83rd Academy Awards Recap

So once again the Oscars were a snooze. Oozing with predictability and full of cliched speeches, audiences once again got to waste three hours of their Sunday night. After starting off with that crummy intro video, our hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway made their way onto stage. Throughout the night, they tried hard but ultimately, did a poor job. Franco seemed like he was high the entire time and Hathaway was way too happy to be there. Neither were funny and I’m still not sure why they were chosen.

The first two awards of the night went to Alice In Wonderland for art direction and Inception for Cinematography. Alice did make over $1 billion so I guess they had to give it something, right? As for Inception, I couldn’t think of a film that deserved it more, aside from perhaps True Grit. Wally did a fantastic job on the film and I’m happy to see the film getting recognized, seeing as it was snubbed in a number of other categories.

Next up was Best Supporting Actress. Kirk Douglas made an appearance to present the award and boy has he gotten old. He can barley talk anymore. The Award went to Melissa Leo, obviously and deservedly, although Hailee did give her a run for her money. Leo won simply because she’s older and has been around for longer than Hailee, I don’t think her performance was necessarily better. She’s an under appreciated actress though and it’s nice to see her get the recognition she deserves. By the way, did anyone catch the F-bomb she dropped? Surprised the censors didn’t bleep that one.

Next we have Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake as presenters for Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short. Timberlake cracked a nice Banksy joke and followed it up with a stupid iPhone app one. Best Animated Short went to The Lost Thing and of course, Best Animated Feature went to Toy Story 3. No surprises there. It was easily the Best Animated Feature of the year and also one of the best films of the year. It was incredibly well reviewed and there was no way any other animated film could compete. I mean come on, it’s Toy Story!

Next up were Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. They presented the Best Adapted Screenplay award, which went to Sorkin. Was there anyone who thought that he wouldn’t win? The Social Network clearly boasted the best adapted screenplay of the year and from day one, I knew it would take the Oscar, from the day it was released. Next Brolin and Bardem gave out Best Original Screenplay to Mr. David Seidler, who couldn’t even find the damn microphone. This was another one of those ‘bullshit’ awards. Nolan hands down wrote the best screenplay of 2010 and the fact that he didn’t win is outrageous. Critics may have thought that Inception’s script was too pretentious but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a work of genius.

After the first few awards, we got to see Hathaway sing and James Franco in drag. Boy are they running out of ideas. Luckily, it wasn’t long before Arthur stars Russell Brand and Helen Mirren came on to give out the Best Foreign Language Film award to In A Better World.

Reese Witherspoon came on next to present the award for Best Supporting Actor. Can you guess who it went to? Batman himself, Christian Bale. Surprise surprise. I guess some people had Rush winning but there was very little chance Bale would lose. And now when they make the trailer for The Dark Knight Rises they could say ‘starring Academy Award winner Christian Bale’. Bonus!

Next award, for Best Original Score was presented by the Aussies, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. The orchestra gave us a nice montage of some classic film scores and then the award was given to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. This category was actually a pretty close race and I was torn between Reznor/Ross and Zimmer, for Inception.

Scarlett Johansson and Matthew McConaughey were our next two presenters, giving out the award for Best Sound Mixing to Inception. Once again, nice to see the film picking up some technical awards since it is being shut out of everything major. Best Sound Mixing was followed by Best Sound Editing, which went to Inception as well.

Cate Blanchett came out next to present Best Makeup and Best Costume Design. Best Makeup went to The Wolfman which means that now we can call The Wolfman, an Academy Award winning film, interesting. Best Costume Design went to Alice in Wonderland.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams presented the next award, for Best Documentary Short Subject. Strangers No More claimed the prize. As Jake said, it’s the hardest category to predict on your ballot since no one sees these films. Next up was Best Live Action Short Film. Once again, another hard category to predict, with the award going to God Of Love.

Oprah was the next one to take the stage as she presented the award for Best Documentary. Inside Job took home the award, which I’m pretty happy about. I really liked the film and although I thought Exit Through The Gift Shop was great as well, I think Inside Job was a bit more compelling.

