Designer Tom Ford has made the move from runway to the big screen with a flourish with his directorial debut “A Single Man,”  a highly stylized account of a gay college professor dealing with the loss of his lover.

Colin Firth has sparked Oscar buzz with his performance, which won him the Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival, and the Weinstein Company bought distribution rights for the movie at Toronto. That means the public will soon get their own chance to judge whether designer-turned-director Ford is as successful behind the camera as he was in bringing sexy silhouettes to the catwalk.

The former creative head at Gucci isn’t the only one to find a second calling in the movies. He joins a long list of "hyphen" directors - musicians, journalists and artists who have switched careers to become filmmakers.

Singers alone could fill up a list. Madonna made her directorial debut last year with "Filth and Wisdom," which was received with about as much as enthusiasm as her earlier attempts at acting, while heavy metal rocker Rob Zombie, who revived the "Halloween" franchise and is reportedly lined up to remake "The Blob," has made a name in horror films.

To be sure, some have been far more successful than others. One of the most notable crossovers of late has been British artist and Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen, who made a splash at Cannes last year with "Hunger." His picture about an IRA hunger striker won the Camera d'Or for best first feature film at the fest.

Former entertainment journalist and film critic Rod Lurie, who broke out with his 2000 film “The Contender” starring Joan Allen as a Vice President nominee under scrutiny, has also developed credibility as a director of political films.

The most successful crossover of all? Perhaps Woody Allen, who started out as a stand-up comic before taking up position behind the camera. But you tell us, who do you think are the best film directors to cross over from other fields? Tell us in the comments below.

VENICE, Italy (CNN) - If you are a kid, have kids or are a kid at heart, you could not do much better than watch the parade of talent on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival Sunday afternoon.

The full complement of Pixar movie directors were in town to collect the Lifetime Achievement award which was given to the animation studio.

It was the first time in Venice festival history that an entire studio, rather than just one filmmaker, was honored.

And the man giving the award was none other than George Lucas, who helped create Pixar.

So, to add it all up, on the red carpet Sunday we had:

• John Lasseter, director of the first two "Toy Story" movies as well as "A Bug's Life" and "Cars"
• Peter Docter, director of "Monsters, Inc." and "Up"
• Andrew Stanton, director of "Finding Nemo" and "Wall-E"
• Brad Bird, director of "The Incredibles," "Ratatouille" and prior to joining Pixar, "The Iron Giant"
• Lee Unkrich, director of the upcoming "Toy Story 3"

And then of course George Lucas, director of... oh what did he direct? Oh yeah, "Star Wars." And he created Indiana Jones.

As if that was not enough, they were joined on the red carpet by Woody and Buzz of "Toy Story" and Carl and Russell from "Up."

If from that array of talent there is nothing that has been produced to keep you and your kids entertained for many, many hours, then I think you might be better off heading to a doctor to get your pulse checked.

Do you have a favorite Pixar flick? What do you think it is that makes the studio's movies so special? Tell us in the comments below.

LONDON, England - The envelopes have been opened, the statuettes collected and the limos departed.

Now all that's left for this year's Oscars is to sift through the results and fathom out what happened - and why.

Oscar results are usually analyzed in terms of expectations and shocks - which winners succeeded and failed to satisfy the pundit's predictions (as I attempted to do a few weeks back – how did your predictions go?).

But 2009 was a year largely devoid of shocks.

Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight"), Kate Winslet ("The Reader") and Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristiana Barcelona") all won in their respective categories as predicted. Likewise, "Slumdog Millionaire" took Best Picture and Best Director (I foolishly suggested "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" might nab one of these).

Many commentators have hailed Sean Penn's Best Actor prize for "Milk," for which he beat out favorite Mickey Rourke ("The Wrestler") as a shock. Not so.

There's two types of shocks in the Oscars - unexpected shocks and predicted shocks.

Unexpected shocks are few and far between - say "Brokeback Mountain" losing out on Best Picture to "Crash" in 2006.

It just happens: sometimes the awards season goes on for so long that the front runner simply gets overhauled. Or, Academy voters maybe say to themselves: You know what, we're not going to vote the way everyone reckons we are.

