The Academy award winning actress had announced her separation from second husband, Revolutionary Road director Sam Mendes, five months ago. The 34-year-old Titanic star was photographed enjoying an afternoon of exercise with the handsome British model and her six-year-old son Joe in New York City, reported Daily Mail online.

While Winslet rode on a bicycle, with Joe on the back, Dowler, 34, showed his athletic prowess by running alongside her shirtless.

The couple are said to have become inseparable in recent months after meeting through mutual friends at a party.

The 6ft tall model, has starred in several high-profile modelling campaigns including Burberry, Paul Smith and Paco Rabanne. “They’ve been on lots of dates and get on really well. It’s early days for them but they enjoy each other’s company,” said a source close to the actress.

Winslet’s burgeoning romance comes five months after she and Mendes announced they were separating after seven years of marriage.

They released a statement shortly after the Oscars, which Winslet attended alone, admitted they were splitting, but said that “both parties are fully committed to the future joint parenting of their children.”

Mendes and Winslet started dating in October 2001, just a month after she announced her separation from first husband Jim Threapleton after three years of marriage.

Last month, Winslet and Mendes’ representative denied reports the couple were attempting a reconciliation.

source

Winslet has been nominated for six Academy Awards and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Reader. She has won awards from the Screen Actors Guild, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, as well as being nominated for an Emmy. At the age of 22, she became the youngest actress to receive two Oscar nominations; at age 33, she is now the youngest actor of either sex to receive six nominations. David Edelstein of New York Magazine hails her as “the best English-speaking film actress of her generation.”

Other Information

• Born  Kate Elizabeth Winslet
• 5 October 1975 (1975-10-05)
• Reading, Berkshire, England
• Occupation  Actress/Singer
• Spouse(s)  Jim Threapleton (1998–2001)
• Sam Mendes (2003–present)

Links

• Kate Winslet – Wikipedia
• Kate Winslet Gallery – Cool Chicks

Incoming search terms:

• actress english

Shannon was born in Lexington, Kentucky, a grandson of entomologist Raymond Corbett Shannon. His mother, Geraldine Hine, is a lawyer, and his father, Donald S. Shannon, was an accounting professor at DePaul University. He was raised by his divorced parents in both Kentucky and Chicago, Illinois. Shannon began his career as a stage actor in Chicago, where he helped found A Red Orchid Theatre. He has since worked with Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Northlight Theatre, and other groups. Shannon originated the role of Peter Evans in Bug in 2004 and also starred in the 2007 film Adaptation with Ashley Judd and Harry Connick, Jr, directed by William Friedkin. His roles in Bug, Killer Joe, and Man From Nebraska were written by Steppenwolf ensemble member Tracy Letts.

Shannon made his film debut with a small role in Groundhog Day in 1993 as a wedding groom. Later, he had roles in Jesus’ Son, Pearl Harbor, 8 Mile and Vanilla Sky. He played the villain in Kangaroo Jack. After a role in Bad Boys II, he had a major role in Grand Theft Parsons as the hippie, Larry Oster-burg. In 2006, he played the leader of a prison white supremacist group, Lynard, in Let’s Go to Prison. Other roles include a gambler in Lucky You and Peter Evans in Bug.

Shannon has appeared in several shows in the West End in London, including a production of Woyzeck directed by Sarah Kane. In 2008, Shannon was featured in the off-Broadway production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’s The Little Flower of East Orange, presented by LAByrinth Theater Company and The Public Theater, directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman and also featuring Ellen Burstyn.

Shannon’s role in Revolutionary Road, also starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio, earned him a 2008 Oscar nomination, which he lost to the late Heath Ledger.

He is married to Steppenwolf ensemble member Kate Arrington. They have one daughter, Sylvia, who was born in 2008.

Other Information

• Birth name: Michael Corbett Shannon
• Born: August 7, 1974
• Birth place: Lexington, Kentucky

Links

• Michael Shannon at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Shannon biography at A Red Orchid Theatre, Chicago
• The Missing Person

It tells the story of Michael Berg, a German lawyer who as a teenager in the late 1950s had an affair with an older woman, Hanna Schmitz, who then disappeared only to resurface years later as one of the defendants in a war crimes trial stemming from her actions as a concentration camp guard late in the war. Michael realizes that Hanna is keeping a secret she believes is worse than her Nazi past, a secret that may cost her at the trial.

