The votes have been counted, the envelopes opened; the winners have won and gone home. Or at least out to party. Here are a few of the highlights:
BEST PICTURE
THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co)
A See-Saw Films and Bedlam Production Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, ProducersBEST ACTOR
COLIN FIRTH – THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Company)BEST ACTRESS
NATALIE PORTMAN – BLACK SWAN (Fox Searchlight)BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
CHRISTIAN BALE – THE FIGHTER (Paramount)BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
MELISSA LEO – THE FIGHTER (Paramount)BEST ANIMATED PICTURE
TOY STORY 3 (Walt Disney)BEST DIRECTOR
TOM HOOPER – THE KING’S SPEECH (The Weinstein Co.)BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
THE KING’S SPEECH, David Seidler (The Weinstein Co)BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Aaron Sorkin (Sony Pictures)
Read the whole list at Deadline Hollywood.
So what did you think of the show? The minor snub of David Fincher and the major snub of Christopher Nolan? The performance of Franco and Hathaway? The best and worst dressed?
Talk about whatever you like! This is your… Oscar… Open Thread.
Best thing about the Oscars this year? Livetweeting, following OTI, and Anne Hathaway’s costume changes. Watching E! was tolerable since they banished Giulana and Kelly to the upper level booth. Favorite outfits not on Anne Hathaway: Hailee Steinfeld’s 50’s sparkly, pale pink Cinderella confection, Mandy Moore’s red carpet dress, Melissa Leo, and Amy Adams. I love Cate Blanchett but the cutout and the shoulders on her dress ruined it.
As to Anne Hathaway’s costume changes…I recall a red dress for the red carpet, a white dress for the opening monologue, a suit, a black dress in an odd fabric, a gold dress with fringe, a blue dress in another terrible fabric, and one last costume change into a conservative black dress for the closing remarks. 7 costume changes. Looking forward to hearing about this on The Rachel Zoe Project.
I thought the opening monologue was cute and safe, as was the majority of the telecast. I got to hear Anne Hathaway sing and Zachary Levi sing so that made my night. “I See The Light” was as underwhelming as it was in Tangled but I love his voice and I love Alan Menken so I try to enjoy it. The musical performances were generally underwhelming and I’m not entirely sure the song that Florence Welch performed had words. I love Lena Horne so I was happy about the shoutout to her.
The show was basically dominated by safe, predictable choices and adorable older people.
The Kirk Douglas debacle was as close to a recreation of the Leslie Nielsen/Frank Durban/Geraldo Rivera award presentation scene in Naked Gun 33 1/3 as I think I’ll ever see.
It might have been the most memorable event all night, though. Props to Kirk for hijacking the lovefest for a few precious sips of the nectar of eternal fame for himself before it’s too late.
Though I’ve spoken about Toy Story 3 being in the nominations for best picture previously in the comments, for some reason it didn’t really hit home for me until tonight what a huge achievement that really felt like. And I wondered, (because I’d missed last years Oscars due to some family darkness that spanned a few weeks) had an animated movie ever been nominated for best picture before, and after some research I found that other than Up last year, there was only Beauty and the Beast on that list. Outside of that, the other movie with animation for animation’s sake on the list was Mary Poppins.
For every Comic geek who was annoyed about The Dark Knight not getting Best picture, there’s a Cartoon geek who’s feeling the same way about Toy Story 3 this year.
It’s sad that there seem to be genres of film that no matter how well done they are, or well liked, they end up passed over for best film.
Ah damnit, my brain lied to me, sorry. For some reason I thought TDK had been up for best picture. I don’t know why.
I looked it up after I posted because my brain went, waitaminute,but now I can’t remember what catagory I have TDK getting nominated for that I mixed up with Best Picture.
Either way, the point I was going for was basically that it seems like the movies that end up with nominations in best makeup, animation, and visual effects rarely end up with the same nominations for the Best Movie or any of the other “heavy hitters” of the Oscars, and I think it’s bullshit.
I’ve though it was a little baffling ever since the nominations were announced that Danny Boyle was left out of the best director running. Other than that, not a single surprise tonight.
Pfft. Those “snubs” aren’t worth paying attention to. You want a real snub? Louis and Bebe Barron weren’t even eligible for a Best Score Oscar for their work on Forbidden Planet because they didn’t happen to belong to the Musician’s Union, and therefore could not get the necessary credit as composers. And while Andy Serkis was in the British equivalent of high school, Frank Oz was bringing Yoda to life in The Empire Strikes Back. Despite the best efforts of George Lucas, the Academy remained unpersuaded that he was worthy of a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
In any case, at this level, it is almost impossible to come to any definite agreement as to what movie or actor is “best”. Unlike Most Valuable Player awards, where you at least have some statistics to help with the decision, Art cannot be anything but subjective.
Is a low-key character drama period piece better than a mind-bending sci-fi effectstravaganza? Is Itzhak Perlman a better musician than Chuck Berry? No matter what metrics you use (box office figures (ugh), MetaCritic ratings, etc.), it’s always going to come down to personal preference.
Or maybe the Academy just figured that despite what Nolan claims, he got his idea from a Donald Duck comic book…
You read Cracked, eh?
Toy Story 3 is rather over-rated and the last ten minutes seem to make everyone forget the rather pedestrian preceeding 80 minutes. Toy Story 2 did it all so much better years before.
The Dark Knight never deserved to be in the best picture nominations when there was only 5. Maybe with 10 films it would have made it but despite the epic feel of the film it pretty much has no plot and runs out of steam when Harvey Dent gets into Two Face mode. Nolan improved his formula and Inception should have something to show for hitting high so many aspects. Screenplay, direction, cinematography, effects, music, sound. The actor’s weren’t given the greatest emotional roles to play except Cottilard and Dicaprio but they really were great. Cottilard should maybe have been nominated for a part which was sultry and deadly.
I took a bathroom break before the “In Memoriam” started. Came back mid-montage, and when the camera cut back to Celine Dion, I thought, “wait, did Celine Dion die this year?”
Needless to say, I was severely sleep deprived at this moment of the evening.
I don’t remember being very wowed by the music in The Social Network, so I’m a little surprised with that one. Also, given the fact that Tent Reznor and Atticus Ross were the composers, I wonder if this has to do with the theories that Oscar is trying to be hipper and younger. I guess the “BWAAAAAAA”s just couldn’t cut it, unfortunately.
I knew it would happen, but I’m kind of sad How to Train Your Dragon didn’t win Best Animated Picture. Toy Story 3 was good, yes, but I feel the same as a number of people, including commenters up ^thar^, that the ending was kind of a cheap shot, a deliberate “Oscar bait” ploy- perhaps they thought they could get Best Picture if they went at it hard enough. But I can’t help but feel the overall film experience of How to Train Your Dragon was better for me, and I’d rather rewatch that one. But that’s imho, after all.
Inception took a lot of the technical stuff, understandably so. If there had been a Best Stunt Coordination/Direction, it probably could have taken that, too. Unless they counted sawing off body parts as a stunt- we know where that would have gone, and I’m not talking about 127 Hours.
I thought the same thing, and I already knew she was singing. I thought, “just now?”
Supposed to be a response to Lee… the website foiled me.