Penn's win, on the other hand, is a predicted shock. Penn won the same Oscar in 2004 for "Mystic River." Every awards body has its own tastes. It's not that the Academy does not like Mickey - they just prefer Sean.

No, this season's biggest shock has been a slow-burn unexpected shock, one that's been so long coming that it's almost failed to register.

"Slumdog Millionaire."

The Oscar success of Danny Boyle's Mumbai-set film has been hailed as a sure bet these past few weeks - "Slumdunk Millionaire," if you will.

But its victories were never certain.

The shock is not just that "Slumdog" won eight Oscars (which puts it on a par with "Gone With the Wind" and "On The Waterfront," and ahead of "Schindler's List" and "Lawrence of Arabia") but that it was even a runner in the race at all.

Remember - this is a low-budget, no-star film that almost went to DVD following the collapse of Warner Independent Pictures (which like CNN is owned by a unit of Time Warner) before it was rescued last summer by Fox Searchlight.

If "Curious," "Slumdog's" closest rival with 13 nominations, had won more awards then it would remind Oscar-watchers of the success of "Forrest Gump." Films like "Milk," "Frost/Nixon" and "The Reader" also have their own Oscar-nominated antecedents.

But "Slumdog" is reminiscent of nothing else that has been this popular in recent Oscars history.

Sometimes the best shocks also hint at a seachange.

What do you think about this year's Oscar winners? Tell us your thoughts.

Wherever they go, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are guaranteed to generate a media frenzy, but it was vintage rocker Mick Jagger who generated one of the biggest cheers of the night when he came on present the best director award.

The Rolling Stone told the audience that he was attending the ceremony in his capacity as the founder member of MREP - "The Movie Star and Rock Star Exchange Program."

Under this program, he said, Sir Ben Kingsley was singing the Stone's hit "Brown Sugar" at the Grammy Awards (also on Sunday), Sir Anthony Hopkins was in the recording studio with Amy Winehouse, Dame Judy Dench was busy trashing hotel rooms and next week Brad Pitt and the whole Pitt family would be performing in "The Sound of Music."

Brad and Angelina reportedly took the whole thing with good humor, even if both nominees (Brad for Leading Actor for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and Supporting Actor for "Burn After Reading" and Angelina for Leading Actress in "Changeling") returned home empty-handed.

LONDON, England (CNN) - History is littered with the detritus of terrible Oscar speeches. Gwyneth Paltrow anyone?

Winners are inevitably overcome, talk far too long, sob too much and generally just make you want to hit the mute button before your brain melts.

That charismatic, dreamboat of a person you idolized becomes a make-up smudged shadow of their screen glory with all the appeal of a screaming banshee (men and women).

With the Oscars only weeks away and keeping the above in mind, I've decided to pen my own Oscar speech just in case the day ever comes...

"Oh God. WOW. This is LIKE soooo amazing. I am a WINNER, which makes you all LOSERS. Oops, sorry. It makes a lot of you losers. I mean, what I wanted so say, is that this is just, I think, like, probably, the best moment in my life - no offense to my wife – but she knows what I'm all about.

"And that's glory, and now I have it. Being a winner like me takes hard work, it has been back-breaking at times. I mean, some of you guys know what it's like, $15 million a picture doesn't spread that far these days. And working half the year in exotic locations is not what everyone imagines. And then there's the week of humanitarian work a year; God! Sick and hungry people are such a drain aren't they?

"Anyway, I digress, I'd like to thank everyone I've ever known though they've actually contributed nothing to my success - I got me here. I'm the one who does the acting.

"Some critics have called me the acting talent of my generation and, I have to say, I think they're on the money.

"Which is why you losers, sorry, I mean the other people I have been delighted to beat to the best actor nod, shouldn't be too downtrodden. You've done quite well actually. I'm not going to namecheck you all, because frankly, while I know your names, I can't be bothered and I don't really like you.

"I think I'll put old Oscar here on the mantle piece next to the picture of me with Barack Obama. Obviously he and I have a lot in common, like winning, and I like to feel we're on the same page when it comes to policy in the Middle East.

