Pop Culture Princess

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Monday, February 28, 2011

The good,the bad and the just okay of Oscar Night 2011



Oscar Night has come and gone,leaving in it's wake a good number of expected award winners,memorable moments and a few amusing surprises.

Hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco did their best to entertain but their two styles didn't quite mesh together. While Hathaway was as light as a feather on stage,Franco was,for the most part,as stiff as a board.



A great hallmark in acceptance speech history was made by Melissa Leo,who took her first Oscar(upon her second nomination)as Best Supporting Actress in The Fighter. Kirk Douglas was handing out the award,being charming and funny,with Melissa's stunned delight at getting it causing her to drop the F-word on live TV.

It was quickly censored,so no one other than the folks in the Kodak Theater did actually hear what she said. However,it's not as if it was the first time anyone there had such a phrase uttered in their presence or said it themselves at one time or another.

There was a little doubt about Leo getting the award due to some backlash about her taking out a couple of promotional ads to campaign for the win. However,that turned out to be a small blip on Melissa's media radar and good for her. She's a talented actress who is finally getting her due and one little swear slip shouldn't knock the cherry off of her spotlight sundae:





Most of the big wins went to The King's Speech,which received Best Original Screenplay,Director,Picture and Actor for Colin Firth who made quite a lovely speech of his own upon claiming his prize.

It's main rival,The Social Network,managed to get three awards in mostly technical categories(the exception being Best Adapted Screenplay)fittingly enough.

I did think that David Fincher might be given Best Director but the Academy voters choose to follow the usual "who ever wins the Director's Guild,gets the Oscar too" formula. That's fine with me,since I haven't seen either movie and if given the opportunity,would rather check out The King's Speech. I'm a bit of a Brit-flick-ophile,folks,much like most of the Academy apparently.

Naturally,there is some Monday morning grumbling about how "old people just can't handle this movie" and "no respects for nerds" at various websites.Fellas,you need to keep repeating to yourselves,"It's only a movie".

Look on the bright side;at least TSN won a few awards there. Some well deserving films didn't win anything(*ahem-Winter's Bone!)and many talented movie people(*cough*Christopher Nolan*cough*)weren't even nominated,so take that into consideration:





As it was all but predicted by Nostradamus,Natalie Portman won her first and hopefully not last Best Actress award for Black Swan. She was lovely and gracious in her speech,giving out heaps of generous credit to everyone involved with the film on all levels and being emotional without going overboard.

Her performance in Black Swan was beyond amazing,one of the few times where the vast amount of accolades and honors this film has been getting have been truly worthy of it. Congrats,Nat!

With her baby soon to make his or her debut into this world,Natalie has sincerely earned herself a rest there but with any luck,we won't have to wait too long to see her sparkle on the silver screen again:





The King's Speech wasn't the only film to sweep up at an awards show this weekend. Congratulations are in order to The Last Airbender,which took the Razzies by storm with wins for Worst Film,Director,Supporting Actor,Screenplay and Mis-use of 3D,the last one being a brand new category this year.

This was quite the juggernaut,with only Sex and the City 2 ,managing to score a triple whammy for Worst Ensemble Cast/Screen Couple,Worst Actress(all of the leading ladies shared in that gem)and Worst Sequel/Prequel/Remake.

It's too bad no one from The Last Airbender showed up at the ceremony-I'm sure that the fans would have welcomed them with open arms and a few creative criticisms as well:



Back to the Oscars,all in all this wasn't too bad of a show. Granted,it wasn't the best one ever yet it could have been better. One thing that would certainly help is finding the right host next year. There's a reason that folks were thrilled to see Billy Crystal show up last night,if only for a brief segment. The Oscars are crying out for a solid showman or woman to fill these shoes,so get started on the search for our new Cinderella,please,we beg of you!:

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