Well ladies and gents, show’s over and my multiple-choice guesswork needs some polishing. haha. I did call 13 of last night’s winners, but those were generally the easy ones. So here they are, with a bit ‘o commentary, the winners of last night’s 2011 Academy Awards:
*BEST PICTURE
The King’s Speech
*BEST ACTOR
Colin Firth, The King’s Speech (beautiful, touching, hilarious acceptance speech. made me love him all the more)
*BEST ACTRESS
Natalie Portman, Black Swan (love how she acknowledged fiance Benjamin Millepied “for giving me the most important role of my life”)
BEST DIRECTOR
Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
BEST SONG
“We Belong Together,” Toy Story 3, Randy Newman
BEST EDITING
The Social Network, Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter
*BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Inception, Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb
BEST DOCUMENTARY
Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT
God of Love, Luke Matheny
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Strangers No More, Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Alice in Wonderland, Colleen Atwood
BEST MAKEUP
The Wolfman, Rick Baker and Dave Elsey
*BEST SOUND EDITING
Inception, Richard King
*BEST SOUND MIXING
Inception, Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo, and Ed Novick
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Social Network, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (surprising, considering the other contenders, aka Inception. maybe my love affair with Hans Zimmer just has me biased)
*BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, The Fighter
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
In a Better World (Denmark)
*BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
The King’s Speech, Screenplay by David Seidler
*BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Social Network, Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
*BEST ANIMATED FILM
Toy Story 3
BEST ANIMATED SHORT
The Lost Thing, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann
*BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Melissa Leo, The Fighter (also made Oscar history with the first F-bomb in an acceptance speech. she was totally shell-shocked.)
*BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Inception, Wally Pfister
*BEST ART DIRECTION
Alice in Wonderland, Robert Stromberg, Karen O’Hara
*’s indicate the ones I predicted.
Winner Highlights:
The King’s Speech was the obvious favorite, taking home four major awards and made even more endearing by Director Tom Hooper’s acceptance speech anecdote about his mother: “My mum was invited to a fringe theater play reading of an unproduced, unrehearsed play called The King’s Speech,” Hooper recalled. “She almost didn’t. But thank God she did, because she came home, rang me up and said, ‘Tom, I think I found your next film.’ Listen to your mum.” So happy this film got the recognition it deserved.
Host Highlights:
Anne Hathaway was like a kid in a candy store last night. Hyper, giddy, or star-struck, I’m not sure, but my friend even commented, “she’s a lot more ‘Princess Diaries’ than I expected.” Couldn’t have said it better. She and James Franco started the night in a hilarious digital skit, placing them in each of the Best Picture nominees via Inception-style dream-hopping. Funniest part of the night. Also, Anne Hathaway can sang! Her brief rendition of On My Own was surprisingly refreshing–and funny, as she changed the lyrics to target Hugh Jackman for bailing on their duet (man, that’s a lot of prepositions).
All in all, it was a terrific night that I loved spending with glamorous friends, sipping wine and eating chocolate covered strawberries :). One of those glamorous friends asked each girl what their favorite part of the Oscars was. I answered that I enjoy seeing good work rewarded and it’s true. Although the Oscars are not the only standard by which to judge the art of motion pictures, they do give honor where honor is due and acknowledge hard work well done, a fact Melissa Leo was not about to miss: “It’s all about selling motion pictures and respecting the work!”
Scripted Scenes and Coffee Beans 