Complete list of 2009 Oscar winners

Best Picture of the Year: "Slumdog Millionaire". Read more about the film.

Best Actor: Sean Penn (left) for "Milk". Read more about the performance.

Best Actress: Kate Winslet (right) for "The Reader". Read more about the performance.

Best Director: Danny Boyle for "Slumdog Millionaire". Read more about the director.

Best Foreign Language Film: "Departures" (Japan)

Best Original Song: "Jai Ho" ( from "Slumdog Millionaire"). Read more about the film.

Best Original Score: "Slumdog Millionaire".

Best Film Editing: "Slumdog Millionaire".

Best Sound Mixing: "Slumdog Millionaire". Read more about the film.

Best Sound Editing: "The Dark Knight". Read more about the film.

Best Visual Effects: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". Read more about the film.

Best Documentary Short: "Smile Pinki".

Best Documentary Feature: "Man on Wire".

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger for "The Dark Knight" (left). Read more about the performance.

Best Live Action Short: "Spielzeugland (Toyland)".

Best Cinematography: "Slumdog Millionaire". Read more about the film.

Best Make Up: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". Read more about the film.

Best Costume Design: "The Duchess".

Best Art Direction: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". (right) Read more about the film .

Best Animated Short: "La Maison en Petits Cubes".

Best Animated Feature: "Wall-E". Read more about the film.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy for "Slumdog Millionaire". Read more about the film.

Best Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black for "Milk". Read more about the film .

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz (left) for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". Read more about her performance.

Take a look behind the scenes at the Oscars with Variety's Stuart Oldham.

See the complete list of nominees.

Complete coverage at Award Central.

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Complete list of 2009 Oscar winners

81st Academy Awards was full of surprises, positive ones mostly, especially for 'Slumdog Millionaire'. The movie was nominated for 10 Oscars, and won eight, including for Best Motion Picture. 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', the front-runner of the evening with 13 nominations, finished with only three awards.

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Christopher Walken Cowbell - Saturday Night Live

Soundboard Archive - Prank Call Soundboards

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La Maison en Petit Cubes VIDEO!

VIDEO! Watch again video of the Oscar win by Kunio Kato shouting “Domo Arigato Mr Roboto” ! La Maison en Petits Cubeswon Best Animated Short at the Academy Awards tonight.

CLICK HERE FOR THE OSCARS VIDEO

CLICK HERE FOR THE ORIGINAL MR ROBOTO VIDEO

Domo Arigato Mr Roboto speech clearly won Best Short Speech for the Oscars. The reference is to the 1983 album by Styx “Kilroy Was Here” that hit number 3 that year. And now two decades later it’s the most talked about clip from the show!

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Heath Ledger's Family Accepting His Posthumous Oscar: 'Validated Heath's Quiet Determination'

Heath Ledger won best supporting actor for his final role as Joker in "The Dark Night" at Sunday night’s Academy Awards.

His father, Kim, mother, Sally, and sister, Kate, accepted the award on the late actor’s behalf. "This award tonight …. validated Heath’s quiet determination to be truly accepted by you all here, his peers, in an industry that he so loved," his father said. He would have been very proud.

The Australian actor died on January 22 at the age of 28. The cause of death was from an accidental overdose of prescription medications. Ledger’s 3-year-old daughter, Matilda Rose, will eventually keep dad’s Oscar statuette. Matilda Rose is Ledger’s only child with actress Michelle Williams.

In recent weeks, Leger has won a series of awards, including a Golden Globe, British BAFTA and a Screen Actors Guild. On Sunday, Ledger became the second actor to win a post humorous Oscar. The first posthumous Oscar was awarded to Sidney Howard for his screenplay "Gone With the Wind."

Ledger doesn’t just leave behind friends and family, but millions of adoring fans, who are saddened to have lost such great talent.

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Big Bang Mini Review: Boom Goes The Dynamite

Who would have thought that fireworks, of all things, would provide so much inspiration for video games? Aside from their obvious celebratory implementation in sports games, the firework has recently become a key gameplay element in more than one game, the latest of which is SouthPeak’s DS title, “Big Bang Mini.” This time around, the firework’s role has been expertly crafted for Nintendo’s touchy portable, providing the most fun I’ve had playing with fireworks since that time when I was a kid, and I almost had to go to the hospital.