Winslet and David Kross, who plays the young Michael, have received much praise for their performances. Winslet received praise and won a Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Awards, Screen Actors Guild award and the Best Actress Academy Award in 2009 for her role in the film. The film has also been nominated for several other major awards.

Plot

The Reader begins in 1995 Berlin, where Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes) is preparing breakfast for a woman who has spent the night with him. After she leaves, Michael watches a U-Bahn pass by, flashing back to a tram in 1958 Neustadt. A teenage Michael (David Kross) gets off because he is feeling sick and wanders around the streets afterwards, finally pausing in the entryway of a nearby apartment building where he vomits. Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), the tram conductor, comes in and assists him in returning home.

Michael, diagnosed with scarlet fever, must rest at home for the next three months. After he recovers he visits Hanna. The two begin an affair. During their liaisons, at her apartment, he reads to her literary works he is studying, such as The Odyssey, The Lady with the Little Dog and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After a bicycling trip, Hanna learns she is being promoted to a clerical job at the tram company. She abruptly moves without leaving a trace.

After seeing the adult Michael, a lawyer, we see him at Heidelberg University law school in 1966. As part of a special seminar taught by Professor Rohl (Bruno Ganz), a camp survivor, he observes a trial of several women who were accused of letting 300 Jewish women die in a burning church when they were SS guards on the death march following the 1944 evacuation of Auschwitz. Hanna is one of the defendants.

Stunned, Michael visits a former camp himself. The trial divides the seminar, with one student angrily saying there is nothing to be learned from it other than that evil acts occurred and that the older generation of Germans should kill themselves for their failure to act then.

The key evidence is the testimony of Ilana Mather (Alexandra Maria Lara), author of a memoir of how she and her mother survived. Hanna, unlike her fellow defendants, admits that Auschwitz was an extermination camp and that the ten women she chose during each month’s Selektion were gassed. She denies authorship of a report on the church fire, despite pressure from the other defendants, but then admits it when asked to provide a handwriting sample.

Michael then realizes Hanna’s secret: she is functionally illiterate and has concealed that her whole life. She joined the SS to avoid a job promotion that would have revealed it. Michael informs Rohl that he has information favorable to one of the defendants but is not sure what to do since she wants to avoid disclosing this. Rohl tells him that if he has learned nothing from the past there is no point in having the seminar.

Hanna receives a life sentence for her role in the church deaths while the other defendants get shorter terms. Michael meanwhile marries, has a daughter and divorces. Rediscovering his books and notes from the time of his affair, he begins reading them into a tape recorder. He sends the cassette tapes and a tape recorder to Hanna. Eventually she learns to read, and writes back to him.

Michael does not write back or visit, but keeps sending tapes, and in 1988 a prison official (Linda Basset) telephones him to seek his help with Hannah’s transition into society upon her upcoming release. He finds a place for her to live and a job, and finally visits. The night before her release Hannah hangs herself and leaves a note to Michael and a tea tin with cash in it.

Later, Michael travels to New York. He meets Ilana (Lena Olin) and confesses his past relationship with Hanna. He tells her that Hanna was illiterate for most of her life, and that her suicide note told him to give the cash from the tea tin and some money she had in a bank account to Ilana. Ilana tells Michael there is nothing to be learned from the camps. Michael suggests that he donate the money to a organization that combats adult illiteracy, preferably a Jewish one, and she agrees. Ilana keeps the tea tin since it is similar to one stolen from her in Auschwitz.

The film ends with Michael getting back together with his daughter, Julia, at Hanna’s grave and beginning to tell her the story.

Production

In April 1998, Miramax Films acquired the rights to the 1995 German novel The Reader by Bernhard Schlink, and principal photography began in September 2007 immediately after Stephen Daldry was signed to direct the film adaptation and actor Ralph Fiennes was cast into a lead role. Kate Winslet was originally cast as Hanna, but scheduling difficulties led her to leave the film and Nicole Kidman was cast as her replacement. In January 2008, Nicole Kidman left the project, citing her recent pregnancy as the primary reason. She had not filmed any scenes yet, so the studio was able to re-cast Winslet into the lead role without affecting the production schedule.

