Academy Award Winners

It was a big "spread the wealth" kind of night at the Academy Awards as no one film dominated with The King's Speech and Inception getting the most wins with four a piece. It was also a largely predictable night as most of the expected winners won. The biggest upset might be Tom Hooper's win over David Fincher for Best Director though if you want to sound hip, make sure to let everyone you know how upset you were over the loss of Banksy and his documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop.

The winners are as follows:

Best Picture: The King's Speech
Best Director: Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
Best Lead Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Best Lead Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3
Best Original Screenplay: The King's Speech
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network
Best Foreign Language Film: In A Better World, Denmark
Best Original Score: The Social Network
Best Original Song: We Belong Together, Toy Story 3
Best Editing: The Social Network
Best Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland
Best Cinematography: Inception
Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland
Best Makeup: The Wolfman
Best Documentary: Inside Job
Best Documentary Short: Strangers No More
Best Animated Short: The Lost Thing
Best Live Action Short: God of Love
Best Sound Editing: Inception
Best Sound Mixing: Inception
Best Visual Effects: Inception

4 - The King's Speech, Inception
3 - The Social Network
2 - The Fighter, Toy Story 3, Alice in Wonderland
1 - Black Swan, In A Better World, Inside Job, The Wolfman, Strangers No More, The Lost Thing, God of Love

Again, the night belonged to The King's Speech winning Picture, Director, Actor, and Original Screenplay. Inception got the same amount of wins, but all of them were technical awards. The Social Network walked home with Adapted Screenplay, Editing, and Score. The latter meant that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are now Oscar winners! As expected, Colin Firth and Natalie Portman won the lead acting prizes while The Fighter's Christian Bale and Melissa Leo took home supporting.

The show itself had many great and fun moments, such as Kirk Douglas' impromptu teasing of the supporting actress nominees or the great opening--both the Best Picture montage and the Hathaway-Franco skits--but for the most part it all seemed a bit messy. Most of it had to do with the way the show was structured with the flow not feeling natural. A lot of presenters also went off-the-script which had varying degrees of success. As for the young hosts, Anne Hathaway showed great energy and enthusiasm which helped carry the show especially with her co-host James Franco looking exhausted/stoned and often missing cues.

My predictions didn't really pan out this year as I only did 15/24 (62.5%) which was worse than last year. I particularly was unsuccessful with the three shorts categories, but since I only saw 1 out of the 15 films nominated, I guess I shouldn't be too shocked. Until next year!