Whether you agree or disagree with the award winners or losers is irrelevant. You, personally, get to decide who you thought was the best for your eyes and ears; the Academy ™ decides who they liked the most and their ceremony is probably bigger than yours. Na na na boo boo, as five year olds say.

Just a few months back, Slumdog was a certainty for the ‘straight to DVD’ market. How that can happen to any Danny Boyle movie is a wonder to most people; his skills being well known? You may (or may not) have liked Trainspotting, but you probably enjoyed 28 Days Later and The Beach.

The Brits certainly did invade during 2008. Our own FAMM ™awards (more highly rated than the Academy’s Oscars™) recently voted first place to Mamma Mia! for the best movie and best musical; Rolling Stones music in Shine A Light for best score; Guy Ritchie, best director for Rocknrolla; best short film went to Chris Jones’ Gone Fishing; Michael Caine won the Special FAMM ™Mention.

FAMM™ agreed with the Academy ™over Penélope Cruz , but FAMM™ awarded her for Elegy and not Vicky Cristina Barcelona; it must have been a good year for Ms Cruz who carried part of her winning speech in her native tongue.

It was good to see Sean Penn’s career win a top slot. He’s the spitting image of my friend Martin and was able to give (Sean, not Martin) a part political speech in his allotted 45 seconds, of which all but a few Californian voters agreed.

I must take umbrage with Wall-E getting the Oscar™ for best animation. Let’s be honest, it wasn’t nearly as good as Escape2 Africa, wasn’t anywhere close to the quality of Bolt, but it contained a message that came across well, rather than entertain. Two of our group of four fell asleep during Wall-y (the Brits and the Ausies will get that pun) so while the message reached them, the entertainment didn’t.

The Main Awards

Of course the main recipients of the key awards this 81st edition were for best adapted screenplay: (Slumdog Millionaire) to Simon Beaufoy from the novel by Vikas Swarup and best original screenplay to Dustin Lance Black for his ‘Milk.’ Without the script there is no movie. Directors, producers, actors and crew should remember that.

A further thought; perhaps the British invasion should be termed half British and half Indian. After all, the story is about India, it’s set in India and stars many Indian actors. Without India, this movie wouldn’t have existed so it’s fitting to acknowledge where appropriate.

We stand by our FAMM™ decision to go for Mamma Mia! It excelled in every way. How long before the Academy dares to give the main award again to a musical?

I hope I’ve added enough ™ symbols where appropriate. The Academy are quite (means very) strict about who can say or print their name and they do like being attached to their intellectual property, the Oscars ™. If I have missed any, here’s a spare one – ™; Please place where appropriate.

FAMM ™ hasn’t used a picture of the statue for fear of upsetting too many people at the Academy™. I wouldn’t ever wish to use anything without permission just as I wouldn’t anyone to use my work without asking (and preferably paying dollars) first. It’s been suggested that I start work on my winning speech for future use. Can I borrow your shampoo bottle, Kate?

They may be biased in wanting him to win everything, but that’s what being a fan is about. Film stars love their fans, even if that’s not what they say. They need their fan base to stay box office stars.

Gerard Butler (Gerry to his fans) was born in 1969, and is a Scottish actor, even though he now spends his time between London and LA. Some of his family hails from Ireland. He’s also spent time living in Canada.

He appeared way back in the 1997 movie Mrs Brown and followed that up with a small part in the James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies. During the years he’s been in around 35 movies, including 300, The Phantom of The Opera, PS I Love You, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Beowulf and the wonderful Nims Island and the great Rocknrolla.

We should see him soon in Law Abiding Citizen and then during 2010 in How to Train Your Dragon.

I’m hopeful that some GB fans will let us know which are GB’s best movies and why.

4 stars****

This franchise continues Guy Ritchie’s excellent direction. If this film is successful (figures show it already is) then he’ll follow up with ‘The Real Rocknrolla’ and finally the trilogy closes with ‘Rocknroll Suicide.’ He’s the master of Brit mobster movies, even if he does have the occasional disappointment.

Stepping aside from Guy Ritchie’s directing work; he is a masterful screenplay writer. This is another of those movies where you can pick up a copy of the screenplay and put the movie into your mind as you read it. There’s a fair chance that you’d end up with the same movie these guys came up with.

While the Academy almost certainly won’t put this Guy Ritchie comedy/mobster screenplay on their final list, it does deserve to be at least, close. You can see that he has dissected every word that he crafted to leave just the bare bones, which means that every word counts.

Tom Wilkinson won applause for his ‘Full Monty’ performance and most definitely for the extraordinary ‘In the Bedroom’ with Sissy Spacek. In this movie, he deserves more praise; his portrayal of a mobster boss who doesn’t appear to essentially be involved directly with his squad’s interrogation techniques, is close to perfect. He may give the orders, but he talks to others.

Thandie Newton, one of many stars in both ‘Crash’ and ‘Mission Impossible II,’ demonstrates an outrageous charm as she fiddles the books for whoever will pay her as an up market accountant. She’ll steal from them by employing low level thugs and then go back for more. If she did make it to the end of the movie (and the gloves being worn by one of the Russian thugs suggests she won’t be) her role could become additionally riveting in franchise part 2.

I’m disheartened that I virtually missed new Bond girl Gemma Arterton as ‘June’ as I wondered what her skills were like before I see the new Bond movie next week. I’ll have to wait and see.

We saw the immense Gerard Butler in Nims Island earlier this year. This actor’s role was so far removed from his previous task, so as to prove his acting abilities show no boundaries, while Mark Strong knows that with his second in command performance, he’ll be back in charge in franchise 2 and, if he lives long enough (in the movie no-one is safe), in franchise 3.

The only person missing was footballer Vinnie Jones, although his acting years are becoming close to his football years, so we will at some stage call him actor, Vinnie Jones. Vinnie was a major player in early Guy Ritchie films, especially the film of 1999, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Two final points of major interest then:

One; no definite violence is in fact, seen. Show and not tell is used to mammoth proportions. You see the golf club going down on the man’s legs. You don’t see it really hit the legs, but you do know his legs will be broken. You may see the blood hit the wall, but you don’t see the bullet going into, through and out the opposite side of the soon to be corpse.

Two; Guy Ritchie, via both films schools of high note (Dov S-S Simens and Elliot Grove’s Raindance) is an excellent screenplay writer. This script is one of the best in years. It’s an excellent example of how to re-write until you assemble all that the experts will charge you to find out. It’ll be used as an illustration of clear writing at future film schools.

I hope his divorce from Madonna doesn’t slow down his output.