Oscar winners Dustin Lance Black and Philippe Petit

On what we all knew was going to be a Slumdog night, it appeared that there would be no real surprises (unless you count Israel’s Waltz with Bashir losing to Japan’s Departures in the best foreign language category). Until, that is, Sean Penn won the award that was seemingly destined to be Mickey Rourke’s, for best actor. Both stars were certainly worthy, but according to that Oscar calculus which settles ties by choosing the actor who has been around the block but hasn’t collected a piece of hardware (and, in Rourke’s case, is fairly unlikely ever to be nominated again), it was at least a mild upset that the man who played Randy the Ram didn’t get the gold statue, especially considering his Golden Globe award and the massive wave of press attention given to his performance and its real-life parallels (even Nate Silver, everyone’s favorite predictions guru, whiffed on this one, as well as on best supporting actress). Perhaps Academy voters just weren’t interested in hearing another mumbled eulogy to all of Rourke’s dogs, but it was a shame to be deprived of the actor’s sublime weirdness on the Oscar stage, and for anyone who wanted to see Rourke win, Penn’s singling out of his peer at the end of his acceptance speech was a wan sort of consolation prize.

Despite the (relative) lack of surprises, the 81st Oscar ceremony was more engaging and entertaining than in recent years. Given the times, Hugh Jackman’s vaudevillian, sui generis turn as host felt like an appropriate replacement for Jon Stewart’s acerbic presenting style, and changes to the night’s format were (mostly) welcome. In particular, the decision to bring out five past winners to present the nominees in the acting categories nicely served to personalize the awards people care most about, ensure that all the nominees were recognized, and wrap up the proceedings in the full weight of Oscar history. (Meanwhile, the decision to sandwich the best actress and actor awards between best director and best picture, no doubt motivated by a desire to separate two awards that usually go to the same film, felt jarring.) Heath Ledger’s moment was touching, though a touch anticlimactic coming more than a year after his death, especially considering the crushing inevitability of the award. The more poignant moment involved another joker, the great Jerry Lewis, who won this year’s lifetime achievement honor, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award; though clearly impaired a litany of health concerns, the 82-year-old comic was still able to flash one of his instantly recognizable, endearingly pathetic dunce grins after finishing his mercifully brief speech.

Special congratulations to Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (featured VMAN 12) and Man on Wire subject Philippe Petit (featured in VMAN 11) on their awards. Black, who gave Penn his words, provided one of the evening’s more stirring moments when he turned his acceptance into a plea to end the bigotry which led to the passing of Proposition 8 in California just as Milk hit theaters (a sentiment later echoed by Penn). The irrepressible Petit celebrated by making a coin disappear before the eyes of the Kodak Theater audience, then balancing the Oscar statuette on his nose. In vastly different but equally indelible ways, each brought a bit of magic to the movies in 2008.

KEYWORDS: Dustin Lance Black, film, Heath Ledger, Hollywood, Hugh Jackman, Jerry Lewis, Mickey Rourke, Oscars, Philippe Petit, Sean Penn