"Anyway, to cap off: I'm the winner here and fully expect to be back next year so don't even bother renting yourself a suit. By the way, do you like mine? Aren't you going to give me the obligatory standing ovation?"

What would you say in your Oscar speech? What is the worst Oscar speech you've seen?

NEW DELHI, India– The theater in New Delhi was packed. While "Slumdog Millionaire" has long since been released in the US, it opened here last weekend. The movie depicts the fate of three children who live in terribly difficult conditions in the slums of Mumbai. It follows them as love, violence and a television show changes their fate.

It is a very painful look at the lives of India's poor through the eyes of the poorest of the poor: children. Film critics here are mostly raving about the movie, but everyday Indians have reacted to the film with a range of emotions from happily entertained to fiercely angry.

There have been a couple of protests over the film since it opened. Some of the people who live in slums - and some who don't - felt the film was profiting off the suffering of others. Some were spitting mad that a foreign director took the liberty to show everything that is wrong in the country and not much that is right.

Even the name of the film itself has come under fire.

Protesters tore down movie posters in one of India's poorest states saying the use of the word "Slumdog" to describe people living in slums had again injured the poor. They say it is yet another hurtful name for those already struggling at the bottom.

Back in Delhi when I began asking the 20-something middle class Indians about their thoughts on the movie, they were frank: "That's India man, these are some of the realities of life here," one guy remarked.

Which is why some people said they just didn't want to see a film about the same sad stories they are faced with everyday. Watch more on "Slumdog Millionaire"

As the week progressed I revisited the theater where "Slumdog Millionaire" or "Slumdog Crorepati" (crorepati being the Hindi word for millionaire) was playing. During the week it was virtually empty.

The vast majority of people I've talked to were disturbed by the movie, saying it was both painful and uplifting. They pointed out faults but in the end recommended it, saying it was an interesting and entertaining film. Some, though, were pretty annoyed the world had seen a movie about India long before it was released where it was made.

The reaction here brings up a question that has long been debated: Do artists, this time filmmakers, have a responsibility to show balance, or should they be able to create their art freely even if it disturbs others?

What do you think?

LONDON, England – The dust has settled after yesterday's Oscar nominations. We know everything in terms of the final five in each category - but for many of the awards we are only left with guesswork as to the likely winners come February 22. Oscar likes to surprise - only in hindsight, once the awards have been handed out, can we determine why the Academy voted as it did.

Making Oscar predictions is a game for fools - but it's also lot of fun, something we need in the current climate. Give me your suggestions at the bottom of this post - and in the meantime I'd offer the following...

No movie will make a clean sweep. "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," with 13 nominations, heads the field, with "Slumdog Millionaire" behind it on 10. This only reflects how "Curious" has acting nominations while "Slumdog" does not: these two are running close.

The certainty in the main categories is Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight") for best supporting actor  - not just for his performance or because he died but also because he would have won an Oscar eventually. The likeliest challenge? Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Doubt"), who beat Ledger to a best actor Oscar in 2006. But it would be a major upset.

The best actor is Mickey Rourke's to lose for "The Wrestler." Oscar likes a comeback - Rourke's only hindrance is if the prize is taken for granted by everyone, in which case Oscar could choose someone else. Academy winner Sean Penn, who expands his range through the powerful and tender "Milk," is in the wings waiting for him to fall.

The biggest nomination shock is in best actress and the exclusion of Kate Winslet for "Revolutionary Road" (it lost out in best film and director too), for which she won a best actress drama Golden Globe.

Still, the five-time nominee will win her first Oscar for "The Reader," in which she was wrongly pushed for supporting actress. Strongest challenges come from two-time winner Meryl Streep ("Doubt") and Anne Hathaway ("Rachel Getting Married"), who between them have dominated critics' awards.

Best supporting actress is more open (although why no Rosemarie DeWitt for "Rachel?"). Amy Adams and Viola Davies (both "Doubt") will cancel each other out; and "The Wrestler's" Marisa Tomei may suffer due to Rourke's likely success. Expect Penelope Cruz to win for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Woody Allen's overly-mannered drama.

