Seeing as this is really the only thread on TiB that I post on, here are my overly-detailed thoughts on the Oscars, from beginning to end: -Was I the only one that thought James Franco was hilarious? Maybe it's because I smoked with a few friends before watching this (c'mon, it's a 3 hour event--something to ease the boredom is in order), but it felt like he was playing his character from Pineapple Express with a tux on. -Whoever let Kirk Douglas get on stage is a genius. Loved every second of that awkwardness. -Not totally surprised, but Leo winning over Steinfeld for Supporting Actress is a bunch of bullshit. Fourth best actor in The Fighter vs. best performance with a cast including Bridges, Brolin, and Damon. Bull-shit. -Cool to see Trent Reznor win Best Score for The Social Network--even considering the absurd job Hans Zimmer did with Inception. Thought Reznor still deserved it. -No surprises for Bale, Portman, and Firth--I've said that since December. Also no surprise with Best Adapted and Original going to The Social Network and The King's Speech. -Tom fucking Hooper winning Best Director over David Fincher was the biggest joke of the night. Yes, I understand that most times Best Director and Best Picture go hand in hand, and that the Oscars almost always follow the DGA's (as El Tee and I have said a couple times before in this thread), but this was still ridiculous. Hooper's a virtually unknown director, who lucked out with Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush turning out the performances of their careers. David Fincher has directed Se7en, Fight Club, and Benjamin Button and coaxed a brilliant movie out of a boring premise and a bunch of B-list actors (although I did like Hooper's speech). -Super bitter Banksy didn't win Best Documentary for Exit through the Gift Shop. Really wanted to see him pull off a stunt. "Exit" is fantastic by the way, and was my favorite movie of the year. Go see it. Guess I'll have to watch Inside Job now, if it can manage to beat out Exit and Restrepo (another unbelievable doc). -Randy Newman is fucking awesome. Shoulda won more for "Short People," though. -I called an upset in the making for The King's Speech when the PGA's picked it in January, and I'll defend it as a solid pick for Best Picture. Personally, I would've liked to see The Social Network take home the gold, mainly because a story about an internet startup is a little more relevant to a 22 year old than a WWI period piece about a king, but The King's Speech is still a great movie. We'll have to wait and see where it'll stack up historically, but my guess is that it'll be looked upon favorably in a few years, especially because it's so likable (did you meet anyone that thought it sucked? I definitely didn't). Back to lurker obscurity. See you next year.
From the moments I watched on Youtube, he came off as a mentally retarded simpleton, exactly like Anne Hathaway. Whoever decided to have them host should be fucking fired. And also a sadist. Didn't they take him from the hospital or something? Oh come on; I've written it before, but that was a pretty good, competent performance by Steinfeld, but not even close to a great one. She was definitely overwhelmed, and didn't play the role very convincingly in a few scenes. Even judging it against the standards of child actors, it's not that special; while I disliked the movie, Haley Joel Osmont in "The Sixth Sense" was truly incredible and memorable. And forget Bridges and Damon, who were WAY better in their respective roles than she was, but Lucky Ned Clayton and the fat, bald merchant at the beginning were better in "True Grit", too. All the more reason for Hooper to win over Fincher, right? World War 2, dude.
Honestly, this is a good move. <a class="postlink" href="http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/06/15/oscar-best-picture-nominees-no-longer-10/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://blog.moviefone.com/2011/06/15/os ... longer-10/</a> The argument for more nominees was always that one or two (but not normally three) deserving films got left off of the five-film Best Picture list. Now that they have the flexibility to bump up the nominees to include the bubble flicks, they can avoid the useless chatter about snubs for films that weren't going to win the big prize anyway. (And, they can save about 12 prime seats and gift bags that would go to those producers.)