This is a little later than I was aiming for, recent events in Canterbury somewhat drove the frivolity out of me and suddenly it all seemed rather trivial and silly.
But I think we still need a bit of trivial and silly, perhaps even more than usual at the moment, so here are the actual results and how my predications compared to them.
I won’t review the show itself because it was like every other awards show, 20% funny and teak jerky in parts and 80% cringe making and oh just get ON with it inducing the rest of the time.
The bit with Bob Hope was great though, now there’s a man who knew how to give good host!
And the winners were..........
Best picture: The King’s Speech: correct
Actress in a leading role: Natalie Portman - correct
Best supporting actor: Christian Bale - correct
Best supporting actress: Melissa Leo - correct, but after her ghastly, over-acted speech complete with staged swearing she should have been made to hand it over to Amy Adams.
Art Direction: Alice In Wonderland – incorrect - actually saw this again on Sunday and have to concede that it does look amazing (if you can get beyond Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka meets Sweeney Todd with flashes of Edward ScissorHands caricature of the Mad Hatter. I couldn’t obv)
Cinematography: Inception took it – and deservedly so but that would make me - incorrect
Costumes: Alice in Wonderland – making me (in the words of Chandler Bing) “a small word, rhyming with “song”, beginning with “w’ and meaning incorrect”.
Should have picked this one, am very annoyed with self *chews hat*
Documentary Feature: “Inside Job” - correct
Film Editing:“The Social Network” - incorrect - upon re-reading my picks I am astonished to find that I missed this one out completely. Something that I can only put down to my stalwart conviction that it had lacked an editor entirely.
And yet it must have had one because it won for Best Editing – astonishing. And “dislike”........a lot, when ARE FB going to add a button for that I wonder?
Foreign Language Film: correct – and “thanks boss”
Makeup: The Wolfman - correct – still “meh” but I’ll take it *spits out some hat*
And coming right up two large portions of Stetson for the lady, please pass the ketchup.
Music Original Score: The Social Network – incorrect - nothing stood out about the score for me, it all sounded the same. Maybe because it was overlaid with the sounds of tapping on keyboards? Anyway – I’ll eat some hat for the sake of honour but I do it under protest.
Music Original Song: Toy Story 3 – “We Belong Together” - incorrect.
Now I love Randy Newman, I really truly do, but all his work for Pixar sounds vaguely samey to me and I feel that the word “original” is a bit of stretch for a song that sounds like a re-write of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from the first Toy Story. Maybe it’s his voice? Maybe it doesn’t count if you plagiarise yourself?*
Anyhow, complain though I might, the end result is still the same, more tasty delicious hat for me!
Sorry Jeff – you might need to wear it as a trilby if I continue to consume it at this rate.
Sound Editing: Inception – correct - hooray!
Sound Mixing: Inception – correct - *cautiously pushes hat away a little*
Visual Effects: Inception – correct - Yes!
Writing Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network – correct and I am seeing some light at the end of the millenary tunnel
Writing Original Screenplay: The King’s speech, incorrect, nooooooooo. Inception was robbed, robbed I tell you. The Kings Speech was wonderful but Inception was a one of a kind, it defined the word “original” dammit.
I think that perhaps the esteemed (and somewhat aged) members of the Academy simply didn’t get it, which is a terrible shame. Or maybe they nodded off during the “people with guns in the snow” sequence and woke up at the end nudging each other and saying “what happened, did Jack get off the boat OK”?.
And I really could have done without any more hat, that brim is very hard on the teeth.
So in conclusion I aced the top five and scored 12 out of a possible 19. Jeff dude, I have your hat here, it’s fairly well chewed but still wearable I think. This prediction business is not as easy as it looks folks
It was a hell of a lot of fun to do though. And it made the awards themselves a much more entertaining watch.
Next year I aim to do better, more hits, less hat, and that is a promise or I’ll eat.......pretty much anything but hat really.
*Note: I was intrigued by this concept so I googled “can you plagiarise yourself” and it seems that no one else is 100% sure either. I actually think that you can, but it’s not called plagiarism, it’s called “laziness”.
Sorry Randy.
