British storm to victory at the Oscars

By Calvin Palmer

It was a great night for the British at the 81st Oscars award ceremony in Hollywood last night, with actors, directors and production crew sweeping the awards.

As widely predicted, Best Film went to Slumdog Millionaire and its director Danny Boyle won the Best Director award. The film also spawned other Oscars for Simon Beaufoy Best Adapted Screenplay; Anthony Dod Mantle, Cinematography; Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty Sound Mixing; Chris Dickens, Film Editing.

Slumdog Millionaire also saw Oscars for A.R. Rahman, Original Score; and Jai Ho, music by A.R. Rahman, lyrics by Gulzar, Original Song.

Kate Winslet took the Best Actress award for her role in The Reader.  Her acceptance speech did not descend into a flood of tears, in fact she retained a good measure of British dignity.

Another Brit, Michael O’Connor took the award for Best Costume Design for The Duchess.

Completing the British haul were James Marsh and Simon Chinn, winning Best Documentary Feature  for Man on Wire.

Best Actor went to Sean Penn after a great homily by Robert De Niro who wondered how Penn had been in so many films as a straight guy.

The Best Supporting Actor award went to Heath Ledger, for me the most powerful performance on screen in 2008.

The delightful Penelope Cruz won Best Supporting Actress.

Master of ceremonies Hugh Jackman revealed himself as a song and dance man.  Not too sure about the singing but his duet with Ann Hathaway at the start of the show certainly revealed that she has fine voice — producers take note.

The ceremony’s musical number was reminiscent of a BBC variety show back in the 1970s.  Morecambe & Wise would have loved it.

Beyonce Knowles salvaged the number from a being pretty banal offering, not only with her immense talent but also with her dazzling, tassled, skimpy red costume. She looked and sounded good.
 
The best and biggest innovation this year was to have five former Oscar winners pay tribute to the nominees in the Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress categories.  The tributes were heartfelt and featured the likes of Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Sophia Loren, Eve Marie Saint and Goldie Hawn among others.

What remained the same – the insufferable Jack Black and Ben Stiller trying to be funny.  Take a lesson from Steve Martin, guys.  Still, we can be thankful that Will Ferrell was absent from this year’s proceedings.

Sculpture tribute to Heath Ledger embodies his style and love of chess

By Calvin Palmer

Australian actor Heath Ledger has been commemorated with a three-piece sculpture at a park where he played as a child.

Ledger’s family picked a site Point Heathcote Reserve in the City of Melville, part of Perth’s southern suburbs, for the polished concrete and marble sculpture by artist Ron Gomboc.

Two of the pieces incorporate chessboards in tribute to the late actor’s love of the game. The third piece features a yin and yang design that embodies his spiritual beliefs.

Gomboc, a long-time family friend, said yesterday that the sculpture was a fitting tribute to Ledger, who used to relish playing chess at parks around the world when he had down-time from filming.

Ledger’s mother Sally Bell said the family had chosen the site, which overlooks the Swan River, because because her son had cared about the environment and spent much of his youth in the Applecross area, walking with friends.

“He truly loved it there,” she said.

“As for the chess theme, not many people know that Heath was passionate about chess and was close to becoming a Grand Master.”

Father, Kim Ledger, said the sculpture was in keeping with Heath’s subtle and laidback style, and his friends and family now had a place to visit that was imbued with his presence.

“People who visit the site can remember him by using and enjoying the tables, as he would want them to,” he said.

Ledger’s family flew from Perth bound for Los Angeles yesterday to attend the Oscar ceremony and spend time with his daughter Matilda.

The Perth-born actor is widely tipped to take out the best supporting actor award for his portrayal of The Joker in The Dark Knight, the last film he completed before his death.

Ledger was working on The Imaginarium Of Dr Parnassus when he died, aged 28, on January 22 last year in his rented Manhattan loft apartment after consuming a deadly cocktail of prescription painkillers and sleeping pills. His death was declared an accidental overdose.

[Based on reports by The West Australian and Melbourne Herald Sun.]

Dark Knight battles with moral issue

In the past, when a movie blockbuster has hit the screens, I have tended to avoid it like the plague.  The hype usually far outweighs the merits of the film.  Titanic and Jurassic Park are two prime examples.

Given the box-office success of Dark Knight, I was understandably somewhat skeptical about going to see it, although, on the plus side,  I had seen the trailer months ago and those glimpses seemed better than the usual blockbuster fare.

By last weekend, I figured that the popcorn munching and soda slurping set had moved on to the latest movie release and it was safe to go and see Dark Knight.  By safe, I mean devoid of the distractions that can ruin watching a film at a movie theatre.
 
I have had people who should know better go through a bag of individually wrapped sweets totally oblivious of the irritating noise they were making.  There have been occasions when I have sat close to someone who has seen it as their duty to explain the plot line by line to their companion.  Casino Royale was spoiled by someone who could not bear to miss a night out with the rest of the gang when they should have had the decency to wait two or three days for their perpetual cough to subside.
 
The audience at my viewing of Dark Knight was a good one.  Maybe they believed the hype and were determined not to miss a single word of dialogue, a split second of the action.  Maybe it was because it is one of those rare films that grips the audience right from the start and doesn’t let go until the credits finally roll.  I can confirm it was the latter.
 
The Batman of the 20th Century was always portrayed in the manner of a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  The films went for a high entertainment factor and didn’t really take themselves seriously, other than the serious business of making money.  Just think of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman in Batman Returns, okay just think of Michelle Pfeiffer, a role that was played over the top and in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek mood of the film.
 
Dark Knight eschews that kind of approach and explores the dark menacing side of human behavior.  Batman dispenses with the quips and suddenly has a titanium edge.  In many ways, he is re-invented in much the same way as James Bond was re-invented in Casino Royale. 
 
If Dark Knight and Casino Royale are on equal terms in a more authentic and graphic depiction of violence, Dark Knight has something extra.  It makes you think.  Director Christopher Nolan gives his take on the present and wider struggle between good and evil.  For Gotham City’s war on crime read the global war on terror.
 
Nolan poses the awkward question for freedom-loving democracies as to how that war should be waged against an uncompromising and, at times, unfathomable enemy.  Batman is viewed as an outlaw vigilante and yet one the forces of law and order tacitly admire. He is not hidebound by the same rules they are.  When he requires vital information to save lives, he resorts to torture.   It begs the question of how evil should the forces of good become in order to conquer evil.  I will let the liberals and neo-cons argue that one out.  I will just say that sometimes pragmatism and expediency must take precedence.  The means justify the ends and it has always been thus.
 
The mark of a good film, in my estimation, is the ability to pose questions and provoke thoughts while strolling back to the car.  Dark Knight did that in good measure.
 
Much has been said about Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker being worthy of an Oscar.  Initially, I thought it was just Hollywood hormonal sentimentality.  I was wrong.  He climbed right into a deranged mind to the point where The Joker’s plausible logic seemed convincing.  It will take a performance of exceptional quality to surpass his portrayal of a psychotic villain. 
 
If Ledger were to be awarded cinema’s highest accolade, he would become the second actor to win an Oscar posthumously.  Fellow antipodean actor Peter Finch was the first, in 1977, for his role in Network.  And both performances portray minds that have tipped over the edge.
 
When the final credits rolled it struck me as odd that Michael Caine was listed above Heath Ledger.  I would have thought Ledger would have had second billing behind Christian Bale.  But I guess that’s show business.