MILLONAIRE DOG

Hollywood has met Bollywood at the Academy Awards, and the makers of Oscar champ "Slumdog Millionaire" hope it's a sign of future melding between the U.S. dream factory with its counterparts in India and elsewhere in the world.

A tale of hope amid adversity and squalor in Mumbai, "Slumdog Millionaire" came away with eight Oscars, including best picture and director for Danny Boyle.


The low-budget production was a merger of India's brisk Bollywood movie industry, which provided most of the cast and crew, and the global marketing reach of Hollywood, which turned the film into a commercial smash, said British director Boyle.

"We're Brits, really, trapped in the middle, but it's a lovely trapped thing," Boyle said backstage. "You can see it's going to happen more and more. There's all sorts of people going to work there. The world's shrinking a little bit."



It was a theme Oscar voters embraced through the evening with other key awards honoring films fostering broader understanding and compassion.

Sean Penn won his second best-actor Oscar, this one for playing slain gay-rights pioneer Harvey Milk in "Milk," while Kate Winslet took best actress for "The Reader," in which she plays a former concentration camp guard coming to terms with the ignorance that let her heedlessly participate in Nazi atrocities.

Penn had harsh words for protesters outside the Oscars holding anti-gay signs. "I'd tell them to turn in their hate card and find their better self," Penn said. "I think that these are largely taught limitations and ignorances, this kind of thing. It's really sad in a way, because it's a demonstration of such cowardice, emotional cowardice, to be so afraid of extending the same rights to your fellow man as you'd want for yourself."


As expected, Heath Ledger became just the second performer to win an Oscar posthumously, receiving the supporting-actor award for the menace and mayhem he wreaks as Batman villain the Joker in "The Dark Knight." Penelope Cruz was the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar with her supporting prize as a volatile artist in a three-way romance in Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."

Ledger's award was accepted by his parents and sister on behalf of the 3-year-old daughter he had with actress Michelle Williams. The win came 13 months after Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs on Oscar nominations day last year.

His sister, Kate Ledger, said backstage that her brother sensed he was creating something special with "The Dark Knight."


"When he came home Christmas a year ago, he had been sending me shots and bits and pieces of the film," Kate Ledger said. "He hadn't seen it, but he knew. I said, `I have a feeling, this is it for you,' and I said, `You're going to get a nomination from the academy.' He just looked at me and smiled. He knew."

"I think he would have been quietly pleased, because I think he enjoyed the performance he did," said Ledger's mother, Sally Bell. "He was very proud of what he did. Heath was never one to be over the top with anything. He would be quietly pleased it was being recognized by his peers in the industry."

"Slumdog Millionaire" started as an unlikely candidate for the sort of industry and audience recognition it has garnered, presenting a cast of unknowns and a Dickensian tale of an Indian orphan rising above his street-urchin roots. Though set in a foreign land, the film tells a universal story of optimism that has been eagerly embraced by U.S. audiences.

"This country has changed, from the moment we started making the film to the moment it was released," "Slumdog" producer Christian Colson said. "I think America is cool again, for the first time in my lifetime. ... I think this is a symptom of how it's beginning to embrace a more-globalized view of the world."


Boyle earned the directing prize with his first Oscar nomination in a career of hip movies that include the drug romp "Trainspotting" and the zombie horror tale "28 Days Later."

"Slumdog Millionaire" has all the trademark elements of Boyle: raw and relentless energy, rich visual whimsy, a sense of childlike yearning, and a seamless mix of the harrowing and hilarious.

The film follows the travails and triumphs of Jamal, who artfully dodges a criminal gang that mutilates children to make them more pitiable beggars. Jamal witnesses his mother's violent death, endures police torture and struggles with betrayal by his brother, while single-mindedly hoping to reunite with the lost love of his childhood.


Fate rewards Jamal, whose story unfolds through flashbacks as he recalls how he came to know the answers that made him a champion on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire."

"Slumdog" writer Simon Beaufoy, who won the adapted-screenplay Oscar, said the film clicked with audiences stung by the recession and the realization that "this money thing, it's been shown to be a real false idol."

"It's come out at a time when the value of money, which has been raised to this extraordinary height, is suddenly being shown to be a kind of very shallow thing," Beaufoy said. "The financial markets are crashing around the world, and a film comes out which is ostensibly about being a millionaire. Actually, what it's about, it's a film that says there's more important things than money: love, faith and family. And that struck a chord with people."



Oscar organizers shook things up a bit after last year's show drew the lowest TV ratings ever. Song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman was host instead of the usual standup comedian, and he kept the show to three and a half hours, relatively brisk for a ceremony that has topped four hours some years.

The Oscars have been criticized in the past for devoting so much time to technical categories that average movie fans care little about. This time, the show abridged many of those awards, with Will Smith hammering through four such categories in quick succession, including sound mixing and film editing.



That allowed more time for the show to linger with celebrities. Each acting prize was presented by five past winners of the same awards, among them Halle Berry, Nicole Kidman, Kevin Kline, Sophia Loren, Anthony Hopkins, Shirley MacLaine and Robert De Niro.