Filming took place in the cities of Berlin and Goerlitz and was finished in Cologne on July 14th. Filmmakers received US$718,752 from Germany’s Federal Film Board. Overall, the studio has received US$4.1 million from Germany’s regional and federal subsidiaries.

Schlink insisted the film be shot in English, rather than German, as it posed questions about living in a post-genocidal society that went beyond mid-century Germany. Daldry and Hare toured locations from the novel with Schlink, viewed documentaries about that period in German history and read books and articles about women who had served as SS guards in the camps. Hare, who rejected using a voiceover narration to render the long internal monologues in the novel, also changed the ending so that Michael starts to tell the story of Hanna and him to his daughter. “It’s about literature as a powerful means of communication, and at other times as a substitute for communication”, he explained.

The primary cast, all of whom were German besides Fiennes, Olin and Winslet, decided to emulate Kross’s accent, since he had just learned English for the film.

Chris Menges replaced Roger Deakins as cinematographer. One of the film’s producers, Scott Rudin, left the production over a dispute about the release date and has had his name removed from the credit list. Rudin differed with Harvey Weinstein “because he didn’t want to campaign for an Oscar along with “Doubt” and “Revolutionary Road,” which also stars Winslet.” Kate Winslet won best actress for the Academy Awards for “The Reader”, the film she has been awarded a Golden Globe as best supporting actress. Marc Caro writes, “Because Winslet couldn’t get best actress nominations for both movies, the Weinstein Co. shifted her to supporting actress for “The Reader” as a courtesy.”

Reception

Critical reception for the film was positive to mixed, having a 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Variety wrote that the film was well-realized and dramatic, but that it came “across as an essentially cerebral experience without gut impact.” Manohla Dargis in The New York Times was very critical of the film’s flashback structure and its tendency to treat horrific subjects artistically.

…you have to wonder who, exactly, wants or perhaps needs to see another movie about the Holocaust that embalms its horrors with artfully spilled tears and asks us to pity a death-camp guard. You could argue that the film isn’t really about the Holocaust, but about the generation that grew up in its shadow, which is what the book insists. But the film is neither about the Holocaust nor about those Germans who grappled with its legacy: it’s about making the audience feel good about a historical catastrophe that grows fainter with each new tasteful interpolation.

Patrick Goldstein, writing in The Los Angeles Times, said “The picture’s biggest problem is that it simply doesn’t capture the chilling intensity of its source material,” and noted that there was a “largely lackluster early reaction” to the film by most film critics.

Ron Rosenbaum was highly critical of the film’s fixation on Hanna’s illiteracy.

“so much is made of the deep, deep exculpatory shame of illiteracy—despite the fact that burning 300 people to death doesn’t require reading skills—that some worshipful accounts of the novel (by those who buy into its ludicrous premise, perhaps because it’s been declared “classic” and “profound”) actually seem to affirm that illiteracy is something more to be ashamed of than participating in mass murder… Lack of reading skills is more disgraceful than listening in bovine silence to the screams of 300 people as they are burned to death behind the locked doors of a church you’re guarding to prevent them from escaping the flames. Which is what Hanna did, although, of course, it’s not shown in the film.”

Kirk Honeycutt in The Hollywood Reporter was more generous, concluding the picture was a “well-told coming-of-age yarn” but “disturbing” for raising critical questions about complicity in the Holocaust. He praised Winslet and Kross for providing “gutsy, intense performances”, and noted that Olin and Ganz turn in “memorable appearances.” He wrote that the cinematographers Chris Menges and Roger Deakins lent the film a “fine professional polish”.

The film appeared on several critics’ top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Stephen Farber of The Hollywood Reporter named it the 4th best film of 2008, Tasha Robinson of The A.V. Club named it the 8th best film of 2008, and Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times put it on his unranked top 20 list and by now (22 feb 2009) she won the oscar award of her acting in movie.

