Oscars 2011 marks the end of another year of film-making, with a stammering king, the facebook and dream invasions seeing the most gold. "
The King's Speech" took home the major awards (Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay), and Colin Firth added to the loot by winning best actor, as expected. "
Inception" captured most of the technical fields, nabbing statues for Sound (Editing and Mixing), Cinematography and Visual Effects, losing out on Art Direction to Tim Burton's "
Alice in Wonderland", which also won for Costume Design. "
The Social Network" cashed in on Editing, Adapted Screenplay and Original Score. The remaining acting categories gave other movies a chance in the spotlight, as Natalie Portman collected her shoo-in best actress victory for "
The Black Swan", Christian Bale won best supporting actor and Melissa Leo best supporting actress, both for "
The Fighter."
I was able to enjoy this year's awards at a viewing party where everyone made and compared their winning picks. The competition became pretty heated as the show progressed and bragging rights were at stake ... cheating was alleged, lovely banter exchanged ... and while I didn't win (came closest though!), I had a great time. Some thoughts/observations below:
* EVERYONE was cheering for Colin Firth to win - collective sigh of relief when he finally did (and gold stars all around for getting that pick right!). The guy has no enemies (or maybe we are still all just P&P fan-girls at heart). Well-deserved, and the speech was so British.
* I always knew Natalie Portman would eventually win an Oscar, but all the red carpet talk about her being the only choice to win made me secretly hope for an upset there ... happy for her though. Maybe she'll break the best actress curse by not being married (does fiancée/baby-daddy count?) yet at the time of her win?
* Is there anyone Melissa Leo didn't thank in her speech?
* Christian Bale's beard and head color-mismatch was distracting ... but is this the second Batman to win an Oscar (after George Clooney)?
* Honestly, I loved "The King's Speech", but how could a story essentially based on documented history be an "original" screenplay?
* "The Wolfman" (which I hear is a terrible movie) eked out a win for best Makeup. Still, nobody had the urge to see that one as, in the words of Cate Blanchett, "that's gross".
* Seriously, I didn't expect Harry Potter to win anything, but it's still annoying to see "The Wolfman" win a little golden man while HP has nothing : ( As consolation, in what I thought was the most pleasantly shocking moment of the ceremony, I am treated to the hilarious auto-tune segment of Ron's "little ball of light" speech, followed by auto-tuning of "Toy Story 3" and "The Social Network", and concluding with RPattz/Edward singing "he doesn't own a shirt" to a shirtless Taylor Lautner/Jacob (I take back what I said about not finding anything relating to Twilight entertaining).
* "Toy Story 3" won best anime feature. Despite some thinking the film promotes hoarders of tomorrow, it marked the end of an era for those of us who grew up on this series - and/or for whom "Toy Story" was our first exposure to CGI animation. With such sentimental support behind TS3, the visually brilliant, wonderfully cute and touching "How to Train Your Dragon" didn't stand a chance ... any other year perhaps (except last year ("Up"!)). Sidenote: I just wish I saw "How to Train Your Dragon" in theaters in 3D - the trailers did the movie no justice whatsoever.
* Most of my friends thought James Franco was high and behaving extremely oddly. I must have been too biased by my love for the guy (even if his stint on "General Hospital" did not really do the show any favors ... soaps are such a dying breed, but that's a rant for a different time).
* Anne Hathaway's dresses were made of pure win or fail. Too bad she ended the night with the most hideous one ... great singer though!
All in all, not the most memorable of academy awards, but a somewhat flat decent attempt at wrapping up an interesting year of movies - I got my one wish (Colin Firth winning), so I'm feeling generous : )