Winslet finally walked off with an Oscar after five previous losses. While Winslet said she had been practicing Oscar speeches since childhood, holding a shampoo bottle instead of a golden statuette, she still felt "like a little girl from Reading," her hometown in England.

"Did you see my mum and dad? My mum won a pickled onion competition in their local pub just before Christmas, and that was a big deal," Winslet told reporters backstage. "You just don't think that these dreams that seem so silly and so impossible could ever really come true."

SAMBA, VOCE SAMBA!

On a street in Rio's Ipanema beach neighborhood, Juju Maravilha, dressed in a sultry gold and green sequined gown topped off by a headdress of yellow feathers, takes less than five seconds to ponder a question. "The soul of Carnival? Why it is here, darling," he coos, pointing at a crowd of thousands gathered for one of Rio de Janeiro's more than 200 informal street marches that give life to the yearly bacchanal of music, flesh, dance and drink.

The showcase event of Rio's Carnival is undoubtedly the two-night parades put on by traditional samba schools — ornate spectacles costing up to $2.5 million each with thousands of drummers, dancers and meticulously designed floats that begin Sunday night.

But locals and tourists in the know say the true golden center of Carnival lies in the parties — known as "bandas," which play the same traditional songs each year, and "blocos," which mix up the music each time. With tickets to the samba school parade running upward of $1,000, these free parties keep Brazil's No. 1 tourist attraction accessible to all.

"The origins of Carnival are in the streets," said Paulo Montenegro, a 48-year-old lawyer taking part in Friday's "Hit On Me, I'm Willing" bloco. "That is why blocos are so important — it is free, democratic, and passes on the traditions of Carnival." The parties occur each weekend for three weeks leading up to Carnival, but began rolling nonstop Friday afternoon. As the last revelers dragged themselves home at sunrise Saturday, some 500,000 people crowded into Rio's center to celebrate the 90th year of the Black Ball Krewe — one of the most traditional and beloved.

In the Banda de Ipanema samba troupe's first march, about 30,000 people shuffled behind musicians and cross-dressing dancers done up as Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian singer who helped export samba to the world in the 1940s. "It's a great cultural manifestation. You see children, older women, men, girls, gays, straights — it's a beautiful democracy of the streets," said Juju Maravilha, or "Marvelous Juju," before turning on his heels and posing for a photo with a family.

Rio's blocos are a tradition going back about 100 years and exist in nearly every part of the city of 6 million. Unlike luxurious Carnival parties attended by the elite and hosted in posh hotels, they're open to anyone who shows up with a smile and feet ready to dance.

"It's the most beautiful part of Carnival, and here you will see all the tribes," said Joao Jadiole, a 35-year-old mechanical engineer from Rio, as he danced behind the Banda de Ipanema, shirtless, a can of beer in each hand. "The banda is peace, love, life, liveliness — everything that is wonderful about this city."

There is little method to the madness, but the blocos begin with a "concentration": a vaguely adhered-to appointment for gathering at a plaza, a street corner, wherever. Banda de Ipanema met on a recent Saturday at 4 p.m. in one of the neighborhood's main plazas. This being Brazil, where the only event that begins on time is lunch break, by 4:20 only a few tourists and a horde of beer vendors were there.
Around 4:30, band members began showing up, trumpeters started tooting their horns, drummers began pounding out rhythms and hundreds of people — from young families to elderly women covered in silver glitter and dressed in skimpy bikinis — surrounded the musicians. By 5:00, after playing several traditional Carnival songs to which the crowd lustily sang along, the band began making its way down the street toward Ipanema beach and the party quickly hit a fever pitch that lasted for several hours.
Banda de Ipanema, founded in 1965 under the shadow of Brazil's military dictatorship, prides itself on irreverent political satire. Daniel Sbruzzi, a 62-year-old who was well into his suds as the party began, said he dressed up as a female "cousin" of President Barack Obama. "Obama is going to be a revolutionary with no negative sides. Only positive," Sbruzzi said, hiking up his blue hula skirt and righting his long, blond wig. "He is an idol for the world, and I wanted to express how he makes us all feel like we are part of his family."

Irane Carneiro, who declined to give her age but appeared to be in her 60s, wore a red miniskirt, a gold tank top, at least four pounds of beads, a feather headdress and a good inch of makeup. She tried to explain the importance of the event, which she has attended since its inception. "If a person loves to be happy, to live life, to leave their problems behind and take to the street with thousands of friends where for a moment everything is wonderful, then they will understand the true face of Rio de Janeiro's Carnival," she said.

A NEW DICTATORSHIP IS BORN

President Hugo Chavez says a referendum victory that removed limits on his re-election is a mandate to intensify his socialist agenda for decades to come. Opponents warn of an impending dictatorship. Both sides had called the outcome of Sunday's vote key to the future of this South American country, split down the middle between those who worship the president for redistributing Venezuela's oil riches and those who see him as a power-hungry autocrat.