Cast & Credits

• Directed by: Stephen Daldry
• Produced by: Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Scott Rudin (uncredited)
• Written by: David Hare
• Starring: Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes, David Kross, Alexandra Maria Lara, Lena Olin, Bruno Ganz, Thorben Lembke, Hannah Herzsprung, Karoline Herfurth, Burghard Klaußner
• Music by: Nico Muhly
• Cinematography: Chris Menges, Roger Deakins
• Editing by: Claire Simpson

Other Information

• Distributed by: The Weinstein Company
• Release date: December 10, 2008
• Running time: 124 min.
• Country: USA, Germany
• Language: English
• Budget: $32 million

Links

• The Reader Official Website
• The Reader at the Internet Movie Database
• The Reader at Allmovie
• The Reader at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Reader at Box Office Mojo
• The Reader at Metacritic

Incoming search terms:

• celebrity thereader

Plot

Set in 1955, Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) move to Revolutionary Road in a Connecticut suburb, and have a daughter and a son.

April is dissatisfied with her life as a suburban housewife, and Frank despises his marketing job at Knox Business Machines, where his now-deceased father worked for twenty years in a similar position. The Wheelers feel they are unique and special, but trapped in the conformity of life in the suburbs, where they moved to raise their children. From time to time they have bitter arguments, with Frank berating April and acting out physically.

On Frank’s thirtieth birthday he seduces a young secretary from his office, and begins to sleep with her on occasion. Returning home late, April surprises him with a birthday cake and a proposal that they move to Paris, with April working as a secretary to support the family so that Frank can discover what he truly wants to do in life. Frank is reluctant at first but ultimately embraces the idea, and the renewed optimism breathes fresh life into their relationship. Colleagues and friends react politely to the couple’s decision, but tell each other they consider it to be immature or impractical.

In the meantime, Frank’s talent at his job earns him some recognition, and April becomes pregnant again. April wants an abortion and has bought a device she has heard is safe if used in the first twelve weeks. Frank disapproves. Later, Frank is offered a promotion and raise at work. Eventually he tells April that for the sake of the unborn baby he has decided not to go to Paris. Later April has sex with their neighbor and friend, Shep Campbell.

The Wheelers are friends with local realtor Helen Givings and her husband Howard, who occasionally visit with their adult son John, a former mathematician who now lives in a mental institution. John has no inhibition about asking the Wheelers direct personal questions and offering his blunt assessment of their dissatisfaction with marriage, work, and life, to the embarrassment of his parents. The Wheelers are interested in him for his perception and honesty. However, when John learns the Wheelers have cancelled their trip to Paris, he becomes agitated and begins to insult them, saying he feels sorry for them and their unborn baby. This leads to an argument, in which Frank tells April he wishes she had chosen an abortion. April tells Frank she does not love him anymore, and in fact hates him.

April runs into the woods and asks to be left alone. She returns and, the next morning, calmly acts the part of a supportive housewife. When Frank leaves for the day she attempts to perform an abortion with her device, which goes wrong, and she dies later that day in the hospital. Frank moves to the city with the children. The neighbors’ lives carry on and they tell each other in various ways that they disapproved of the Wheelers.

Production

Director John Frankenheimer considered filming the Richard Yates novel soon after its publication but opted to make The Manchurian Candidate instead. In 1967, producer Albert Ruddy bought the property for $15,500. Five years later, while a writer-in-residence at Wichita State University, Yates offered to adapt his work for the screen. Ruddy had other projects lined up at the time and demurred, eventually selling the rights to actor Patrick O’Neal. Yates read O’Neal’s treatment of his novel and found it “godawful,” but O’Neal refused the writer’s repeated offers to buy back the rights. Yates died in 1992, O’Neal died two years later, and the project remained in limbo until 2001 when Todd Field expressed interest in adapting it for the screen. However, when told by the O’Neal estate he would be required to shoot O’Neal’s script as written, Field stepped away from the material and opted to make Little Children instead. David Thompson eventually purchased the rights for BBC Films. In March 2007, BBC Films established a partnership with DreamWorks, and the rights to the film’s worldwide distribution were assigned to Paramount Pictures, owner of DreamWorks. On February 14, 2008, The Hollywood Reporter reported Paramount announced that Paramount Vantage was “taking over distribution duties on Revolutionary Road”.

