This Year’s Winners
Best Picture: The King’s Speech
Best Actor: Colin Firth
Best Actress: Natalie Portman
Best Director: Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech
Best Actor Supporting: Christian Bale
Best Actress Supporting: Melissa Leo
If I had to some up this year’s Academy Awards in one word, it would simply be BORING. What a snooze fest this year’s awards turned out to be. For starters, with Anne Hathaway and the brilliant James Franco hosting, one would think this would be the best one in years. Unfortunately, the outcome was quite far from that.
A Host/Hostess without the Most/Mostess
One of the major highlights of the Academy Awards is the opening sequence. With such epic nominated films this year, Franco and Hathaway had the opportunity to orchestrate a phenomenal opening and to my dismay, it was pretty awful. The whole Inception thing did not work for them. The only time I found any humor in James Franco (who I find to be incredibly funny) was when he was dressed in drag and made a reference about being one of Charlie Sheen’s porn star girlfriends. Anne Hathaway was pretty obnoxious. Her singing performance poking fun at Hugh Jackman was stupid and didn’t really make much sense (it seemed like they needed to kill time with that one).
As hosts, they didn’t carry the show like they were anticipated to. I think next year, Joel McHale should be given the gig…at the very least we know he won’t disappoint with his humor.
And the winner is…
Two major upsets occurred at this year’s show: The King’s Speech taking home Best Picture and Tom Hooper
taking Best Director.
Up until the SAG awards which aired a couple weeks ago, The Social Network was the favored in both these categories. To be fair, I wrote my previous article when the Social Network was on top. Am I disappointed the King’s Speech did so well? Of course not. I loved the Social Network, don’t get me wrong, but I never felt it was worthy of Academy Awards…maybe a Golden Globe, but not the Academy Award. Nevertheless, I was dead on with the rest of my predictions!
Musical Performances
The musical performances were equally as boring as the show. Performers included Celine Dion, Florence from Florence and the Machine, Gwyneth Paltrow (what happened to her just acting?) Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi as well as Randy Newman performing “We Belong Together,” from Toy Story 3 (which took home best animation). The only performance I liked was none other than Staten Island’s own PS 22 Chorus who performed, “Over the Rainbow.” If you haven’t heard about PS 22 Chorus, definitely check them out on YouTube. They do some amazing covers of songs we are all familiar with.
She Wore What?!
In my personal opinion, the best part about the Academy Awards this year was E!’s coverage of the Red Carpet prior to the show’s start! I found far more entertainment checking out what everyone was wearing as opposed to the dreary, way too long show.
I was SHOCKED to see that Helena Bonham Carter toned it down! The usually overly eccentric actress wore a simple black dress which she explained was specially made by a COSTUME designer as opposed to your typical designers like Valentino, Givenchy and Calvin Klein. Carter explained to E! that she wanted to, “celebrate film instead of fashion.” Nevertheless, this was the calmest I have ever seen her look.
Hillary Swank, who is always hit or miss actually looked really nice in a silver dress by Gucci. Colin Firth looked dapper. Halle Berry looked gorgeous as always. Matthew McConaughey, handsome as he may be, always looks greasy and sweaty no matter how prestigious the event is. Geoffrey Rush was very bald while Christian Bale was very hairy. Reese Witherspoon looked like maid of honor in what clearly looked like a bridesmaid dress. Natalie Portman looked great for being as preggo as she is! And Finally, Mila Kunis. Granted she looked fabulous in purple but the dress itself was not so great. She should have saved the dress she wore to the Golden Globes and wore it at the Oscars instead.
Twenty Four Awards later…
What a disappointment this year’s awards turned out to be. I think what makes it so bad is the length. Is it really necessary to make an awards show three and a half hours long? Keep it simple! If I had creative control over the Oscars I would narrow it down to a few categories that people actually have interest in like:
- Best Picture
- Best Actor/Actress
- Best Actor/Actress in Supporting Role
- Best Director
- Best Documentary
- Best Animated Film
- Best Score and
- Best Screenplay.
Twenty four awards are a bit excessive for a live broadcasted awards show.
Overall, the show managed to keep me tuned it but I found myself fighting the urge to fall asleep several times. I was not impressed with the quirky bits and even the presenters failed to do it for me this year. Regardless, the show had the potential to be epic and it just didn’t live up to the expectations set. It hasn’t even been 15 hours since the show and the press is already slamming it! Clearly I am not the only one who was disappointed. Nonetheless, those who won deserved their wins and those who lost, better luck next year! Hopefully the 2012 Academy Awards will be a major improvement from this year’s disappointment.