Post Oscars part 1

Soooo, the immediate reaction,

I was 17-7 for the awards, 3 of the ones I got wrong were the 3 shorts, just a strikeout.  The other three was because I took for granted Alice In Wonderland.  I guessed that the Academy would want to honor great movies, since they would be branded with the "Academy Award Winning" branding.  Now we can go to our local closing blockbuster and add the "Academy Award Winning Alice in Wonderland" to our massive DVD or budding Blu-Ray collections.  Also, The King's Speech for Original Score was a bit of an outside pick, so that was the topping insult to my dessert of injury.

But enough being hard on myself, I got ALL of the major awards right.  EW and all the vegas knuckleheads favored (I mean FAVORED) David Fincher for Best Director.  I know a certain Live Action Short Film title to help sum up my feelings...

NAWEWE (or NAWAAAYWAAAAYY).

So I probably did better than average, despite my shortcomings in the short categories.  Also, The King's Speech made it exciting till the end, although I was hoping for a huge outside surprise, mirroring Adrian Brody's win in 2003.

I'll be back tomorrow to wrap up the season, until then, all the winners are posted in the OSCARs section, and I hope you all are having a good time watching Tom Hanks on Jimmy Kimmell.

It's Midnight in Hollywood, but no one is sleeping, not even a mouse, all the gifts have already been passed out to the nice, all that's left is the naughty.

The smartest most British movie of all time!!!!

Number 24

Cheat Sheet

For everyone too lazy to dredge through my predictions page, I'll give you the statistical favs (well, mostly):

Picture: King's Speech

Director: King's Speech

Actor: Colin Firth

Actress: Natalie Portman

Supporting Actor: Christian Bale

Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo

Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Original Screenplay: The King's Speech

Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Foreign-Language Film: In a Better World

Art Direction: Inception

Cinematography: True Grit

Editing: The Social Network

Sound Mixing/ Editing: both Inception

Costume Design: The King's Speech

Makeup: The Wolfman

Visual Effects: Inception

Documentary Feature: Inside Job

Documentary Short: The Warriors of Quigang

Animated Short: The Gruffalo

Live-Action Short: Na Wewe

Best Original Score: The King's Speech

Best Original Song: "We Belong Together" from Toy Story 3

23 down...

All the award races analyzed in the predictions section.  Best Picture coming soon!!

I'll post an Oscar cheat sheet for everyone playing along at home.

Also, a link to a printable ballot:
http://pointofviewreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/academy-awards-ballot.jpg

PREDICTIONS BEEYOTCH

More in the predictions section, don't pretend like you're not as excited as I am.

Whoops

Don't mean to blog in bulk, but gmail is forcing me to.
The Best Picture discussion is on, if anyone thinks King's Speech won't win then please TELL ME.

WGA

SINCE The King's Speech wasn't even nominated for a writer's guild award, the prize of Best Original Screenplay went to Christopher Nolan for Inception!!!
Can I say, BOMB!  The dream within a dream (...within a dream...) thriller has not won very many awards (actually NO major awards thus far), so to see it capitalize on this opportunity is excellent.  The adaptation award was, as predicted, The Social Network, continuing Aaron Sorkin's uninterrupted reign over the award season.
Inception's win will hopefully be received as a smack in the face to all the other guilds backing The King's Speech (which begs the question, if nominated would it win?) in order to lash back at the critics overwhelming love for The Social Network to propel the Best Picture Oscar race.  Also, even though we're all suckers for a big race, and the Academy being so paranoid of viewers losing interest, WANT a Best Picture "race" more than anything, I consider last year's awards a success (at least in the underlying sense of the actual awards and not necessarily the ceremony).  Avatar vs The Hurt Locker was one of the most exciting races, resulting in a mess of common discussion, and also a historical victory for Katherine Bigelow.
The big picture vs. the small picture could not have been recreated in the same way this year, but by adding Inception to the mix, (which it still is not thanks to the directors snubbing Nolan in Best Director again), you can again bring up an argument similar to last year, what makes a Best Picture?  If The Social Network has any steam left, which it probably doesn't, the argument will be a historical picture that defined one generation vs The King's Speech, a more entertaining film that may be viewed for many more years.  Throe Inception into the mix and you have the big budget Hollywood blockbuster that clearly entertained the most people.
What to make of all this?  Is there actually a film that can surprise us all and come up with the top prize.  Roger Ebert says True Grit, some bold people pick The FIghtter (emulating Rocky's victory in 1977).
Oscar is on the roster, first we have to get through the Grammys, but the end to the big question is drawing near.

I AM THE BLACK SWAN

Just a reminder