The King’s Speech triumphs

It’s always a joy when one film doesn’t clean up all the statuettes at The Oscars and this year was one of the most balanced distribution of gongs in recent years. However amongst the most predictable wins there were a few obvious surprises, notably The King’s Speech. Honestly I did not anticipate the historical drama snatching Best Film and Director from David Fincher’s The Social Network but I am happy about the home win (Yay Britain!).

The King's Speech doesn’t have that special essence to deserve the title of best film of the year

In my eyes The King’s Speech relied on the terrific performances of it’s actors (a very deserved Best Leading Actor award for Colin Firth) but as a piece of cinema, it doesn’t have that special essence to deserve the title of best film of the year. The story is very simple and linear: our hero has a problem, a maverick helps him overcome that problem, overcoming various setbacks until our hero overcomes his problem just in the nick of time. There’s even a lazy montage sequence to move the plot forward.

David Fincher will be down in the dumps about the lack of a statue in his cabinet but the three awards The Social Network took home pretty much sum up what made the film so great. Firstly Aaron Sorkin’s snappy intelligent script combined with cool quick editing and Trent Reznor’s brilliant score. Essentially computer hacking is a boring prank done by geeky losers when they’re not masturbating over pictures of teenage girls on 4chan but just add some Techno and it suddenly becomes the most exciting activity in the world, Techno music makes everything awesome. Black Swan received only one nod for Best Leading Actress and a heavily pregnant Natalie Portman still looked stunning as she graciously accepted her award.

The Fighter surprisingly took both the supporting acting gongs and Christian Bale must be ecstatic as his third effort at massive weight loss has resulted in an Oscar. Inception predictably grabbed most of the technical awards but I’m puzzled why the Academy passed the Best Cinematography award to Christopher Nolan’s ketamine inspired mind-f**k when most of it was done on a computer. The over the shoulder camera shots and claustrophobic angles excellently used in Black Swan to produce an unnerving atmosphere were more deserved of the Cinematography award. And when will the Academy get over it’s love affair for Pixar films? How to Train Your Dragon would definately have been a more satisfying recipient for Best Animation.

Oscar Winners

Best Picture

The King's Speech

Best Director

Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)

Best Leading Actor

Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

Best Leading Actress

Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale (The Fighter)

Best Supporting Actress

Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Best Original Screenplay

David Seidler (The King's Speech)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)

Best Animated Feature

Toy Story 3

Best Foreign Language Film

In a Better World (Denmark)

Best Editing

The Social Network

Best Cinematography

Inception

Best Documentary (Feature)

Inside Job

Best Documentary (Short)

Strangers No More