the fresh films awards

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The Academy Awards 2011
presented at the Kodak Theatre, Hollywood
Sunday, February 27, 2011

 

THE FRESHFILMS FOLLOWS THE OSCARS

 

The 83rd annual Academy Awards gave us few surprises, but many worthy and deserved winners.

Although The Social Network fans will claim the Academy members demonstrated their traditionalism and high average age by awarding the classical British royal drama The King's Speech the best film award ahead of David Fincher's Facebook film, I myself choose to conclude that people now, when the fuzz now has silenced a bit, realize that The Social Network isn't the class act that many critics claimed in the early frenzy. The King's Speech is a worthy winner, even if I would have preferred Black Swan.

Three of the four actor categories resulted in predictable but highly deserved favourite wins. Colin Firth and Natalie Portman both gave extraordinary performances, in my opinion the best in their categories since Kevin Spacey in American Beauty (1999) and Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking (1995) respectively.

Another brilliant actor who was finally recognized by the Academy is Christian Bale, for his awe-inspiring performance in The Fighter. I say finally, because the young Welshman had been snubbed for many years, arguably deserving nominations for films such as American Psycho and The Machinist. Melissa Leo won best supporting actress in a little more open contest, before bursting out the f-word in a memorable acceptance speech.

Although I maintain that The King's Speech was a worthy winner, due to a brilliant script and singular acting, I do believe Tom Hooper can count himself lucky to have ran away with the director's Oscar. He did a fine job, but without the unique vision of Darren Aronofsky or Danny Boyle (who was not nominated, incidentally). Many wanted David Fincher for The Social Network, but I don't really see what his achievement was with that film. In that case, Christopher Nolan would have been just as interesting a choice for his flamboyant (but flawed) work in Inception.

There were a number of fine films this year, but as a show, the 83rd Academy Awards will not be remember as one of the best. The two new hosts, James Franco and Anne Hathaway, looked and sounded out of place. It goes to show that two young and beautiful young actors make a tame substitution for a Billy Crystal or even a Steve Martin. Franco and Hathaway are both talented thespians, but the two seemed tired and nervous, respectively. Crystal's got the crowd going more in his two-minute cameo than did the hosts during the entire show. In my opinion, the sanctimony Hollywood stars would have been better off putting up with the hilarious Ricky Gervais for a few hours than having to suffer through this trite self-glorfication.

But heck, we still love the spectacle...

 

BEST FILM

¨

BLACK SWAN

THE FIGHTER
INCEPTION
THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT

THE KING'S SPEECH
127 HOURS
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
TOY STORY 3
TRUE GRIT
WINTER'S BONE
 
PREDICTION THE KING'S SPEECH (1/1)
MY PICK 127 HOURS/BLACK SWAN
SHOULD HAVE
BEEN NOM'ED
KICK-ASS

 

BEST ACTOR

JAVIER BARDEM for BIUTIFUL

 

JEFF BRIDGES for TRUE GRIT
JESSE EISENBERG for THE SOCIAL NETWORK

 

COLIN FIRTH for THE KING'S SPEECH

 

JAMES FRANCO for 127 HOURS
 
PREDICTION COLIN FIRTH (2/2)
MY PICK COLIN FIRTH
SHOULD HAVE
BEEN NOM'ED
-

 

BEST ACTRESS

ANNETTE BENING for THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
  NICOLE KIDMAN for RABBIT HOLE
JENNIFER LAWRENCE for WINTER'S BONE

NATALIE PORTMAN for BLACK SWAN

MICHELLE WILLIAMS for BLUE VALENTINE
 
PREDICTION NATALIE PORTMAN (3/3)
MY PICK NATALIE PORTMAN
SHOULD HAVE
BEEN NOM'ED
-

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

CHRISTIAN BALE for THE FIGHTER
  JOHN HAWKES for WINTER'S BONE
  JEREMY RENNER for THE TOWN

MARK RUFFALO for THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT
GEOFFREY RUSH for THE KING'S SPEECH
 
PREDICTION CHRISTIAN BALE (4/4)
MY PICK CHRISTIAN BALE
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOM'ED FRANK LANGELLA for WALL STREET 2
PIERCE BROSNAN for GHOST WRITER

 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

 

AMY ADAMS for THE FIGHTER

HELENA BONHAM CARTER for THE KING'S SPEECH

MELISSA LEO for THE FIGHTER

HAILEE STEINFELD for TRUE GRIT
JACKI WEAVER for ANIMAL KINGDOM
 
PREDICTION JACKI WEAVER (4/5)
MY PICK JACKI WEAVER
SHOULD HAVE
BEEN NOM'ED
BARBARA HERSHEY for BLACK SWAN

 

BEST DIRECTING

DARREN ARONOFSKY for BLACK SWAN
JOEL COEN and ETHAN COEN for TRUE GRIT
DAVID FINCHER for THE SOCIAL NETWORK

TOM HOOPER for THE KING'S SPEECH

DAVID O. RUSSELL for THE FIGHTER

 
PREDICTION DAVID FINCHER (4/6)
MY PICK DARREN ARONOFSKY
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOM'ED DANNY BOYLE for 127 HOURS

 

BEST ORIGINAL SCRIPT

ANOTHER YEAR - Mike Leigh
THE FIGHTER - Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson

INCEPTION - Christopher Nolan

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT - Lisa Cholodenko, Stuart Blumberg

THE KING'S SPEECH - David Seidler
 
PREDICTION THE KING'S SPEECH (5/7)
MY PICK THE KING'S SPEECH
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOM'ED -

 

BEST ADAPTED SCRIPT

127 HOURS - Danny Boyle, Simon Beaufoy

THE SOCIAL NETWORK - Aaron Sorkin
TOY STORY 3 - Michael Arndt, John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
  TRUE GRIT - Joel Coen, Ethan Coen

 

WINTER'S BONE - Debra Granik, Anne Rosellini
 
PREDICTION THE SOCIAL NETWORK (6/8)
MY PICK 127 HOURS
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOM'ED -

 

 

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

BIUTIFUL - Mexico - Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu
  DOGTOOTH - Greece - Yorgos Lanthimos

IN A BETTER WORLD - Denmark - Susanne Bier

INCENDIES - Canada - Denis Villeneuve

 

OUTSIDE THE LAW - Algeria - Rachid Bouchareb
 
PREDICTION BIUTIFUL (6/9)
MY PICK -
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOM'ED -

 

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP
  GASLAND

INSIDE JOB

RESTREPO

 

WASTE LAND
 
PREDICTION EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP (6/10)
MY PICK -
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOM'ED -