At its heart, “Big Bang Mini” is a shooter, and, in a genre that’s known for its difficulty, “Big Bang” can hang with the big boys. Each level in the game has ten stages, a boss, and an overall theme based on the location of the level. The point of each stage is to collect enough stars by shooting your enemies down to fill up your meter, once the meter is full the stage is over, and you get to take a shot at a bonus level. While that may sound cut and dry, there is one added element to contend with; a small orb that you have to, at all times, keep out of harms way, or else you game comes to an immediate end. Additionally, moving the orb around is vital, as it is the only way to collect the falling stars you need in order to advance. Of course, your shots aren’t coming out of the orb – that would be too easy - they can originate from anywhere on the touch screen, just as long as you can keep the orb safe, which is a daunting task, especially in the later levels.

With each of the different levels having a theme based on its location, the levels take you around the world, from Paris to New York to Luxor (note: I know Luxor is not a real place, but one of Arkedo’s earlier titles). The themes create a unique environment for each level in the arcade mode, introducing new scenery, enemies, and even gameplay elements. As you progress through the game, your shooting ability is upgraded with a couple of different shots that remain persistent throughout the game, but most of the levels also grant you a world specific upgrade. Most of these upgrades are focused on defense, allowing you to avoid the shots coming at you in different ways, but there are some unique ones, like the ability to stop time, and the ability to lasso oncoming fire. Arkedo did a great job of mixing up the elements to make each world feel unique, and always keep the player on their toes.

Unfortunately, as much as I enjoyed the themes, they also spawned my first noticeable complaint about the game. The environments in the game change with each theme change, and along with them, so does the music, which is really a blessing. Some of the individual levels are exceptionally challenging and force you to replay them over and over again, but the music never changes. It’s always the same song for all ten of the stages, and the boss, and it becomes really repetitive really quickly. Don’t get me wrong, the audio in the game is great, I just got tired of hearing it so much.

But, if redundant music is the only complaint I have about the game, then we’d be in really good shape… right? Well, there’s good news, and bad news. The bad news is, that wasn’t my only problem with “Big Bang Mini.” The good news is there was only one other really big issue that I had with the game that really affected the gameplay – the precision of the targeting of the shots. Throughout the game the ability to hit a moving target is vital, making it imperative that your shots are on target, and sometimes your fireworks don’t go where you want/need them to go. With each flick of the stylus you really need to hope that your shots are headed in the direction that you need them to, or else the debris from your missed shot is going to be coming back at you. It’s not even that this is something you can get good at, sometimes it’s just luck.

Fortunately, to make up for the couple of drawbacks of the game, “Big Bang Mini” offers a huge assortment of game modes, most of which are unlocked as you play through the game. The Arcade (standard beat this level) and Versus (multiplayer) modes are unlocked after completing the Tutorial, and even if you didn’t unlock anything else, both of these modes can suck up a ton of your time. Should you continue, Challenge (highest score) and Mission (complete the objective) modes are next, based on your success in the Arcade mode, while they don’t offer anything really new in terms of gameplay, they do offer a different way to experience the game. Beyond that, there’s a few surprises, but only the truly dedicated “Big Bang” fan is going to be able to experience those.

Overall, “Big Bang Mini” is unlike a lot of games that are on the market today. This uniqueness becomes very quickly apparent when the game suddenly throws you into its 8-bit randomizer levels (which I still can’t completely explain), or when you’re being attacked by a cat that is pooping stars at you. Sometimes good things come in little packages, such is the case for SouthPeak’s, “Big Bang Mini;” it’s a tiny game, at a tiny price, for the smallest system, with the word “mini” in the title. You really don’t get any smaller than that. Fortunately, this everyman’s shooter is a package that everyone can really enjoy.

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The Witness From the Balcony of Room 306 - Oscar Nom on HBO February 18

The Witness: From the Balcony of Room 306, filmmaker Adam Pertofsky's stirring documentary about the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., premieres on February 18 on HBO2, as part of the cable network's Black History Month programming. The 32-minute Oscar-nominated nonfiction short features eyewitness testimony by Reverend Samuel "Billy" Kyles, a close friend and colleague of Dr. King's, who was standing beside Dr. King on the balcony outside room 308 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN, when the beloved civil rights leader was slain on April 4, 1968.
Reverend Kyles, a powerful preacher and compelling orator in his own right, tells of events preceding Dr. King's death, including his arrival in Memphis to support local garbage men in their strike for higher wages and the hour of light-hearted conversation with Dr. King that preceded their fateful appearance on the balcony.
Pertovsky actually interviewed Kyles on that very balcony and includes archival footage and photographs from the day of the fatal shooting, which gives the film an almost eerie sense of immediacy and place.

