• Brad told me while we were watching the show that Peter Gabriel, who was in the audience, refused to participate in the Original Song performance because he didn’t get to perform the whole song. John Legend filled in and did OK, but was out of his element with the song.
• Tilda Swinton will be known as Tom Swinton from now on until she starts looking less man-ish.
• Loved the bit with Daniel Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker presenting on what looked like a sound stage.
• Queen Latifah singing over the In Memoriam section was nice. Glad they didn’t have Beyonce do it.
• The whole show felt extremely personal…the stage design was brilliant.
• Kate Winslet’s dad whistled. That was awesome.
• The joy and familial feel of the cast and crew of Slumdog Millionaire is a lot of the reason that it won. People like to be hopeful.

I mean it when I say that the actual show was one of the best I’ve seen. I wasn’t fully invested in any of the films, but I enjoyed the show a lot. It went over time, yet it didn’t feel long. That’s a success, in my opinion. What did you think?