The best picture and best director usually go to the same movie. The tussle here is between Danny Boyle's colorfully kinetic "Slumdog" and David Fincher for "Curious." Trailing third is "Frost/Nixon," which feels more like a series of strong performances than the complete package.

Crowdpleaser "Slumdog" stands out in a season of autumnal features tinged with regret and loss. It's also hard to ignore the technical challenges faced by Boyle for the Mumbai shoot. Remember - less than six months ago "Slumdog" was bound for DVD in the United States.

Plans to shoot "Curious" have kicked around Hollywood for years - usually not a good sign. But Fincher, who usually deals in darker fare, does a strong job of sustaining the narrative for more than 150 minutes.

Actors are strongly represented in the Academy - and "Curious" is unlikely to win any acting awards. Will voters compensate this retool of Oscar-winner "Forrest Gump" elsewhere - maybe give it a director or picture plaudit and "Slumdog" the other? Don't rule it out.

Of course this is all conjecture. One, or all, of these tips, is plain wrong. Oscar is unpredictable - that's part of its appeal

But who do you think should win this year's Oscars - and who do you think has unjustly been left out?

It was a night of near hyperventilation at the Golden Globes for actress Kate Winslet, who has "a habit of not winning things" - yet who walked away with Best Actress Drama ("Revolutionary Road") and Best Supporting Actress Drama ("The Reader").

When she finally recovered from the shock of being one of the few people to win Globes in both categories in one year, Winslet spent the rest of the evening with husband Sam Mendes, who directed her in "Revolutionary Road."

Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire" also cleaned up, winning four awards including Best Picture Drama and Best Director, consolidating its position as a serious Oscar contender.

Mickey Rourke picked up Best Actor to huge cheers from the crowd, nonchalantly answering them with an almost Elvis-like "Thankyuh, baby," before confessing: "This has been a long road back for me." He also thanked Darren Aronofsky, who directed him in "The Wrestler,"calling him "one tough sonofabitch."

As expected, the late Heath Ledger was awarded the Best Supporting Actor award posthumously for his role as the Joker in Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight." On the back of the Globes win, pundits are now tipping Ledger for Oscars success too.

The Golden Globes are seen as an important bellwether for films that could get the Oscars nod. A win at the Globes can give a film the all important extra momentum that makes the difference between a win and second place.

One of the main differences between the awards is that the Golden Globes are not decided by fellow actors, directors and talent (the Oscars are voted on by just under 6,000 Academy members) but by a much smaller group of journalists from around the world who make up the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA).

Some prestigious films which have enjoyed a sizeable marketing push didn't get a Globes nod, notably "Milk," "Frost/Nixon" and "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." But these films, which have more of an American sensibility to them than say "Slumdog," could see more success at the Oscars, as could perennial Academy favorite Clint Eastwood, who has two eligible films this year with "Changeling" and "Gran Torino."

During the past four years, the Globes have not necessarily given its Best Picture award to the movie that went on to win its equivalent at the Oscars (last year "No Country for Old Men" won the Best Picture Oscar while "Atonment" won the Golden Globe for Best Picture Drama). That said, more than half of all the films that win Best Picture at the Globes have gone on to win at the Oscars.

For now, what happens come Oscar night on February 22 is likely to be a mixture of near certainties (Ledger has to be a lock for an Oscar, while "Slumdog" is ahead for the Best Picture Oscar) and informed guesswork and speculation (Winslet may be pushed to repeat her Golden Globe sweep).

But which movies and talent are you backing for Oscars success?

LONDON, England - Can Mickey Rourke make one of the comebacks of modern movie history, bagging a Best Actor Oscar for his role as a fallen fighter in "The Wrestler?"

Don't bet against it after watching  Darren Aronofsky's harrowing drama, which took top awards on the autumn festival circuit and has just opened in the U.S.

Rourke - whose bad-boy existence has fed tabloids for the best part of two decades - confronts the part of fallen 1980s ring legend Randy "The Ram" Robinson, getting by on a diet of painkillers and steroids and at one point lamenting: "I'm an old broken-down piece of meat."