Mr. Academy Awards host extraordinaire came on next to a standing ovation. Yup, Billy Crystal earned much respect from the audience when he walked on stage.  He did a nice little tribute to Bob Hope, one of the all time greats at hosting the Oscars. Iron Man, I mean Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law then came on present the award for Best Visual Effects. Once again, the snubbed one aka Inception, picked up a technical award by taking this one home. And boy did they deserve it. Law and Downey Jr. then presented Best Film Editing to The Social Network. Not even going to comment on this one. How Inception was not even nominated I’ll never know. Did the Academy see the dream within a dream within a dream within a dream sequence?!?!?

Jennifer Hudson presented Best Original Song to Academy favorite Randy Newman. Afterall, it’s his 20th nomination, yet only second win. He’s incredibly talented though and I’m a big fan of his work so I was very pleased with this award. I definitely thought they would give it to A.R. Rahman so there was a bit of a surprise here.

It was at this point that we got the obligatory tribute to those who died this past year. No different than any other tribute from any other year. Moving on. We then got another yawn inducing tribute, this time to Lena Horne. Thankfully it only lasted a few minutes.

Now we get to the good stuff. Best Director time. And here to present the award was obviously Kathryn Bigelow. And the award goes to…..Tom Hooper, shocking most people, including me. I thought Fincher was a lock in for this one. Not to mention that he also deserved it more than any of the other nominees. The real winner should have been Nolan, but we’ve already discussed the snubbing of Inception. So let’s move on.

God of Acting, I mean Jeff Bridges, was our next presenter, giving out the award for Best Actress. As expected, the beautiful Natalie Portman won the award and seeing as she is one of my favorite actresses, I’m very happy for her, despite not loving her film, Black Swan. Another predictable choice, but the right one.

Sandra Bullock was the one handing out the Best Actor award and in a no contest race, Colin Firth snagged the award, which has been predicted for some time now. I kind of wanted to see Eisenberg win as I absolutely loved his performance in The Social Network. Truth be told though, he never stood a chance.

And finally, the big elephant in the room, Best Picture. Spielberg was the presenter and although it was a tight race, the eventual favorite, The King’s Speech, came out on top. Honestly, yes it was a good film but not Best Picture quality. At least Harvey’s happy. But still, Inception or The Social Network should have gone home with the award. They were both far superior.

And then, because the Oscars hadn’t gone on long enough, a children’s choir had to come out and do a number. Seriously? Because we haven’t been sitting glued to our televisions for long enough already, right?

So overall, another fairly mundane affair. No huge upsets, no huge surprises, nothing shocking and nothing terribly exciting.

Let us know what you thought of the Oscars this year.

BEST PICTURE:
Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King’s Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter’s Bone

DIRECTING:
Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan
David O. Russell, The Fighter
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
David Fincher, The Social Network
Joel and Ethan Coen, True Grit

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:
Javier Bardem, Biutiful
Jeff Bridges, True Grit
Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
James Franco, 127 Hours

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE:
Annette Bening, The Kids Are All Right
Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole
Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone
Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Christian Bale, The Fighter
John Hawks, Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner, The Town
Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech
Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Amy Adams, The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit
Jackie Weaver, Animal Kingdom

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing), Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Michael Arndt. Story by John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich
True Grit (Paramount), Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen
Winter’s Bone (Roadside Attractions), Adapted for the screen by Debra Granik & Anne Rosellini

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:
Another Year (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Mike Leigh
The Fighter (Paramount), Screenplay by Scott Silver and Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson. Story by Keith Dorrington & Paul Tamasy & Eric Johnson
Inception (Warner Bros.), Written by Christopher Nolan
The Kids Are All Right (Focus Features), Written by Lisa Cholodenko & Stuart Blumberg
The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Seidler

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
Biutiful
Dogtooth
In a Better World
Incendies
Outside the Law

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:
How to Train Your Dragon
The Illusionist
Toy Story 3