The movie was directed by Sam Mendes, the husband of Kate Winslet and an Oscar-winning director for American Beauty. The producers of the film are Scott Rudin, who was previously working with Kate Winslet on The Reader before he left the production over a dispute about the release date and has had his name taken off the credit list.

The film was shot on location in Beacon Falls, Bethel, Darien, Fairfield, Greenwich, New Canaan, Norwalk, Redding, Shelton, Southport, Stamford, Thomaston and Trumbull (all in Connecticut), Westchester County, and various sites in New York City, including Grand Central Terminal, Tribeca and Lower Manhattan.

The film marks the first time Winslet worked with husband Sam Mendes. DiCaprio, Winslet and Bates had previously worked together on the 1997 film Titanic.

Production Designer Kristi Zea is responsible for the “iconic, nostalgic images of quaint Americana”, although she says that was “absolutely the antithesis of what we wanted to do.” Kristi Zea chose for the set of this film furnishings that “that middle-class America would be buying at that time.”

Box office

The film had a limited release in the United States at 3 theaters on December 26, 2008 and a wide release at 1,058 theaters on January 23, 2009. As of February 22, 2009 Revolutionary Road has earned $20,830,812 at the domestic box office and $42,984,967 internationally.

Awards and nominations

By missing out on an Academy Award nomination, Kate Winslet became only the second Actress to win the Golden Globe for Best Lead Actress in a Drama without receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. Due to the difference in rules between the Golden Globes and Academy Awards, Winslet’s performance in The Reader was considered a leading one by The Academy, despite winning the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for the same performance. According to Academy rules, an actor or actress may receive only one nomination in a single category. Due to Winslet’s performance in ‘The Reader’ being nominated, her performance in this film became ineligible.

Cast & Credits

• Directed by: Sam Mendes
• Produced by: Bobby Cohen, Sam Mendes, Scott Rudin
• Written by: Justin Haythe, Based on the novel by Richard Yates
• Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Kathy Bates, Michael Shannon, Kathryn Hahn, David Harbour, Richard Easton, Zoe Kazan, Jay O. Sanders
• Music by: Thomas Newman
• Cinematography: Roger Deakins
• Editing by: Tariq Anwar

Other Information

• Studio: DreamWorks Pictures, BBC Films
• Distributed by: Paramount Vantage
• Release dates: December 26, 2008 (limited); January 23, 2009 (wide)
• Running time: 119 min.
• Country: United States, United Kingdom
• Language: English

Links

• Official website
• Revolutionary Road at the Internet Movie Database
• Revolutionary Road at Allmovie

“Titanic” star Winslet, 33, was Oscar-nominated five times in the past 13 years years but had always returned home empty-handed.

Her best actress Oscar joins two Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild award, a British BAFTA and a handful of U.S. critics awards that Winslet has won this season.

“To the academy, thank you so much,” she said. Winslet gave credit to her fellow best actress nominees — Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Angelina Jolie and Melissa Leo — calling them “goddesses.”

“I think we all can’t believe we are in the category with Meryl Streep at all,” Winslet said.

In addition to Winslet’s acclaimed turn in “The Reader,” she won plaudits this awards season for her performance as a disillusioned housewife in “Revolutionary Road.” The two films were released only weeks apart.

Winslet told the Academy Award audience she would be lying if she said she hadn’t practiced an Oscar acceptance speech before.

“I think I was probably 8 years old and staring into the bathroom mirror, and this would have been a shampoo bottle,” she said gesturing to her golden statuette. “Well, it’s not a shampoo bottle now!”

‘HARD, LONELY’

Winslet has said that portraying Hanna Schmitz, a former Nazi prison guard who embarks on an affair with a teen-age boy more than a decade later, was the most challenging role she had ever played because she had little in her own life to draw on.

“Just getting underneath the skin of such a complex person who had lived such an isolated life for so many different reasons, it was hard and quite lonely at times,” she told Reuters in a recent interview.

Winslet found international fame as the co-star of the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic” but rather than embracing Hollywood’s big time, she opted for smaller, art house movies often made in her native Britain.

In parts ranging from the quirky girlfriend in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” to the laundress in an 18th century insane asylum in “Quills,” Winslet made a point of avoiding the cute blonde actress career trap.

