Rags to riches 'Slumdog Millionaire' takes home eight Oscars

The independent movie sensation "Slumdog Millionaire" picked up eight Oscars at Sunday night's 81st annual Academy Awards show -- including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Song and Score.

Directed by Danny Boyle, made for a paltry $15 million, using subtitles and featuring no-name actors, "Slumdog"-- the story of an impoverished boy in Mumbai seeking his true love -- was almost released directly to DVD. In all, it earned 10 Oscar nominations.

Sean Penn was named best actor for his role as gay activist Harvey Milk in "Milk," and Kate Winslet won best actress for her role as a former Nazi prison guard in "The Reader." Heath Ledger was awarded a posthumous Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight," and Penélope Cruz received Best Supporting Actress for her tumultuous role in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

"Has anybody ever fainted here? Because I might be the first one," said Cruz. She went on to proclaim the Oscars "a moment of unity for the entire world."

"Milk" scribe Dustin Lance Black took Best Original Screenplay, and Simon Beaufoy grabbed Best Adapted Screenplay for "Slumdog Millionaire."

"You commie, homo-loving sons of guns, I did not expect this," said Penn upon collecting his second best actor Oscar -- he won previously in 2004 for "Mystic River" -- for playing Milk, the openly gay San Francisco city supervisor who was assassinated in the late '70s.

Winslet, who won after five previous nominations, called out into the audience, wondering where her father was so she could thank him. She asked him to whistle so she could spot him. He did.

Hoping to retain movie fans after years of dwindling TV ratings the show's producers tried some new approaches this year, from bringing in film star Hugh Jackman as host (after a long tradition of comic emcees) to changing the way awards were handed out.

If it was supposed to speed things up, it failed miserably: The show ran more than three hours.

In the face of a global recession, it was a consciously retro night, obviously hoping to dip into some '30s Depression nostalgia, with the orchestra lining the back of the stage and song-and-dance man (and sometime mutant) Jackman playing the role of supper club host.

Jackman started out with a Billy Crystal-like number wrapping all the best picture nominees together, but instead of outlandish sets, he performed with bare-boned cardboard cutouts that could have been made in a garage ("Everything is being downsized because of the recession," Jackman explained).

Sporting a healthy dollop of Bob Hope-like self deprecation, Jackman sang out, "I would swim a sea of human excrement," introduced "the Craigslist dancers!", brought Anne Hathaway up from the audience to play the part of Richard Nixon and ended with "I am a slumdog, I am a wrestler, I'll rent 'The Reader,' I am... Wolverine!" It wasn't Crystal, but it wasn't bad.

Going for that celeb-intimate feel, Jackman then kidded around with nominees Frank Langella, Hathaway, Mickey Rourke ("We have a seven-second delay, but if you win, we switch to a 20-minute delay," Jackman said), and 15-time nominee Meryl Streep ("When someone puts up numbers like that, it's hard not to think... steroids").

It was a nice enough warm-up, but then things started going awry. The entire proceedings were supposed to follow the hypothetical development of a film (screenwriting to design to costumes, etc.) but that concept seemed to come and go.

The inconsistency was at least partly the fault of too many shamelessly promotional "2008 Movie Yearbook" clips (because we all needed to relive "Space Chimps" and "Seven Pounds"), although the yearbook idea did reunite the year's best comic pairing, James Franco and Seth Rogen, in a hilarious filmed bit.

Even less relevant -- or needed -- was Jackman's top-hatted musical medley (with Beyoncé et al) at the midpoint. Dude, it's 2009. The musical isn't that back.

Still, the idea of bundling together two and three award sets (design, costumes, makeup, etc.) helped move things along and cut down on the clumsy presentations.

Unfortunately, any time savings gained there was squandered in the embarrassing excess of trotting out five former winners to praise the five nominees in each acting category. Whoever came up with this idea obviously had no experience with either the human tendency to ramble or the space-time continuum.

The tearful moments and peer hugging reeked of over-indulgent self-congratulation and carried all the sincerity of a corporate love-in. After each award, the stage looked like a crowded bus stop for famous people.

You can reach Tom Long at (313) 222-8879 or tlong@detnews.com">tlong@detnews.com.