The 83rd Academy Awards: Winners, Losers, Numbers and Quirks

Colin Firth in The King's Speech

The King’s Speech (TKS) received 12 nominations and won four. Of course, they were four very important ones: Best Original Screenplay (David Seidler), Best Director (Tom Hooper), Best Actor (Colin Firth) and Best Feature Motion Picture of 2010, the really big one! For some reason, TKS did not win the cinematography award. That went to Inception.

The Social Network (TSN), which came out of the gate the strong favorite, began to recede after TKS was released. It received eight nominations and won three, Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), Film Editing, and Original Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).

In the final analysis, TKS bested TSN in all three of the major categories where they competed -- Best Actor, Best Director, and, of course, Best Picture. Also, David Seidler, writer of the best original screenplay for TKS, made the best acceptance speech of the night, followed by Colin Firth. The Brits definitely won the night.

It was no surprise that Natalie Portman won Best Actress for her performance as the anorexic, neurotic Lesbian ballerina in Black Swan. Out of five nominations, that was the only win for the movie, and score one more point for the Brits.

The Oscars for Best Actress and Actor in a Supporting Role both went to The Fighter's, Melissa Leo and Christian Bale, and those were it for The Fighter. It was nominated for seven.

Inception received eight nominations and walked away with four technical awards: Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, and Sound Editing. The director of Inception, Christopher Nolan, did not receive a best directing nomination. Nominating 10 films for best picture and only five in all of the other categories skews the overall results.

For instance, nominating five movies for best picture, means all five directors of those films stand a good chance of getting a nomination, but only five out of 10 can get nominated with 10 films in the running, and all the other categories are affected as well. So, one or two deserving nominations tied to a best picture win, such as best director, cinematography or screenplay, will not happen. Do the math, people.

Toy Story 3 received five nominations and received two statuettes, one for Best Animated Film and the other for Best Song, “We Belong Together,” music and lyrics by Randy Newman who performed it on the broadcast. It was a foregone conclusion that TOY STORY 3 would not win best picture, although it was nominated. I think that nomination was a salute to the franchise, which it deserved. There will be no more Toy Story movies, at least for now, but the trilogy will endure.

True Grit received 10 nominations but did not win a single award, so it will have 10 loses for its lifetime reputation. I think that might be a record, and I cannot even begin to speculate about the cause. The film's Box Office results indicated it was better than that, I think it deserved more, and so did Roger Ebert.

Likewise, 127 Hours scored zero wins out of four nominations, as did Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right. The Best Documentary Feature, Inside Job, was directed by Charles Ferguson and Audrey Mars. I do not track the short films.
 
Alice in Wonderland did not receive a best picture nod, but did receive three nominations and two wins, Art Direction and Costume Design. It lost Visual Effects to Inception.

No question about the fact that the big studio productions won the night. Also, did anyone notice there was not one nomination for a black anywhere? I believe that is the first time in years.

To see the list of all the nominees and the winners, click the title of this post. The next post "Chewing the Oscar Broadcast,  Best of 2011."