If the Oscars are the main course, the SAG Awards the salad and the Golden Globes the drinks and appetizer, the Critics’ Choice Awards are like the bread basket. If you’re hungry for something it’s fine to nibble on, but once the rest of the courses come in you’re most likely to forget its existence.

Still, with the Globes three days away, I’m hungry, so I watched. Some highlights:

• Because of Slumdog Millionaire’s multiple wins, we got to hear that really catchy dance number “Jaiho” a total of five times.
• I was amused by the addition of the “house band” Rooney (fronted by Robert Schwartzman, son of Talia Shire, brother of Jason, nephew of Coppola), who got to translate A-Ha’s “Take on Me” into walk-on music for Amy Adams and the “Rocky” theme for Dustin Hoffman. Wonder if the stars got to suggest their own cues?
• I got slightly teared up when the room, filled to the brim with A-listers, stood up for Heath Ledger when he posthumously won Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight, with his black-and-white mug filling the screens.
• What a dismay that Kate Winslet, always the bridesmaid, finally won an award (Best Supporting Actress for The Reader) but was not there to accept. If she loses all the other awards this season we’ll have been deprived of seeing her finally give an acceptance speech.
• In a surprise, Meryl Streep (Doubt, who was not present) and Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married) tied for Best Actress.  Hathaway, who exclaimed, “I know how to not be nominated for awards!” In what may or may not have been a reference to her tumultuous personal year, she tearfully thanked her dad “for showing me that there are good men in this world.”
• Sean Penn was nowhere to be found during the first award (Best Ensemble) which went to his film Milk. (”He’s parking the car,” joked his co-stars Emile Hirsch and Josh Brolin, who were on hand to accept) He was, however, there at the end to accept Best Actor. “At heart, this was a beauty contest so I had an advantage,” he said to his fellow nominees, who included Brad Pitt, Clint Eastwood, Mickey Rourke, and Richard Jenkins.

Here’s the complete list of winners:
Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Actor: Sean Penn, Milk
Best Actress: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married and Meryl Streep, Doubt (tie)
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader
Best Acting Ensemble: Milk
Best Writer: Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Documentary Feature: Man on Wire
Best Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir
Best Young Actor/Actress: Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Animated Feature: Wall-E
Best Comedy Movie: Tropic Thunder
Best Action Movie: The Dark Knight
Best Score: A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Song: “The Wrestler,” Bruce Springsteen, The Wrestler
Best Picture Made for Television: John Adams

Tags: anne hathaway, critics choice awards, director, kate winslet, meryl-streep, movies, rachel-getting, slumdog millionaire, television