And You Thought the Oscar Show Was Bad?

I would like to congratulate all the deserving Winners of the Academy..

Actor in a Leading Role

• Colin Firth in “The King's Speech”

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Christian Bale in “The Fighter”

Actress in a Leading Role

• Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Melissa Leo in “The Fighter”

Animated Feature Film

• “Toy Story 3” Lee Unkrich

Art Direction

• “Alice in Wonderland”
  Production Design: Robert Stromberg; Set Decoration: Karen O'Hara

Cinematography

• “Inception” Wally Pfister

Costume Design

• “Alice in Wonderland” Colleen Atwood

Directing

• “The King's Speech” Tom Hooper

Documentary (Feature)

• “Inside Job” Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

Documentary (Short Subject)

• “Strangers No More” Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon

Film Editing

• “The Social Network” Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter

Foreign Language Film

• “In a Better World” Denmark

Makeup

• “The Wolfman” Rick Baker and Dave Elsey

Music (Original Score)

• “The Social Network” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

Music (Original Song)

• “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3" Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

Best Picture

• “The King's Speech” Iain Canning, Emile Sherman and Gareth Unwin, Producers

Short Film (Animated)

• “The Lost Thing” Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann

Short Film (Live Action)

• “God of Love” Luke Matheny

Sound Editing

• “Inception” Richard King

Sound Mixing

• “Inception” Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick

Visual Effects

• “Inception” Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• “The Social Network” Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• “The King's Speech” Screenplay by David Seidler 

Worst Oscars Ever? E!Online summed up everything the Oscars are NOT supposed to be: clunky, amateurish, and pretty much lacking in actual entertainment value for those of us not picking up awards.

Worst Moment of the Pre-Show: Sitting through the ABC countdown chatfest, which featured the biggest stars in the world and still managed to be really boring. Stop that!

Best Moment of the Opening: The two montages opening the show were one too many, but as we are fans of (a) Inception; (b) host-inserted award show videos; and (c) Alec Baldwin and Morgan Freeman; we will give this part a pass, mainly because we have a sick feeling that the whole thing about to go downhill from here...

Worst Moment of the Opening: Realizing that James Franco and Anne Hathaway actually were going to keep hosting through the whole thing and it wasn't all an Inception dream. Blame Hugh Jackman for making us think all good actors must be good hosts.

Worst Segue: One minute Hathaway is yelling something about lesbians and then...

Biggest WTF: And then Tom Hanks comes talking about Gone With the Wind...which already won, we're fairly sure. Like 60 years ago.

Best Save: Kirk Douglas isn't the obvious choice for a show aiming at a younger demographic, but the screen idol proved that his charm is undiminished, though the show did seem to get sidetracked by his antics.

Worst Takeaway, Part One: For all the talk about Melissa Leo turning off voters with her personal For Your Consideration ad, she not only won, but she probably ensured that next year we'll see more of them.

Worst Takeaway, Part Two: Oh, and that they'll keep using the dump button to bleep out inadvertent cursing.

Best Written Speeches: A tie. Social Network's Aaron Sorkin and King's Speech scribe David Seidler offered up wry, well-written speeches, which just got us wishing they'd been around to help out with this telecast.


Best Quip: "That's gross," said the divine Cate Blanchett, while presenting the make-up award to The Wolfman. We already love her, but she wins geek points for knowing the sci-fi term for "Excellent work."

Best Star-Making Performance: Luke Matheny's vibrant, funny speech for Live Action Short Film was not only a jolt of energy for the show, but it made us want to watch whatever he does next. And really if you're going to be charming, it's probably not a bad idea to do it in a roomful of film executives.

Latest Entrance: Billy Crystal showed up and got a standing ovation, both for his past hosting work and in hopes he might stay and host the rest of this one.

Biggest Disconnect: Maybe we missed the memo, but for a show that was supposed to draw in the youth, it seemed to rely on old folks for its best bits.

Best (Delayed) Comeback: Robert Downey Jr. may have seemed a little prickly at the Golden Globes when Ricky Gervais made a stale joke about his past mishaps, but he and Jude Law managed to mine his past for a funny bit on stage.

Second Best (Delayed) Comeback: Christian Bale's sly allusion to his own infamous f-bomb barrage while mentioning costar Leo's bleep-worthy moment.

Best Musical Performance: As much as Florence Welch and Gwyneth Paltrow were terrific, Randy Newman not only got a deserved Best Song win but he gave a drily comic speech that killed.

Best Mom: Tom Hooper won for The King's Speech, and then told how his mother basically found The King's Speech for him. Isn't that like a mom: First, she finds where you left your bookbag, then she finds you an Oscar-winning script.

Worst in Translation: In of the night's best moments, Russell Brand delivered a delightfully incorrect translation of what Helen Mirren was saying in French while introducing the Best Foreign Language Film award.
Best Host: Sandra Bullock delivered the goods while introducing the Best Actor nominees, making the whole thing seem fun and funny and unpretentious. Everything that this night wasn't, but could have been.

Worst Surprise: When Oprah Winfrey came out, you could tell everyone was hoping that they'd find an Oscar under their chair.

Best Firth Place Finish: "I have a feeling my career has just peaked," Colin Firth, who gave a charming, gracious speech that  belied the fact that him winning was kind of a lock.

The Oscars were bad. (Or so I've heard and read).   James Franco and Anne Hathaway were terrible. Franco appeared to be uninterested in what was going on and monotone, Anne was like a giddy schoolgirl with so much energy but did not know what to do with it. Not funny at all. Please bring back Billy Crystal or Alec Baldwin, someone who is funny and can tell a story or two. The host needs to be someone with much more experience in the business.  The show could be better in a lot of ways because the stage was really grand and over the top. I liked Sandra Bullock, maybe she could host next year's Oscar awards? :)