The 83rd Academy Awards

Last night was the 83rd Academy Awards, and as a movie enthusiast I was clearly glued in front of the TV for the pre-show and the main event. With my ballot card in hand I set out to have a good time and maybe win some chocolate along the way. I felt the night as a whole went over quite well. Sure, the hosts were not the best they have ever been, but I though they did a sufficient job. Although Mr. Franco could have looked a little more in to it and a little less out of it (good thing he had Anne there to carry him through it).

From the day the nominations were released to the closing of last night, I had a feeling this would be a less then epic night at the Oscars. Not to say it was bad. I just had the feeling that there would be few upsets in the favoured winners for this year, and that there would be a good chance no one movie would be running away with an extreme amount of wins.


Out of the 21 categories I had actually seen majority of the movies for (I never get around to seeing all the shorts or documentaries), I was confident in all my pick except for who would walk home with best picture (where there was a good deal of debate). The consensus around my house was for Kings Speech, but I had to stick to my guns and ride my Social Network horse to the finish. Unfortunately I came out behind the rest in the end, but sometimes a guy has to go with his gut.

As you probably know already, the big acting honours of the night went to Colin Firth for this role as the stuttering king George VI; Natalie Portman for her role as a sheltered and naive ballerina who eventually spirals in to a vortex of delusion and paranoia; Melissa Leo as a mother of two boxers (one washed up and living in the past, and the other working his way up to be the future of his family); and finally to Christian Bale (aka Batman) for his role as the aforementioned washed up boxer. All were widely expected to win their respective awards, so it was business as usual there.
 

Courtesy of ABC.com

Courtesy of ABC.com

Inception and King's Speech were the overall big winners of the night, with both walking away with 4 Oscars. Inception was able to clean house in the technical categories, winning visual and sound awards as well as cinematography, while King's Speech took picture, leading actor, original screenplay and director. Personally, I was really rooting for Dave Fincher to take director. After a long list of AAA titles and no Oscar to show for it, I had really hoped that this would have been his year. Alas, the only luck he would have that night was bad luck, and Tom Hooper was the one who walked away with the honour of best director.

Courtesy of ABC.com

As I said before, the night was quite successful overall from where I was sitting, although I could have done without the singing by the grade school kids at the end. Sure it was a good rendition on “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, but I felt that was something more suited for a morning news show and not a way to wrap up the Academy Awards.

Oh well. Here is to waiting another year for this night to come back around, and to another year of new movies and a whole new list of movies that will fight for the title of Best Picture!