Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Live-Blog Bonanza: Oscars 2011 (Part III: The Finale)

Red carpet coverage can be found here.
First half of the ceremony coverage can be found here.

We're still going strong! Country Strong! Speaking of, Gwyneth Paltrow should be performing soon--can Cee Lo Green stop by?

7:13 PM: The Oscar for Best Documentary Short goes to... "Strangers No More." Damnit. My bet was on "Killing in the Name." It's like Jake Gyllenhaal said: the Short categories are almost impossible to predict.

7:15 PM: Can I miss this one as well? Best Live Action Short is going to "Na Wewe" in my mind, but in real life... it goes to "God of Love." Damn, that's two years in a row I've missed all three shorts categories. Ten for sixteen (the best I can do is 75% at this point, shit).

7:17 PM: Fun with Auto-Tune! And then we hit the Twilight, which they give as much shit as possible. It's much appreciated. And Anne Hathaway's "personal moment" was adorable. Great host.

7:20 PM: OPRAH! She always teaches us how we need to improve our lives, so of course she's presenting Best Documentary Feature. It's boring, sure, but I'm still on a high after that adorable last bit, so I'm okay with Bansky losing this...to Inside Job, naturally. Which I just switched off of. Damn. Ten for seventeen (this is painful).

7:28 PM: I'm not loving this Billy Crystal bit. I feel like this show is all about honoring the history of film, not of the Oscars. This is reading too self-congratulatory.

7:33 PM: Best Visual Effects goes to Inception! Four wins for Christopher Nolan's visual masterpiece.

7:36 PM: Best Editing goes to The Social Network! Twelve for nineteen, and that's the ball game. Get ready to see two more wins for Network tonight: Picture and Director.

7:42 PM: Time for the last two Best Original Song nominees. Jennifer Hudson looks stunning still. I really like "If I Rise"--it reminds me of "In the Deep" from Crash six years ago. Which lost, of course. "Coming Home" is no "Forget You" for Gwyneth, sadly. The winner of Best Original Song is...Randy Newman?! For "We Belong Together"?! (Twelve for twenty.)

7:52 PM: Sad occasion, obviously, but I love "Smile." Hearing Celine sing it is pretty fantastic. And the audience isn't applauding during the "In Memoriam" segment! Amazing! Is this the best Oscar ceremony of the 21st Century?

7:58 PM: We've got just the big four categories left--this ceremony is gonna end on time!

8:02 PM: Hey, Kathryn Bigelow. Love you. Direct more really soon, please. Best Director goes to... Tom Hooper.

WHAT?!

8:11 PM: Okay, using this time to figure this out. So after losing almost every early award that it was supposed to win, The King's Speech wins Best Director. Which means The King's Speech is going to win Best Picture with only four Oscars to its name, just barely beating The Social Network and tying Inception. To say this makes absolutely no sense is an understatement. It's like the Academy couldn't figure out what they liked best. Maybe that's exactly what happened.

8:12 PM: Best Actress is up. I like how they're giving individual tributes to each actor read by the one presenter. It's a streamlined version of the five-actor presentations from the last two years. Natalie Portman has to win. AND SHE DOES! Thirteen for twenty-two!

8:20 PM: Best Actor, to be presented by Sandra Bullock. She's adorable. As is Anne Hathaway.
Anne: "Flub. Sorry. Drank at home."
Sandra: "Javier. Hola...Jeff, dude. Dude...Jesse, I'm still waiting for you to accept my friend request...Colin. So I hear the Queen saw the film and enjoyed it. That's good, since you're going home sometime?...James, you are the number-one reason children are picked up late from school because their mothers are watching General Hospital."
The woman is genius. I take back everything from last year. Love her to death. Enjoy your Oscar, Sandra.

And the Oscar goes to Colin Firth. Of course. Well-earned. Two years of brilliant work. Fourteen for twenty-three.

8:32 PM: Best Picture. Presented by Steven Spielberg (of course). Here we go. It's gonna be The King's Speech.

And it is. Fourteen for twenty-four. The King's Speech wins four Oscars, including Picture, Director, and Actor. Inception also wins four. The Social Network wins three. The Fighter, Toy Story 3 and Alice in Wonderland win two each. One for Black Swan.

Great ceremony, some great winners. But what a disappointing ending. The wrong film won.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Loved the reference to unpunished FRAUD in the aceptance speech for Inside Job. Very happy about that win!

Cynthia in Austin

Anonymous said...

Franco deserved it in my opinion. He carried the whole movie on his back, and he did an awesome job. But Firth did a good job too, so no complaints I suppose.

Kevin said...

I like Firth just fine. But I'm with you--it was Franco's in my mind.