Cannes hands out its top prize Sunday after a marathon battle between heavyweights like Quentin Tarantino and Jane Campion, with the critics’ money on lesser-known names from France and Austria.
The notoriously extravagant festival toned down the glitz for this year’s crisis-era bash and was lighter than usual in star power, but it still saw celebs like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sashay up the fabled red carpet.
Billed as a battle of auteur titans, it mostly lived up to expectations, with Britain’s Independent on Sunday calling it “a superior vintage” and France’s Journal du Dimanche declaring “the return of great cinema”.
Penélope Cruz Sánchez (born April 28, 1974), better known as Penélope Cruz, is a Spanish actress. She gathered critical acclaim as a young actress for films such as Jamón, Jamón, La Niña de tus ojos, and Belle époque. She has also starred in several American films such as Blow, Vanilla Sky, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. She is perhaps best known for her work with acclaimed Spanish director, Pedro Almodóvar, in Volver and Todo sobre mi madre. She is the first Spanish woman to win an acting Academy Award.
Cruz has been awarded three Goyas, two European Film Awards, the Golden Palm for Best Actress, and a BAFTA. In 2009, she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, a Goya, and a BAFTA for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Read more
Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a 2008 film written and directed by Woody Allen. The film features well-known stars Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson, as well as relative newcomer Rebecca Hall. The Story centers around two American women, Vicky and Cristina, spending a summer in Barcelona, where they meet an artist who is attracted to both of them while still enamored of his mentally and emotionally unstable ex-wife María Elena. The film was shot in Avilés, Barcelona, and Oviedo, and was Allen’s fourth consecutive film shot outside of the United States.
Penelope Cruz became the first Spanish-born actress to win an Oscar by taking the best supporting actress award on Sunday for her role as tempestuous artist Maria Elena in Woody Allen’s romantic comedy “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
Cruz, 34, thanked both Allen and Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar for their roles in shaping her career and dedicated the gold statuette to the actors from her country.
“Thank you Woody for trusting me with this beautiful character. Thank you for having written over all these years some of the greatest characters for women,” she said.
With her Oscar win, Cruz, joins fellow actresses Dianne Wiest and Mira Sorvino in scoring best supporting-actress Oscars for their performances in Woody Allen films.
“Slumdog Millionaire” — a love story that combines artistic ambition with broad commercial appeal — won a leading eight Oscars on Sunday night, including the best picture trophy.
While the film’s triumphs at the 81st annual Academy Awards marked an amazing outcome for a movie filled with subtitles, scenes of torture and a Bollywood dance sequence, the wins also cemented the reputation of distributor Fox Searchlight, which has become Hollywood’s top advocate of the kind of daring works that movie studios have all but abandoned.
The 66th Golden Globe Awards Ceremony was broadcast on January 11, 2009, from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, United States on the NBC TV network. The broadcast was watched by approximately 14.6 million viewers with a rating of 4.9/12.
Loosely inspired by the Fellini film “8½,” story focuses on a film director stuck in neutral as he tries to make a movie while haunted by the demands of all the women in his life, including a wife, mistress and even his deceased mother.
Other Information
- Production Status: In Production/Awaiting Release
- Genres: Drama, Musical/Performing Arts and Adaptation
- Release Date: November 25th, 2009
- Distributors: The Weinstein Company
- Production Co.: Lucamar Productions
- Studios: The Weinstein Company
- Financiers: Relativity Media
- Filming Locations: United Kingdom, Italy, Rome
- Produced in: United States
2008 was something of a vintage year for popcorn-munchers (see our 2008 Top 50 here) . But is there a 2009 film that can equal the colossal success of The Dark Knight? Which hot franchises will step up to fill the spaces left by Batman, Bond and Indy?
We’ve taken a look through the studio schedules and picked out the most promising prospects for the coming year. History tells us that when times are tough, box office takings boom. Here’s our selection of the best films Hollywood has to offer us in 2009.
Here is the complete shortlist for the 81st Academy Awards, which are being held at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles on 22 February.
Best picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Best director
Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard – Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant – Milk
Best actor
Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Best actress
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changeling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader
Best supporting actress
Amy Adams – Doubt
Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
Best supporting actor
Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey Jr – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road
Best foreign language film
Revanche – Austria
The Class – France
The Baader Meinhof Complex – Germany
Departures – Japan
Waltz With Bashir – Israel
Best animated feature film
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E
Best adapted screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Best original screenplay
Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Wall-E
In Bruges
Frozen River
Best original score
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Best original song
Down To Earth – Wall-E
Jai Ho – Slumdog Millionaire
O Saya – Slumdog Millionaire
Art direction
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road
Cinematography
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
The Reader
Costume design
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Australia
Milk
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road
Best documentary feature
The Betrayal
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble The Water
Best documentary short subject
The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306
Film editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Make-up
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Best live action short film
Auf der Strecke (On The Line)
Manon on the Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig
Spielzeugland (Toyland)
Best animated short film
La Maison en Petits Cubes
Lavatory – Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up
Sound editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Iron Man
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Sound mixing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Visual effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Oscars | Oscars 2009: The nominees
