Oscar the Grouch

Twenty-nine years ago yesterday, the U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the hockey juggernaut from the Soviet Union. A movie describing those events titled Miracle was released in 2004.

That film did not win an Oscar. Last night, however, a few other films did.

The 81st annual Academy Awards was longer than any of the movies that it was awarding. Hosted by Hugh Jackman, the ceremony ran over three-and-a-half hours. That time was full of the usual theatrics of literally song and dance.

This was just a delay of the presentations themselves- actors giving awards to other actors. In fact, the best actor and actress awards were read by past recipients of the awards.

As everyone expected, Heath Ledger was recognized for his outstanding performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight with a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. However, Ledger was mysteriously absent and his parents accepted the honor on his behalf.

The other presentations were slightly less predictable. Although The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was nominated for an incredible 13 awards, it only won three. Slumdog Millionaire, on the other hand, walked away with eight of the 10 awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture and Director.

Slumdog is the heart-warming tale of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire host Regis Philbin growing up on the streets of India.

Despite being more well-known for other roles, Sean Penn and Kate Winslet received the Best Lead Actor and Actress honors, respectively. Penn won for his portrayal of Louis Pasteur in Milk and Winslet as Louis Braille in The Reader.

However, Penn will forever be remembered as Jeff Spicoli of Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Winslet is probably best known as Rose from Titanic.

Titanic, if you will remember, won a record 11 of those Oscar things in 1997.

With six nominations, WALL-E became the most nominated animated production since Beauty and the Beast. It was awared Best Animated Feature, despite heavy competition.

There was also some outcry that The Dark Knight did not recieve more attention since it was the highest-grossing film of the year. The Academy explained the snub by expressing that Batman was not real. Richard Nixon of Frost/Nixon, conversly, is all too real.

Finally, the award for the best Oscar acceptance speech goes to Kunio Kato, a Japanese animator who won for his animated short La Maison en Petits Cubes. His speech was, and I quote, "Sank you berry much. Sank you my supporter. Sank you all my stuff. Sank you my pencil. Sank you Academy. Sank you animation. Sank you my company. Domo arigato misuta Robotto."