"Those who voted "yes" today voted for socialism, for revolution," Chavez thundered to thousands of ecstatic supporters jamming the streets around the presidential palace. Fireworks lit up the Caracas skyline, and one man walked though the crowd carrying a painting of Chavez that read: "Forever." Josefa Dugarte stared at the crowd from the stoop of her apartment building with look of dismay. "These people don't realize what they have done," she muttered.

With 94 percent of the vote counted, official results showed the amendment passing 54 percent to 46 percent, an irreversible trend, and opposition leaders accepted the results. Tibisay Lucena, president of National Electoral Council, said turnout was 67 percent. The constitutional overhaul allows all public officials to run for re-election as many times as they want, removing barriers to a Chavez candidacy in the next presidential elections in 2012 and beyond.

"In 2012 there will be presidential elections, and unless God decides otherwise, unless the people decide otherwise, this soldier is already a candidate," Chavez said to applause. First elected in 1998, he has said he might stay in power until 2049, when he'll be 95. But analysts said Chavez shouldn't count on getting re-elected just yet.

"Chavez's intention is clear: He aspires to be president for life," said Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. "He is convinced he embodies the popular will and is indispensable to the country's progress. But his capacity to pull this off is far from assured." He said the global financial crisis and the plunging price of oil, which accounts for 94 percent of Venezuela's exports and nearly half its federal budget, will limit Chavez's ability to maintain the level of public spending that has fueled his popularity.

"The greatest challenge the government now faces is governing in the face of crisis and not falling into triumphalism," said Miguel Tinker Salas, a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California. At their campaign headquarters, Chavez opponents hugged one another, and some cried. They said the results were skewed by Chavez's broad use of state resources to get out the vote, through a battery of state-run news media, pressure on 2 million public employees and frequent presidential speeches which all television stations were required to air.

With the courts, the legislature and the election council all under his influence, and now with no limits on his re-election, officials say Chavez is virtually unstoppable. "Effectively this will become a dictatorship," opposition leader Omar Barboza told The Associated Press. "It's control of all the powers, lack of separation of powers, unscrupulous use of state resources, persecution of adversaries."

Opponents of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez Monday warned of greater authoritarian rule after he triumphed in a referendum which could allow him to stay in office for life. Chavez, who has already been president for a decade in this Latin American nation, said he now intended to stand for a third term in 2012, after winning 54.36 percent of preliminary results in Sunday's referendum. "The doors of the future are wide open," Chavez boomed from the balcony of his Miraflores palace after winning the referendum which scraps the previous rules requiring the president to stand down after two terms in office.

Chavez's victory strengthens his mandate, which would normally have ended in 2013, and could prompt him to expand his socialist drive, which has led to nationalizations and greater state control over the economy. In this increasingly polarized country, the opposition garnered some 45.63 percent after more than 11 million people out of some 17 million eligible voters went to the ballot. The leftist leader is popular with many of the country's poor for his oil-funded health care and education programs, but blamed by a vocal opposition for rising crime, corruption and inflation.

Critics charge that Chavez has too much power, holding sway over the courts, lawmakers and the election council. "With this result, the president can deepen the path to socialism and he'll be tempted to reinforce the authoritarian character of Venezuela's politics," warned Veneuzelan International Relations professor Carlos Romero. There was also criticism of flaws in the weekend ballot. "Chavez won the right to re-election after a process marred with faults," the El Nacional newspaper headline read.



The opposition had widely criticized Chavez's massive state-sponsored campaign for the vote to alter the constitution. "This was the campaign with most abuses of public resources that we have ever seen," said Carlos Vecchio, a member of an opposition grouping. Venezuela becomes the first Latin American country to adopt unlimited electoral terms with the vote. The president was previously allowed two consecutive terms, which would have forced Chavez to step down at the end of his second mandate in 2013. The proposed amendment was his second bid to extend presidential term limits after a package of sweeping constitutional changes, including an end to term limits, was struck down by voters in December 2007. But the vote also comes amid warnings that Chavez's social programs in this OPEC member nation could be hard hit by tumbling oil prices.

"I think that the greatest challenge the government now faces is governing in the face of crisis and not falling into triumphalism," Venezuelan analyst Miguel Tinker Salas of Pomona College, California, told AFP. As Chavez-dominated national TV stations on Monday played patriotic songs and images of the president and his supporters, the private opposition-led press lauded the high turnout -- the most in the last four elections -- and reported complaints about voting machines. From Buenos Aires to Havana and beyond, many watched the vote on the future of the fierce anti-liberal US foe and Latin American leftist champion. Chavez said he received his first congratulations from his mentor, former Cuban president Fidel Castro.

The latest vote came only three months after regional and municipal elections in which the opposition gained ground. "We don't like Chavez, his people, or unlimited re-election," said opposition supporter Rosi Gonzales after voting in eastern Caracas. "He's destroyed the country." Chavez supporters meanwhile reveled in another victory for their larger-than-life leader. "Chavez has been a president who loves the people and has fought for them," said Diazmelis Benitez, from a working class neighborhood of Caracas.