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Matthew Libatique
Inception (Warner Bros.) Wally Pfister
The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Company) Danny Cohen
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Jeff Cronenweth
True Grit (Paramount) Roger Deakins

FILM EDITING:
Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Andrew Weisblum
The Fighter Paramount Pamela Martin
The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Company) Tariq Anwar
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Jon Harris
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

DOCUMENTARY:
Exit through the Gift Shop (Producers Distribution Agency) Banksy and Jaimie D’Cruz A Paranoid Pictures Production
Gasland Josh Fox and Trish Adlesic A Gasland Production
Inside Job (Sony Pictures Classics) Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs A Representational Pictures Production
Restrepo (National Geographic Entertainment) Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger An Outpost Films Production
Waste Land, Lucy Walker and Angus Aynsley (Arthouse Films) An Almega Projects Production

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Killing in the Name (dir: Jed Rothstein)
Poster Girl (dir: Sara Nesson)
Strangers No More (dir: Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon)
Sun Come Up (dor: Jennifer Redfearn and Tim Metzger)
The Warriors of Qiugang (dir: Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon)

ORIGINAL SCORE:
How to Train Your Dragon (Paramount) John Powell
Inception (Warner Bros.) Hans Zimmer
The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Company) Alexandre Desplat
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) A.R. Rahman
The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing) Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

ORIGINAL SONG:
Coming Home from Country Strong (Sony Pictures Releasing (Screen Gems)) Music and Lyric by Tom Douglas, Troy Verges and Hillary Lindsey
I See the Light from Tangled (Walt Disney) Music by Alan Menken Lyric by Glenn Slater
If I Rise from 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Music by A.R. Rahman Lyric by Dido and Rollo Armstrong
We Belong Together from Toy Story 3 (Walt Disney) Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

VISUAL EFFECTS:
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros.) Tim Burke, John Richardson, Christian Manz and Nicolas Aithadi
Hereafter (Warner Bros.) Michael Owens, Bryan Grill, Stephan Trojanski and Joe Farrell
Inception (Warner Bros.) Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
Iron Man 2 (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment, Distributed by Paramount) Janek Sirrs, Ben Snow, Ged Wright and Daniel Sudick

ART DIRECTION:
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney), Robert Stromberg (Production Design), Karen O’Hara (Set Decoration)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (Warner Bros.), Stuart Craig (Production Design), Stephenie McMillan (Set Decoration)
Inception (Warner Bros.), Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Design), Larry Dias and Doug Mowat (Set Decoration)/span>
The King’s Speech (Paramount), Eve Stewart (Production Design), Judy Farr (Set Decoration)
True Grit (Paramount), Jess Gonchor (Production Design), Nancy Haigh (Set Decoration)

COSTUME DESIGN:
Alice in Wonderland (Walt Disney) Colleen Atwood
I Am Love (Magnolia Pictures) Antonella Cannarozzi
The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Company) Jenny Beavan
The Tempest (Miramax) Sandy Powell
True Grit (Paramount) Mary Zophres

MAKEUP
Barney’s Version, Adrien Morot
The Way Back, Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

SHORT FILM, ANIMATED
Day & Night (dir: Teddy Newton)
The Gruffalo (dir: Jakob Schuh and Max Lang)
Let’s Pollute (dir: Geefwee Boedoe)
The Lost Thing (dir: Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann)
Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)

SHORT FILM, LIVE ACTION
The Confession (dir: Tanel Toom)
The Crush (dir: Michael Creagh)
God of Love (dir: Luke Matheny)
Na Wewe (dir: Ivan Goldschmidt)
Wish 143 (dir: Ian Barnes and Samantha Waite)

SOUND EDITING
Inception, Richard King
Toy Story 3, Tom Myers and Michael Silvers
Tron: Legacy, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle and Addison Teague
True Grit, Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey
Unstoppable, Mark P. Stoeckinger

SOUND MIXING
Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick
The King’s Speech, Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley
Salt, Jeffrey J. Haboush, Greg P. Russell, Scott Millan and William Sarokin
The Social Network, Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten
True Grit, Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter F. Kurland