She is a close friend of her “Titanic” co-star Leonardo DiCaprio, but it took the pair more than ten years to team up again, this time in the anti-romance “Revolutionary Road.”

Winslet is married to Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes and has two young children. On Sunday she thanked all three for “letting me do what I love and who love me just the way that I am.”

Kate Winslet wins best actress Oscar for ‘The Reader’

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A “Friday the 13th” remake — which Warner Bros. bowed so well a week earlier — absorbed an enormous 81% drop from its first Friday-Sunday grosses to register $7.8 million in sixth place over the latest session. Paramount is handling international distribution on the New Line-produced horror pic, which has rung up $55 million over its first 10 days.

Sony Screen Gems’ youth comedy “Fired Up” fetched just $6 million in ninth place in the session’s only other wide opening. Yet aside from such occasional misfires with individual releases, it seems the industry boxoffice can do no wrong right now.

Collectively, the weekend’s $142 million represented a 29% uptick from the same frame a year earlier, according to Nielsen EDI. That made for six of seven up weekends so far this year.

Year to date, 2009 is pacing ahead of last year by just 1% — at $1.45 billion — in a deceptively modest increase shaped by seasonal fluctuations in the boxoffice year.

Elsewhere this weekend, Fox’s Liam Neeson starrer “Taken” refuses to shrink from the upper rankings. The action-thriller grabbed second place over its fourth weekend with $11.4 million and a $95.2 million cume.

Disney’s PG-13 comedy “Confessions of a Shopaholic” fell 53% in its second weekend to $7 million in seventh place, with a $27.7 million cume. Sony’s political thriller “The International” tumbled 52% in its sophomore session to $4.5 million in 10th place, with a $17 million cume.

Fox Searchlight’s Indian drama “Slumdog Millionaire” was again tops among films nominated in the Academy Awards best-pic category, improving 11% over its Friday-Sunday tally of a week earlier. Adding 610 theaters this session for a total 2,244 over its 15th week, “Slumdog” rung up $8.1 million to finish fifth on the frame and boost cume to $98 million.

The Weinstein Co. added 238 playdates for a total of 962 for Kate Winslet starrer “The Reader” and grossed $2.8 million, bringing its 11-week cume to $23.2 million.

Among notable exclusive runs, IFC Films added one location for a total of six in New York and Los Angeles for its Italian-language mob film “Gomorrah” and grossed $66,756, or a solid $11,126 per site. “Gomorrah’s” cume climbed to $211,046.

The outsized bow by “Madea Goes to Jail” — considerably better than expected — surpassed the $33.6 million bow by Lionsgate’s “Saw III” in October 2006. It also topped Perry’s previous opening high of $30 million by 2006′s “Madea’s Family Reunion.”

The multihyphenate’s releases tend to do better when they feature the maternal character of Madea — and apparently those with her name in the title perform the best.

As usual, the PG-13 pic drew audiences comprised largely of urban demos, with 72% of patrons black and 13% Hispanic. About 71% of its support came from females, and 65% of the pic’s patrons were age 25 and older.

“This monster opening demonstrates that Tyler remains one of the biggest stars in Hollywood,” Lionsgate distribution president Steve Rothenberg said.

“Fired Up” skewed 61% female, with 61% of patrons under 18 years old.
Sony execs emphasized that the pic’s production costs were modest, at less than $20 million.

“We’ll be OK,” Sony distribution president Rory Bruer said.

Looking ahead, two films are set for wide release next weekend: Disney’s music-filled “Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert” and Fox’s martial-arts actioner “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.”

Madea’ locks up top boxoffice spot

The 81st Academy Awards ceremony was held by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honor its selection of the best films of 2008 on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The ceremony was televised in the United States on ABC and on Sky Movies in High definition in the United Kingdom. Australian performer Hugh Jackman hosted the ceremony for the first time. Academy Award-nominated producer Laurence Mark produced with Academy Award-winning writer/director Bill Condon as executive producer.

Slumdog Millionaire won eight awards, the most of the evening, including Best Picture and Best Director (Danny Boyle). The Curious Case of Benjamin Button led the nominations with a total of 13 while Slumdog Millionaire received ten, The Dark Knight and Milk received eight, and Doubt, The Reader, and Frost/Nixon each received five. The animated film WALL-E, the winner for Best Animated Feature, received six nominations, tying it with Beauty and The Beast for the most nominated animated film in Oscar history.

