Jai Ho! It's a Slumdog Millionaire Night at the Oscars

So Slumdog Millionaire predictably cleaned up at the Oscars last night winning eight of its ten nominations (although to be fair, it was up against itself in the best song category and took the prize for Jai Ho). While all the Slumdog winners were jubilant and excited and gave gracious speeches, there was nothing more touching than seeing the excitement on the faces of Dev Patel and particulalry the children from the film, some of whom had not been on a plane before and at least one of whom did not speak English. This red carpet moment with Ryan Secrest may have been one of my favorite moments of the whole night:



According to EW, the kids managed to snag some high profile autographs, including Meryl Streep, and that is just about as good as the Oscars gets.

Which is not to say that there weren't other great moments last night. Dustin Lance Black and Sean Penn gave wonderfully impassioned speeches about Harvey Milk and the need for equal rights. Heath Ledger's family was remarkably collected and gracious in accepting his posthumous award. Penelope Cruz remembered to thank Almodovar (hooray for All About My Mother!) and Kate Winslet was adorably humbled that she beat Meryl Streep. Steve Martin and Tina Fey were hilarious in presenting the screenwriting awards (even if it was a little awkward to transition back to jokes after Black's incredible speech). And the bit with Seth Rogen and James Franco as their Pineapple Express characters, watching clips from films including Franco's own Milk love scene and then having famed cinematographer Janusz Kaminski curl up with them on the couch was perfectly wacky and funny.

Unfortunately, there were a lot of missteps last night as well. Hugh Jackman, predictably, is not a joke teller but a song and dance man. That worked fine for the cute "homemade" opening number (the best part of which was Anne Hathaway getting drawn in to a Frost/Nixon routine) but there was absolutely no need for the horrific mish-mash of songs that Beyonce, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Amanda Seyfried and Dominic Cooper hacked their way through. Old standards, cliched numbers, ABBA and High School Music 3 pureed through a blender? No way. After noshing on all the snacks at my Oscar viewing party last night, a friend said she would need to go on a diet and I have decided that I am definitely dieting too - no more splashy musical numbers for at least a year.

I also was not really into the multiple acting legends present acting awards thing. I suppose the nominees are supposed to be touched that a legend would come to personally tell them they're wonderful but when it's read off a teleprompter it just feels hollow - is Shirley Maclaine really an Anne Hathaway fan? Does Nicole Kidman really care about Angelina Jolie? Is Ben Kingsley really impressed by Mickey Rourke? Me thinks not. I think the Academy was mainly worried that last year's lesser-known, foreign winners, only two of whom bothered to come (Tilda Swinton and Marian Cotillard), wouldn't be exciting enough so they had to overdose on more well-known stars. It just ended up feeling pompous and bloated instead.

Which brings me to my final sticking point - the "intimate" seating arrangement. In an attempt to give the Oscars an intimate Cabaret-type vibe, the Academy took celebrity hierarchy to a whole new level by literally placing a ring around the most important people and sheltering them from the masses in the back. They also managed to place those A-listers practically on stage so they could highlight their importance even more. The stars themselves mostly just looked uncomfortable in their tightly packed seats. Let's hope next year the Academy gets back to what we all really want to see - a comedian keeping the stars at a safe, mingling distance.