The Oscar ceremony, whose American audience turnout had fallen to 32 million viewers last year, was retooled as a kaleidoscope of relaxed performances by the show`s producers. The flavour was definitely that of a party that had ended too soon.

The Oscars have a tendency to excite by throwing a curve ball at some of the oddest moments and categories. The awards — maybe judged analytically with an open sense of how the industry modulates from global rallying, pre-award screenings and other major and mini-major award shows preceding the event.

Needless to mention this year`s `once` dark horse, Slumdog Millionaire, won the coveted Academy Award for best picture, amongst a string of achievements in other technical and aesthetic categories. A few were shared by The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight and Milk, which turned out as a slight bombshell in two major categories. The best picture accolade was a first for Fox Searchlight, the indie-minded subsidiary of 20th Century Fox that had often come quite close to a win with efforts like The Full Monty, Sideways and Little Miss Sunshine.

Wall-E`s win for best animated feature was as almost a no-brainer as Kate Winslet`s best actress Oscar for The Reader and The Dark Knight`s win for best supporting actor, Heath Ledger; another winner who shared Slumdog`s winning streak throughout the year. The posthumous award for Ledger`s scene-chewing maniacal, best as The Joker, was received by his teary-eyed family. Vicky Christina Barcelona`s Penelope Cruz won best supporting actress and gave a part of her speech in Spanish. Off-stage Cruz said “We are all mixed together, and it has to be reflected in the cinema”, implying that stories had to grow beyond the bounds of being strictly American.

The strictly Oscar-friendly The Curious Case of Benjamin Button won in make-up, visual effects and art direction — three awards from its 13 nominations. Frost/Nixon became the film that showed up for nominations only.

Harvey Milk`s biopic Milk dominated two awards — one for original screenplay and the other for Sean Penn as best actor, who also recently won the Screen Actors Guild award in the same category. “You Commie, homo-loving sons of guns,” quipped Penn on stage, as he won his second Oscar, which was deserved by Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler.

The other misfire during Oscar night was in the category of best foreign film, which went to the Japanese Departures and not the animated Waltz with Bashir, another favourite amongst pundits. Man on Wire won best documentary.

Danny Boyle, the director of Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, who won best director for Slumdog, hopped around like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh as he received his Oscar. He said that years before when his children were small he promised them that if he ever won an Oscar this would be how he would receive it. Boyle paid tribute to the people of Mumbai by saying “You dwarf even this guy.”

Simon Beaufoy, who won for best adapted screenplay, counted off the places he thought he never would get to the Moon, the South Pole, the Miss World podium and winning at the Oscars. Cinematography, sound mixing, film editing, score and best song — the last two were won by Indian wunderkind music director, A.R. Rahman, who diplomatically thanked Allah in Tamil, translating what he said as “God, You are great” — were all winners for Slumdog Millionaire, which walked off with eight Oscars; the highest after Lord of the Rings The Return of the King`s 11 wins a few years ago.

The Oscar ceremony, whose American audience turnout had fallen to 32 million viewers last year (whether Jon Stewart, the previous host was to be blamed, remains a debate), was retooled as a kaleidoscope of relaxed performances by the show`s producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon (director of Dream Girls). The flavour was definitely that of a party that had ended too soon. The retooling involved multiple presenters introducing the winner and the categories, harrowing musical numbers, a redesigned stage whose colour tone was shifted to blue from the usual Oscar red and gold, and host Hugh Jackman who shared a panache for cabaret performances.

The host, who danced like a Tony-winning pro during two of his musical acts, has my vote for coming back next year and the year after. Clearly the heart of the Oscar party, he started by poking jokes at foreign actors getting nominated for being in geographically diverse films. He poked fun at himself, noting that Kate Winslet, who hails from England played a German woman in The Reader and got nominated, while he an Australian actor, who plays an Australian in a movie titled Australia didn`t get nominated. He then ran head-first into the best song-and-dance performance of the night at the beginning of the show that introduced serious films Slumdog and Milk, and comic book movies being serious Oscar contenders (The Dark Knight).

Undoubtedly the 82nd Academy Awards have a lot to look up to after this act.

1. Best actress Kate Winslet, best actor Sean Penn and best supporting actress
Penelope Cruz
2. Slumdog director Danny Boyle with his leading cast
3. Late actor Heath Ledgers mother Sally (R), father Kim (L) and sister Kate give their acceptance speech