And The Winner's Are... Predictable, for The Most Part.

            The results are in. And they have been found predictable. This year was the same as every other year; we all have a clear idea who is going to win what award, we are only hoping to be surprised in a category or two. The surprises were few this year, and frankly some of them were disappointments not epiphanies.

            For Best Picture – The King’s Speech

After winning the Golden Globe, The Director’s Guild, and The Screen Actors Guild Award, The King’s Speech was the favorite to win. And although there are ten nominees nowadays the competition is really, as it always was, between two maybe three films. Last year was between The Hurt Locker and Avatar (maybe Inglourious Basterds) and this year it was between The King’s Speech and The Social Network, (maybe The Fighter or 127 Hours). The King’s Speech triumphed.

            For Best Actress – Natalie Portman, for Black Swan

            For Best Actor – Colin Firth, for The King’s Speech

            For Best Supporting Actress – Melissa Leo, for The Fighter

            For Best Supporting Actor – Christian Bale, for The Fighter

The only surprise here is Melissa Leo’s award. There was no doubt Firth and Portman would win the lead categories. Generally it is the supporting categories were the competition is at. Christian Bale’s was mostly expected, the only competition was coming from Geoffrey Rush in The King’s Speech. As far as Melissa Leo’s win, while she did take home the Globe and the SAG Award she also kind of cheated by running her own campaign ads. Very unorthodox and it should have cost her chances at the Oscars.

            For Best Director – Tom Hooper, for The King’s Speech

It was expected. Although this could have been the tightest race overall. All the nominees were justifiably deserving of the award. The biggest surprise was Christopher Nolan not being nominated but even if he had been the result would have likely been the same.

            Best Animated Feature – Toy Story 3

I was sort of hoping for Dragon to win although that was a long shot.

            Best Documentary Feature – Inside Job

Exit Through the Gift Shop was good but this was just much more relevant that it was probably more noteworthy on people’s minds.

            Best Foreign Film – In A Better World (Denmark)

Many Mexican’s will be angry with this one. Pointing out that Mexico has never won. Honestly, the only real two chances Mexico has had at winning, Pan’s Labyrinth and Biutiful, have been questionably Mexican movies.

            Best Original Screenplay – The King’s Speech

            Best Adapted Screenplay  - The Social Network

There seriously needs to be a redefinition of what original and adapted mean in today’s competition. Not that these movies don’t deserve it, they do. But you can’t call it adapted when the screenplay was written before the screenwriter wrote the book.

            Best Original Score – The Social Network

            Best Original Song – Toy Story 3

Pixar (or Disney) winning is, was, and always will be. As for the score, it is cool an unconventional choice balanced it out.

            Best Film Editing – The Social Network

This year is one of the few years in which Best Picture doesn’t take Best Film Editing as well. Editing is an odd award; out of all the categories it is the one that the least you notice it the better it is.

            Best Visual Effects – Inception

            Best Cinematography – Inception

            Best Sound Mixing – Inception

            Best Sound Editing Inception

            Best Art Direction – Alice in Wonderland

            Best Costume Design – Alice in Wonderland

            Best Makeup – The Wolfman

Inception taking the majority of the technical awards is no surprise. The Academy generally chooses one “outstanding production” to which to give most of these awards. It not taking Art Direction was a bit of a surprise. But the biggest disappointment here is that The Wolfman is now an Academy Award winning film. Really? Werewolves are nothing new to the world of movie make up. The aging effects in Barney’s Version were much more deserving.

            Best Short Film (Live Action) – God of Love

            Best Short Film (Documentary) – Strangers No More

            Best Short Film (Animated) – The Lost Thing

I’ll admit I did not see any of the nominees for the Live Action or Documentary categories here. But The Lost Thing winning Best Animated Short was much more than a surprise… it was an utter disappointment.  I’ve seen student films that look better and are much more engaging. If anything this bring my hopes up that one of the animated films many of my friends are working on has a chance of winning an Oscar next year. Because I mean… The Lost Thing did.