The Oscars: A round-up
By Dublo, published on 2 March 2011
Sunday night gave us the 83rd annual Academy Awards and, as promised, we’re here to take a look at the winners and review our predictions.
James Franco and Anne Hathaway hosted the Academy Awards this year in a break from the tradition of a single, comedic host. This was obviously an attempt to connect with the younger audience. Whilst it wasn’t entirely successful they were certainly entertaining with Franco seeming as though he’d enjoyed a few drinks before hand.
Right now, many film industry insiders are calling this year’s Oscars ceremony a predictable and therefore slightly dull show. With that in mind, it makes our rather less than successful predictions all the more embarrassing.
Anyone who read our pre-Oscar special will know that we predicted wins for The Social Network for Best Film and Best Director, as well as a win for Jeff Bridges and Natalie Portman in the Best Actor and Actress categories.
Of all of those picks we managed to only get one right, the fantastic Natalie Portman taking the Oscar for Best Actress. In our defence, we did pick Jeff Bridges simply because he is The Dude. I don’t think any of us truly expected him to win.
However, whilst we didn’t pick the winners of the Best Film and Best Director, we don’t think that many people could have predicted Tom Hooper’s surprising win. Up against such heavyweights as David Fincher, Darren Aronofsky and the Cohen brothers, Hooper really was an outside bet. However, it was a deserving win for a truly terrific film.
In fact, it really was the night for The King’s Speech, the film picking up Best Film, Best Director and Best Actor – a huge achievement for a low-budget British film.
In fact, The King’s Speech was made for a reputed £5m, which is a very small sum for a feature film. £1m of that came from UK lottery funding – a source of film financing that is sadly no longer available as the British coalition government has decided to cut it. Hopefully, the success of The King’s Speech will make them realise that the British film industry is as viable and as vibrant as ever, and that government funding is necessary for its survival.
What it also should do is make Hollywood sit up and take note. A film doesn’t have to have a budget running into the hundreds of millions, be a remake or a sequel or a franchise in order for it to be successful.
Other winners included Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor, sporting a beard that was in strong colour contrast to the hair on his head. Melissa Leo picked up the statue for Best Supporting Actress for her work in The Fighter.
Acceptance speeches are always a big part of the Oscars, and there have been some memorable ones over the years. This year the speeches were relatively low-key in comparison, with Colin Firth predicting in self-deprecating fashion that his career had peaked. A glowing, pregnant Natalie Portman gave a tearful and emotional speech thanking her parents and her fiancée, Benjamin Millepied. However, it was left to the Best Supporting actors to make the memorable speeches, with Melissa Leo dropping the F-bomb and Christian Bale forgetting his wife’s name.
So, that’s about it for this year. For those of you that missed the ceremony, we hope you enjoyed our round-up and we look forward to doing it all again next time.
The Oscars: A round-up
Tail firmly between legs, our man Dublo assesses his performance at predicting Academy Awards. It’s not pretty watching a grown man cry.
Ivan Y
7 March 2011
Thank you for the recap!
A lot of people seem to think that JF’s & AFHs hosting performance is one of the worst in history (especially JF). I just think they were out of their element. They looked fine (and funny) in pre-gig promo spots and in the introductory mini-movie, but MC’ing an event & entertaining a live crowd wasn’t something they could handle. Nerves aside, performing in front of a packed theater is different from acting and that’s why comedians usually fare better.
Ceremony wasn’t a complete snoozefest, but could’ve been improved. Don’t really understand why they had AH perform a song about Hugh Jackman. I like her, but that number was extraneous & not funny. And when they were performing Oscar-winning original scores, would be nice to show movie clips and/or indicate movie title & year instead of a barely recognizable kaleidoscope.
P.S. But Bale didn’t really forget his wife’s name – he just got choked up.
P.P.S. On a tangential note, currently reading “The Hollywood Economist” (iApp version). Very interesting book — http://www.amazon.com/Hollywood-Economist-Hidden-Financial-Reality/dp/1933633840