Zac Efron + Robert Pattinson + Sophia Loren + Vanessa Hudgens: The Oscars

Zac Efron

Werner Herzog

Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman, Sairaa Rahman

Robert Pattinson, Edward Cullen in the Twilight movie franchise.

Photos: Bryan Crowe / © A.M.P.A.S.

Photos: Jon Didier / © A.M.P.A.S.

Hugh Jackman, Beyoncé Knowles, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Amanda Seyfried, Dominic Cooper perform songs from West Side Story, Grease, and Mamma Mia!, among others, in a post-camp number that makes the musical finale from Hello, Dolly! look subdued in comparison.

“The musical is back!” Jackman shouts at the end. Sure, but instead of On the Town, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Cabaret, or Hair, you have the Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens sleeper hit High School Musical 3: Senior Year.

“I’m very lucky to have been given Hanna Schmitz by Bernhard Schlink and David Hare and Stephen [Daldry] and working with you is an experience I will never forget,” Winslet said. “There was no division between the cast and the crew on this film, and that’s what made it so special. … And I want to acknowledge my fellow nominees, these goddesses. I think we all can’t believe we’re in a category with Meryl Streep at all. I’m sorry, Meryl, but you have to just suck that up!”

Marion Cotillard, last year’s winner for La Vie en Rose, presented the statuette to Winslet.

Before that, Cotillard and fellow best actress winners of years past Sophia Loren, Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry, and Shirley MacLaine, paid homage to this year’s nominees. Loren’s lengthy homage to Meryl Streep was the most interesting, if only because of Loren’s curious hand-on-hip pose.

Strangely, the former winners were introduced as the orchestra played the theme music from, of all movie titles, Gone with the Wind.

Sean Penn was the Best Actor winner for Gus Van Sant’s Milk, while Danny Boyle’s Mumbai-set Slumdog Millionaire was the Best Picture Oscar winner. Dev Patel and Freida Pinto star.

Penn’s three other previous Best Actor nominations were for Tim Robbins’ Dead Man Walking (1995), Woody Allen’s Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and Jessie Nelson’s I Am Sam (2001). Also in the Milk cast: likely Best Supporting Actor nominee Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco, Diego Luna, Alison Pill, Victor Garber, Joseph Cross, Denis O’Hare, Stephen Spinella, Lucas Grabeel, Brandon Boyce, Howard Rosenman, and Boyd Holbrook.

Photo: Darren Decker / © A.M.P.A.S.

Tina Fey and Steve Martin present the best original screenplay award to Dustin Lance Black, whose Milk chronicles the life and murder of openly gay San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk.

“When I was 13 years old … I heard the story of Harvey Milk,” Black declared, “and that gave me hope, gave me the hope to live my life as who I am and that even I one day could fall in love and get married … If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he’d want me to say to all of the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told that they are less than by their churches, by the government, or by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value. And that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you, and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights federally across this great nation of ours.”

Photo: Darren Decker / © A.M.P.A.S.

Best Actor winner Sean Penn (for Milk) caused an uproar in some quarters because of the actor’s pro-gay equality, pro-Obama acceptance speech.

“Thank you. Thank you. You commie, homo-loving sons-of-guns,” Penn said, later adding “And finally, … for those who saw the signs of [anti-gay] hatred as our cars drove in tonight, I think that it is a good time for those who voted for the ban against gay marriage to sit and reflect and anticipate their great shame and the shame in their grandchildren’s eyes if they continue that way of support. We’ve got to have equal rights for everyone.”

Later on, once again remarking on the anti-gay bigots outside the Kodak Theater, Penn said, “I’d tell ’em to turn in their hate card and find their better self … It’s very sad in a way, because it’s a demonstration of such cowardice, emotional cowardice, to be so afraid of extending the same rights to your fellow man as you would want for yourself.”

Photo: Richard Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S.

Photos: Richard Harbaugh / © A.M.P.A.S. (Patel/Pinto) Darren Decker / © A.M.P.A.S. (all other photos)

Emily Oberman and Bonnie Siegler in the New York Times (by way of David Hudson’s The Daily)

“There’s an Oscar for pretty much every aspect of filmmaking, except one: the title sequences. Titles, though, have always played a significant part in motion pictures. They may have started out as simple black-and-white cards. But in the days before sound, they already did more than identify key players: they communicated dialogue and advanced plot. And as filmmaking evolved, so did title design. Titles have become wonderful bridges from reality into the cinematic world and back out again. At their very best, they are themselves innovative, emotional experiences, microcosms of their movies.”

*** Oberman and Siegler then list a series of film title sequences, including the one in The Palm Beach Story (designer unkown, 1942), Stephen Frankfurt’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and Pablo Ferro’s Dr. Strangelove (1964). Now, what about Saul Bass’ Advise & Consent (1962)? (Bass is listed instead for Psycho [1960], above.)

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Via the Omaha Herald World, “Facts to impress your fellow Oscar watchers.” Among the impressive facts are those two quoted below:

• At 33, Kate Winslet is the youngest actress ever to get six nominations. She beat Bette Davis’ old record, set in 1942, by a year. Winslet has yet to win an Oscar. Davis had won two by the time she was 30.
• Oscar’s weird ranking system only nominates songs that scored higher than 8.25 out of 10 with its members. So, only three songs were nominated this year. Bruce Springsteen (“The Wrestler”) and Clint Eastwood (“Gran Torino”) were passed over.

*** For the record, Bette Davis (above, with John Loder in the 1942 melodrama Now, Voyager, for which she got her sixth Oscar nod) went on to receive 10 Academy Award nominations in a period of 27 years (1935-1962).

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“We think we might have created the perfect Oscar-winning film,” says The [London] Independent, “a three-hanky historical epic with [Kate] Winslet, [Daniel] Day-Lewis and [Steven] Spielberg all on board. But ‘The Tango Instructor’ is missing one vital element: your creative input, dear reader…”

“The formula for success: Only three films have won all of the ‘big five’ categories (Best Picture, Actress, Actor, Director, and Original Screenplay): It Happened One Night (a 1934 Frank Capra screwball comedy); One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman’s 1975 adaptation of Ken Kesey’s novel); and The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme’s 1991 adaptation of Thomas Harriss’ novel). If there is a common thread joining these three films, it’s that each features a combative male-female lead pair. None, though, is among the biggest Oscar winners … And to do that, it helps if the film is: long (the average running time of the Best Picture is 2hrs 20mins); sombre (the Academy is sniffy about comedies); epic (the broader the canvas, the happier the director of photography); set ‘historically’ or in a coherent fantasy world (give the production and costume designer something to work with); and able to fit in a battle (keep those visual-effects geeks happy), with some tasteful gore (ditto the make-up artists).”