Also interviewed for the film, Maxine Smith and Benjamin Hooks speak soulfully of the ironies of circumstance and timing, and remind us of the emotionally devastating effects of Dr. King's death. But the most effective reminders of all are the archival clips we see of Dr. King's last speech, the famous "dream" address in which he actually predicts his own assassination--"I may not live to see it," he comments--but passionately proclaims that the movement for equal rights will be triumphant. Reverend Kyles' emotionally-charged comment that "you can kill the dreamer, but the dream lives on" stands as the strong message of this moving documentary--and it's a message that has tremendous resonance as we celebrate Black History Month and the election of the first African-American president of the United States.

You can see The Witness From the Balcony of Room 306 on HBO2 on Wednesday, February 18 at 8pm (ET/PT). And watch the 81st Academy Awards on February 22 on ABC to see whether The Witness From the Balcony of Room 306 takes home an Oscar for Best Documentary Short. Meanwhile, you can view the trailer.

(PHOTO: Reverend Samuel Kyles on the balcony of room 306, courtesy of Margaret Hyde Photography).

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The Bagger at the Oscars: ‘Man on Wire’ Nabs Best Documentary Feature

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

“The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)” (Cinema Guild), A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
“Encounters at the End of the World” (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment), A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
“The Garden” A Black Valley Films Production, Scott Hamilton Kennedy
“Man on Wire” (Magnolia Pictures), A Wall to Wall in association with Red Box Films Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
“Trouble the Water” (Zeitgeist Films), An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

The Bagger hits the double-digit mark with this correct pick, moving to 10 out of 12. But those two wrong choices early hurt.

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Transformers Mosaic: "The First Betrayal."

The Universe of the Transformers is vast, and populated by many characters. Their universe is a large tapestry, made up of the stories and points of view of countless experiences that serve the larger whole.

These are some of those stories. This is:

It should be noted that while this project has been recognized by IDW Publishing and Hasbro, none of the works presented have been commissioned or solicited by either company. The stories are not official canon, except where noted. These stories are the result of Transformers enthusiasts taking the time out of their busy days to contribute to a universe they love. No one has been paid for the production of these stories.

Transformers Mosaic FAQ, click here.

The First Betrayal

Story, Art, Colors & Letters by;
Damien P. Ghela

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Dustin Lance Black’s Moving Acceptance Speech

Milk’s screenwriter, Dustin Lance Black, just gave the most incredible acceptance speech after being awarded Best Original Screenplay tonight at the Academy Awards. glaadBLOG is proud to present it here in its entirety.
Oh my God. This was, um. This was not an easy film to make. First off, I have to thank Cleve Jones and Anne Kronenberg and all the real-life people who shared their stories with me. And, um, Gus Van Sant, Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, James Franco, and our entire cast, my producers, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, everyone at Groundswell and Focus, for taking on the challenge of telling this life-saving story. When I was 13 years old, my beautiful mother and my father moved me from a conservative Mormon home in San Antonio, Texas to California and I heard the story of Harvey Milk. And it gave me hope. It gave me the hope to live my life, it gave me the hope to one day live my life openly as who I am and that maybe even I could fall in love and one day get married.
(He chokes up, audience begins to applaud.)
I want to thank my mom who has always loved me for who I am, even when there was pressure not to. But most of all, 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 or 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. (Wild applause from the audience.) Thank you, thank you, and thank you God for giving us Harvey Milk.

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Gemase Simmons

I love Gemase Simmons! What you never heard of him? Thats because he is a real life fake hollywood dude. I know that that sentence is jsut full of irony but it’s true. Let me explain. Gemase Simmons fooled other idiots into participating in his fake reality tv show. Incredible. He actually has a fake business and everything. I don’t konw how this story broke but it did and he has now been exposed. Gemase Simmons suckered people into thinking that he actually has a reality tv show and the prize was fifty grand. He hired a camera man from texas and never paid him. The camera man kept all the tapes and exposed him. Gemase Simmons is only 28 years old but he duped a lot of assholes. I think all these hollywood people truly, truly are assholes and anyone pathetic enough to crave being on a reality show deserves to be duped. These shows make me sick. What’s wrong with America these days?

