Awards Season: And the Oscars go to... The King's Speech for Best Picture

February 27, 2011

The Oscar are being handed out tonight and we will be going over the winners as they are announced and giving a few reactions, perhaps there will be a few surprises along the way. This story will be updated as the winners are announced, so check back throughout the evening to see if The King's Speech will be this year's winner, or if The Social Network will manage the upset. Plus there are many other potentially interesting results ahead.

The categories and nominees/winners are...

BEST PICTURE

DIRECTING

BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

BEST WRITING - ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

BEST WRITING - ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

BEST DOCUMENTARY - FEATURE LENGTH

BEST DOCUMENTARY - SHORT FILM

  • Strangers No More
SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION

  • God of Love
SHORT FILM - ANIMATED

  • The Lost Thing
BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTING

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN EDITING

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SCORE

BEST ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC - ORIGINAL SONG

Notes and Reactions...

  • The first winner of the night is Alice in Wonderland for Best Art Direction. This is not really a shock, as it was picked by our readers; however, this category was one of the closest results. Personally, I was expecting the over reliance on CG to hurt the film's chances here.
  • Inception won for Best Cinematography, which is a minor upset, as the plurality of our readers picked True Grit. Although Inception was the second most popular choice.
  • Melissa Leo won for Best Supporting Actress, which some might consider an upset. Many thought since Hailee Steinfeld performance in True Grit was clearly a lead performance, it would help her out in this category. I never bought that argument, and neither did our readers.
  • The Lost Thing beat for Day & Night and Madagascar, carnet de voyage (Madagascar, a Journey Diary)? That's an upset, as those were the two favorites I kept hearing about. In fact, The Gruffalo would have been a less surprising selection.
  • Toy Story 3 won for Best Feature-Length Animated Film, which at this point can practically be renamed the Pixar Award. (On a side note, 2012 could be interesting, as Pixar has two movies scheduled for release that year.)
  • The Social Network winning for Best Adapted Screenplay is not as surprise and more than 90% of our readers predicted this result. On the other hand, I would have liked to have seen Toy Story 3 win.
  • The King's Speech winning for Best Original Screenplay was not as sure a thing as the previous award, but it was still an overwhelming favorite.
  • My internet connection is slowing to a crawl. If it crashes before the Oscars are all handed out, I will be quite annoyed.
  • In a Better World beat out Biutiful, which our readers consider an upset. I, on the other hand, thought Incendies would win. That said, this category is notoriously hard to predict.
  • With Christian Bale's win for Best Supporting Actor, The Fighter became the first multiple winner of the night. That will probably be the film's last win of the night.
  • The Social Network beating The King's Speech for Best Original Score could mean the latter won't be the big winner tonight. In fact, it could be a portent that these two films will split the two biggest awards leaving no one film as the big winner.
  • Inception wins its second Technical award, this time for Sound Mixing. It likely won't be its last.
  • I was right. Inception won for Sound Editing as well and it is now the first triple winner of the night, but likely not for long.
  • If The Wolf Man hadn't won for Best Makeup, the category should have been retired. As it is, I'm sure there were more worthy nominees than the other two film.
  • Alice in Wonderland won its second Oscar, this time for Best Costume Design. Like most winners so far this evening, this one was predicted by our readers.
  • Strangers No More won for Best Documentary, Short Subject, which our readers predicted. Although that was one of the most competitive categories. (It usually is.)
  • God of Love won for Live Action Short Film, which was the most competitive category according to our readers.
  • Inside Job won for Best Documentary. Our readers predicted as much, but only by a plurality. I was a lot more certain than our readers were of this result.
  • Inception won its four award of the night, this time for Best Visual Effects. That might be enough to be tops for the night, but since it won for technical awards, it will likely not be considered the big winner.
  • The Social Network has now won three Oscars as well after winning for Best Editing. This might be its last, or it might score Best Picture and / or Best Director and become the big winner of the night. It's still too close to call.
  • Another win for Toy Story 3 for "We Belong Together", and another win for our readers.
  • Tom Hooper beat out David Fincher for the Best Director Oscar. Some will see this as an upset, but he also won the DGA, which is the best indicator for the Oscar.
  • Natalie Portman won Best Actress for her performance in Black Swan. There was a small chance Annette Bening would win a "Lifetime Achievement" type win, but that wasn't the case.
  • Colin Firth won Best Actor. Not the most predictable win of the night, but close.
  • And there it is. The King's Speech wins for Best Picture, it's fourth win of the night. Additionally, all four wins were for high prestige categories, unlike Inception, which won in Technical categories only. It is clearly the big winner of the night.
  • Overall, there were very few surprises tonight. The Numbers readers even got two of the three short film winners right. In fact, Animated Short is arguably the biggest shock of the night. (No, Best Director doesn't count, as Tom Hooper was the favorite, despite what the Vegas odds said.)

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Filed under: Awards Season, Inception, The Fighter, Alice in Wonderland, Toy Story 3, The Social Network, Black Swan, Biutiful, Inside Job, The King’s Speech, Incendies, Haevnen