'Ray'-warded

The Oscars may be an overpuffed, overhyped, grotesquely lavish back-slapping session but it was still good to see that Jamie Foxx was deservedly victorious in the Best Actor category for his starring role as Ray Charles in Taylor Hackford's wonderful biopic 'Ray', triumphing over such established names as Clint Eastwood, Johnny Depp and Leonardo di Caprio in the process.

'Ray' also scooped the award for Best Sound Mixing, though it missed out in the Best Film, Best Director, Film Editing and Costume Design categories.

Another recent release which I enjoyed even more, the offbeat comedy 'Sideways', was disappointingly though not unexpectedly a bigger loser. Alexander Payne lost out in the Best Director category, but had some consolation in scooping the Best Adapted Screenplay award for his reworking of the Rex Pickett novel on which the film is based.

'Sideways' never had much hope of stealing the Best Film crown from the big hitters, but for Virginia Madsen and particularly Thomas Haden Church to be overlooked for the Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor awards respectively was very unfortunate.

Links:

The complete winners' list.

A BBC feature on Jamie Foxx.