And I can’t blame the hosts. I mean, Anne Hathaway tried, bless her heart, and Franco is charming enough when given something interesting to say, but after all the awards were handed out, I was left unentertained. And that’s saying something when Franco was onstage dressed as a woman and was upstaged by a 94-year-old Kirk Douglas.
But there was a definite overreaction to Ricky Gervais and the Golden Globes by the Oscars. So the writing ended up being too safe and was worse than offensive, it was just boring. And really, an awards show like the Oscars can’t really let something like the Golden Globes define how they do things.
But enough about the ceremony, let’s look at what they actually got right, and didn’t, in giving out the hardware.
Best Director
Well, David Fincher is still waiting for his first best director statue, and so is Darren Aronofsky. Really Fincher, a feature film veteran, got robbed by Tom Hooper. Hooper’s The King’s Speech, while obviously a very good film, is only his second major feature film. Also note that The King’s Speech didn’t win any technical or musical awards. So I have to say, the Academy got this one wrong.
Art Direction/Makeup/Costume
The Wolfman and Alice in Wonderland won more Oscars than the majority of best picture nominees, including True Grit. Something about that just doesn’t seem right.
‘True Grit’
Speaking of the Coen brothers’ movie, it had the second most nominations this year with 10, but didn’t walk away with any wins. Again I’ll note that Alice in Wonderland won two.
Best Original Score
Despite what some have said, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross totally deserved this award. You know why? Because The Social Network had the best score of the year. No other score set the mood and tension of a film as strongly as Fincher’s The Social Network, with the exception of maybe Inception.
Visual Effects
Inception was a lock for this category but still, it’s good to see all that hard work rewarded.
Best Film Editing
It’s interesting to note how often this category goes to the film that also wins best picture, but this year it went to The Social Network — the film that lost in both the director and best picture categories. I feel like this shows us how close The Social Network and The King’s Speech really were.
Best Actor/Actress
These were two very competitive categories, with really no wrong choices. The Academy picked the people they were supposed to pick so, I guess not a lot to say here, except that here would have been a good place for an upset. I’m not saying that one needed to go here, but just that on a night that was relatively boring, one could have gone here.