Wrestling traditionally presents itself as prime-time pantomime; in contrast Aronofsky takes a naturalistic, semi-documentary stance, revealing a contrived theater of gore, replete with staple guns, barbed wire and self-cutting as stage props.

Despite acknowledgment, even reverence, from fellow ring stars, Robinson looks toward stripper Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), also engaged in a world of fakery, for solace; and his estranged student daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) for reconciliation.

But he is a relic fighting against time and his attraction to the limelight, as primitive and retro as his bleach-yellow scrag of hair or the 1980s bouffant rock that soundtracks the drama.

Photography sets the narrative within a series of interiors - the inside of trailer homes and locker rooms, supermarkets and strip clubs - to emphasize how Robinson is trapped in his addiction to the limelight. When the drama does switch to exteriors, it is into a chilly landscape washed in gray hues and slab browns. Rarely does Aronofsky - himself making a minor comeback after "The Fountain"(2006) - allow the camera to go wide.

Toward the movie's end there are a couple of minor narrative mistrips - but they are not enough to derail Aronofsky's intent nor Rourke's startling and raw performance.

Of course it's easy to say that Rourke is simply building on his own life experiences for the role (a seasoned boxer himself, he has referenced his wild times during publicity junkets for the movie).

But that notion suggests Rourke is somehow channeling and not acting; and with "The Wrestler" he draws from Robinson a fragility and vulnerability, even tenderness, that can only provoke a sympathetic wince from audiences.

For Rourke has made a comeback with serious Oscar beef. And in an awards season largely devoid of last year's clutch of masculine features - "No Country For Old Men", "There Will Be Blood", "Eastern Promises" - his performance sets him well apart from rival nominees. Whether that will help him with awards voters is another issue.

As movie resurrections go, Rourke's performance is up there with Oscar-nominee John Travolta's turn in the higher-profile "Pulp Fiction" (1994), which helped parlay his then-stranded career into longer-term gains. Here's hoping Rourke can do similar.

Who do you rate for the best movie comebacks - be they in front or behind the camera?

The American Film Institute honored Christopher Nolan's box office behemoth "The Dark Knight" as one of the top 10 movies of the year Monday in its annual list of honours.

The movie's inclusion could be another step closer to a posthumous Oscar for the late Heath Ledger, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe last week for his performance as The Joker in "The Dark Knight."

The Golden Globes, along with the likes of the UK’s BAFTAs, are considered to be a good indication of the movies and talent that will go on to get an Oscars nod.

The buzz around Ledger’s potential nomination first came to real public notice in July of this year, when the second of director Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies "The Dark Knight" was released into cinemas worldwide.

Rave reviews judged that Ledger would have deserved a nomination even without the added poignancy of his untimely death in January from a prescription drugs overdose.

Critics worldwide from The New York Times to Australian newspaper The Age, have called his performance everything from “tremendous” to “revelatory.”

“With all due respect to the enjoyable camp buffoonery of past Jokers like Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson, Ledger makes them look like - well, clowns,” said Justin Chang in movie industry bible Variety.

If Ledger does win an Oscar nomination, he will be only the second actor to receive the honor posthumously. The other was Peter Finch in 1977, who died just a few weeks before the awards ceremony and was subsequently awarded the Best Actor prize for his performance in satirical newsroom drama "Network."

Certainly Ledger's family would welcome recognition of his work. "This nomination is deeply appreciated and is not lost on those of us who continue to love and miss him. We are so proud our boy's work is being recognized in this way, " Ledger's father Kim told U.S. celebrity magazine People about the Golden Globes nomination.

Sentimentality is not unknown among Academy members. Movie pinup James Dean who, much like Ledger, died tragically young, was nominated twice posthumously for "East of Eden" (1955) and "Giant" (1956) but was unsuccessful both times.

More recently Oliver Reed ("Gladiator") and Ulrich Mühe ("The Lives of Others") were both considered possible prospects for Oscar nominations that never materialized.

But what do you think? Does Heath Ledger deserve awards recognition for his performance as The Joker in "The Dark Knight?"