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Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto

I am currently watching the Oscars, and the most unexpectedly funny moment so far was when the winner for Best Animated Short, Kunio Kato with “La Maison en Petits Cubes”, ended his speech with Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto. In case you are too young to know the reference, it comes from the Styx song Mr. Roboto:

And those Wikipedia folks are ajavascript:void(0)lready at it:

“Mr. Roboto” is a song written by Dennis DeYoung and performed by the band Styx on their 1983 concept album Kilroy Was Here. It reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, giving the band their first notable hit since “Too Much Time on My Hands” in 1981. Mr. Roboto is one of Styx’s most popular songs. It was also released as a 45 RPM single, with the song Snowblind as the B-Side. Was quoted in the 2009 Academy Awards.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto translates to Thank you very much Mr. Roboto. So since Kunio Kato was thanking several people in his speech, he used the phrase in perfect context.
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The Bagger at the Oscars: ‘Smile Pinki’ Wins for Best Documentary Short Subject

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT

“The Conscience of Nhem En” A Farallon Films Production, Steven Okazaki
“The Final Inch” Vermilion Films in association with Google.org, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
“Smile Pinki” A Principe Production, Megan Mylan
“The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306” A Rock Paper Scissors Production, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde

The Bagger was doing really well with his late changes, but he blew it on this one, switching from “Smile Pinki” to the “The Witness.” He falls to 10 for 13.


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Inspiration Cafe Founder Honored On Oscar Night

Lisa Nigro, who founded the Inspiration Cafe in 1989, is the subject of an "inspirational" 60-second commercial that will air during the Oscars ceremony on February 22. "After reading thousands of inspiring stories, our team felt that Lisa Nigro's story exemplifies the purpose of TrueNorth - giving life extraordinary meaning." Read the press release about it here. Congratulations, Lisa!

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Awkward Jerry Lewis Moments #4

This isn't really awkward per se, but I have adopted this title and I'm not going to change it now. We've all heard this ten thousand times I am sure and you can find it elsewhere around WFMU, but it's always enjoyable. And plus it is the Lord's day. So this one's for you, Lord. Previous Jerry Lewis moments here, here and here..

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OSCAR 2009 BUZZ: KATE WINSLET, OSCAR CEREMONY SECRETS

John Harlow in The [London] Sunday Times:

"The favourite for best actress was Kate Winslet, for her role in the controversial film The Reader. Though Winslet has been attacked for appearing in a film that arguably commits the unthinkable and humanises a Nazi, it has brought her a sixth Oscar nomination.

"She may be defeated only by the fear of her making a winner’s speech as incoherent as her emotional ramble at the Baftas."

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Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times:

"Aside from my house, where the Oscars remain must-see programming, the one place where the Academy Awards continue to mean a great deal is within the movie business. In fact, the prizes, especially the one for best picture, seem to mean more this year than ever.

"I say that because it’s been another bitter awards, with partisans of the five contenders eager to bad-mouth whomever they saw as competition. When Entertainment Weekly wrote about the race in the Feb. 13 issue, the cover line got right to the point: ‘Battle For Oscar: Now It’s Getting Ugly.’"

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The Associated Press‘ Josh L. Dickey on the tidbits leaked out about the secretive 2009 Oscar ceremomy:

"SONG-AND-DANCE (JACK)MAN: "Hugh (Jackman, the host) is going to come out and say a few things, but he’s not going to do a 10-minute monologue … He’s going to be doing a lot of musical stuff, so that will have a different feel to it." — [Oscar writer Bruce] Vilanch, in an interview with The Associated Press.

"NEED A MONTAGE: The original song nominees will be presented together in a medley-style performance, rather than sprinkled throughout the show and played in their entirety. — Nominee Peter Gabriel, who announced in a video blog on his Web site that he was declining to perform "Down To Earth" fromWALL-E to protest the one-minute limit for his part."

Etoiles d’Or 2009

Berlin Film Festival 2009 Winners

Jutra Awards 2009

Hong Kong Film Awards 2009

Did Bette Davis Name the Oscars?

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