The winners weren’t the highlight of this year’s Academy Awards, at least not to me. i was more interested in the changes in presentation of the awards and the format of the show. Change isn’t always bad. Some of the format choices were a little questionable, but overall I thought the show was far less boring than it has been in the past.

What was good:

• Hugh Jackman as host. He is funny, can sing AND dance, he’s a hottie, and he’s Wolverine. I mean, really.
• Five past winners announcing five nominees for the Actor/Actress awards (both supporting and leading). This was super cool. Yes, super COOL. It was interesting to see a different actor introducing each nominee, and each one matched the other somehow. And we got to see more gowns and more celebs.
• Hugh Jackman’s (and Anne Hathaway’s) opening number. Pretty brilliant.
• Anne Hathaway’s dress. It was absolutely amazing.
• Kate Winslet’s Best Actress win. (Everyone else deserved it just as much, especially Meryl Streep, but The Reader…wow.)
• The “Dad whistle.” Priceless!
• Queen Latifah’s performance of “I’ll Be Seeing You” was beautiful. I couldn’t have done it without my voice cracking from sadness.
• Montages.
• Slumdog Millionaire FTW.

What was questionable:

• Benjamin Button getting so many nominations. I’m happy they didn’t win all of them.
• The cut-montages that included scenes from other films interwoven into the Best Picture Award nominations. In a way, I liked it. In another way, it was a little distracting.
• The musical numbers. The Baz Luhrmann one made a lot more sense once I realized he was the one who arranged that. I thought there were too many musical references in rapid succession, but I like musical numbers, so it was palatable. The Best Song Award was interesting, kind of haphazard, but I’ll take it.
• Sean Penn’s win. I think the movie was excellent (true story films are usually either extremely good or totally wrong). I just don’t really care for him.I was pulling for Mickey Rourke.
• I never understand how they decide the winners of the more technical stuff, so whoever wins, I figure they deserve it, but I never really can tell.

That’s all I’ve got off the top of my head. I’m sure there was a lot more that I loved and didn’t love, but still. Overall, it was one of the better shows I’ve seen from the Academy. Change was good here.