The Academy hoped to rework the ceremony through an entirely new production team sworn to secrecy. The ceremony received recent controversies prior to its broadcast, most notably the Academy’s alleged snubbing of films such as The Dark Knight, Doubt, and WALL·E, threats from a possible Screen Actors Guild strike, and fear of the Oscar telecast’s recent low viewership.

Winners of major awards

Feature films

Best Picture : Slumdog Millionaire :  Christian Colson

• Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film directed by Danny Boyle, with co-director (India) Loveleen Tandan, and written by Simon Beaufoy. It is an adaptation of the Boeke Prize winning and Commonwealth Writers’ Prize nominated novel Q and A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Set and filmed in …

Best Foreign Language Film  : Departures – Japan  : Yojiro Takita

• Departures (Okuribito) is a 2008 Japanese film directed by Yojiro Takita. It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2009 Oscars. Plot Daigo Kobayashi (Masahiro Motoki), a cellist in an orchestra in Tokyo, loses his job because of dissolution of the orchestra. After quitting as a professional cellist, …

Best Documentary Feature :  Man on Wire  : Simon Chinn

• Man on Wire is a 2009 Academy Award-winning documentary film directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles Philippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Center and is based on Philippe Petit’s book, To Reach the Clouds, which has recently been released in paperback …

Best Animated Feature  : WALL·E  : Andrew Stanton

• WALL-E is a 2008 computer-animated science fiction film produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The film was directed by Andrew Stanton. It follows the story of a robot named WALL-E who is designed to clean up a waste covered Earth far in the future. He eventually falls in love with another …

Directing

• Best Director  Danny Boyle  Slumdog Millionaire

Acting

• Best Actor in a Leading Role  : Sean Penn :  Milk
• Best Actress in a Leading Role  : Kate Winslet  : The Reader
• Best Actor in a Supporting Role : Heath Ledger : The Dark Knight
• Best Actress in a Supporting Role : Penélope Cruz :  Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Writing

• Best Writing – Original Screenplay  : Dustin Lance Black : Milk
• Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay :  Simon Beaufoy  : Slumdog Millionaire

Special honors

• Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award  : Jerry Lewis  : Comedic film & Humanitarian Work

Other Awards

• Best Art Direction – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
• Best Cinematography – Slumdog Millionaire – Anthony Dod Mantle
• Best Costume Design – The Duchess – Michael O’Connor
• Best Documentary Feature – Man on Wire
• Best Documentary Short – Smile Pinki – Megan Mylan
• Best Animated Short – La Maison En Petits Cubes – Kunio Kato
• Best Live Action Short – Toyland (Spielzeugland)
• Best Film Editing – Slumdog Millionaire – Chris Dickens
• Best Makeup – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Greg Cannom
• Best Original Score – Slumdog Millionaire – A. R. Rahman
• Best Original Song – “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire – A. R. Rahman (music), Gulzar (lyrics)
• Best Sound Editing – The Dark Knight – Richard King
• Best Sound Mixing – Slumdog Millionaire – Resul Pookutty, Richard Pryke, Ian Tapp
• Best Visual Effects – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron

Nominations

The nominees for the 81st Academy Awards were announced live on Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 5:38 a.m. PST (13:38 UTC) by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis and Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in the Academy’s Beverly Hills headquarters. The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on Sunday, February 22, 2009, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. Jerry Lewis was honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Multiple nominations and awards

The following 15 films received multiple nominations.

• 13 nominations: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• 10 nominations: Slumdog Millionaire
• 8 nominations:  The Dark Knight and Milk
• 6 nominations:  WALL-E
• 5 nominations:  Doubt, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader
• 3 nominations:  Changeling and Revolutionary Road
• 2 nominations:  The Duchess, Frozen River, Iron Man, Wanted, and The Wrestler

The following four films received multiple awards.

• 8 awards: Slumdog Millionaire
• 3 awards: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• 2 awards: The Dark Knight
• 2 awards: Milk

81st Academy Awards – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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