Oscars: I whine, I bitch, I celebrate.

I scored 15/21 on my predictions. 19/21 if you count my alternate winners (which is not bad at all, eh?)

Anyway, going back to the real stuff.

The Good Stuff: 

- Inception won 4. Social Network won 3.

A totally well deserved list of awards these 7. Although I would've given the award for Best Original Score to Inception. Hans Zimmer's score is EPIC. The Social Network has also been on my playlist as much as Inception so I can't really complain.

- Inside Job's Best Documentary Feature Award. I loved Exit Through The Gift Shop but Inside Job is a way more important film. Charles Ferguson's opening lines of the speech should have been heard by everyone on this planet. I love filmmaking coupled with responsibility.

- Billy Crystal turning up when we needed him the most.

- Christian Bale's speech.

- Kirk Douglas being creepy and funny at the same time. Also, opening the envelope and dropping it on the floor.

- Natatlie Portman winning Best Actress. Black Swan's only but well deserved win.

The Okay stuff: 

Alice in Wonderland. I love Alice but Inception and True Grit were more worthy. But that's OKAY.

The BAD stuff: 

EVERYTHING ELSE!

- Starting with the shoddy hosting by James Franco and Anne Hathaway. They looked uninspired, bored and repeated lines. Anne Hathaway was hooting after annoucing the presenters. Are you serious? Have you ever seen an Oscarcast before Miss Hathaway? Lesson No. 1. Nobody hoots! You just applaud. But let me give it to the girl for enthusiasm and being actually involved in the hosting.

Mr. Franco, sadly, just stood there. To be honest, he looked stoned to me. The worst Oscar host ever.

This shows you need people with experience. You can't ask anyone to host the Oscars. Of my 13 years of Oscar watching these are definitely the worst I have seen. Hosting, plus the awards.

- Roger Deakins losing his 9th Oscar. Seriously, he is a living legend people! Honor him before you hand in a Lifetime achievment award and look like complete fools. (His resume includes The Shawshank Redemption, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Village, A Beautiful Mind, Kundun, No Country For Old Men, The Big Lebowski and almost every Coen brothers film including True Grit)

- Best Picture and Director going to The King's Speech.

Here's how I do this.

Which out of these movies would you consider a great film?

Tier 1:

How Green Was My Valley (1941)

Ordinary People (1980)

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)

Gigi (1958)

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Crash (2005)

The English Patient (1996)

Chariots of Fire (1981)

Dances with Wolves (1990)

And which of these?

Tier 2:

Citizen Kane (1941)

Raging Bull (1980)

It's A Wonderful Life (1946)

The Graduate (1967)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

GoodFellas (1990)

Out of films mentioned in tiers above, I'm sure you picked more in the second.

What about two more ?

Tier 3: 

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Casablanca (1942)

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

The Godfather (1972)

On The Waterfront (1954)

Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Schindler's List (1993)

Amadeus (1984)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Or?

Tier 4:

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

Vertigo (1958)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Psycho (1960)

The Searchers (1956)

Rear Window (1954)

Rebel Without A Cause (1955)

Some Like It Hot (1959)

Fight Club (1999)

I'm sure you consider all of them great. How about I tell you the first tier includes films that have won the Oscar for Best Picture and the second one is of films that weren't even nominated but are now considered classics. All-time greats.

What do they indicate?

Tier 1: Oscars suck

Tier 2: Oscars suck/ rock

Tier 3: Oscars rock

Tier 4: Oscars suck

I'm talking about Tier 1 and 2 here. Where films that are just about good win and films that are "great" don't. This ends up hampering their reputation and giving a boost to the loser.

The films in Tier 1 aren't bad films but since How Green Was My Valley won the Oscar over Citizen Kane, people wanted to hate it. Same with Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas. Forrest Gump over Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption (all three are great in my opinion but poor Forrest still takes the burden of die hard Tarantino and Shawshank fans). Shakespeare In Love, another wonderful film but compared to Saving Private Ryan and the masterpiece that is, The Thin Red Line (1998), it pales. You want to hate it!

Now let me tell you beforehand that I don't think The King's Speech is a bad movie. I don't want to hate it. It's a good one, yes. But when you're competing with films like Inception, The Social Network and Black Swan, you just aren't good enough. While these films are bold, daring and push the envelope, The King's Speech is a "safe" film. With Harvey Weinestein behind the film, a smart campaign which goes "Some movies you feel" hit the nail, the film not winning would be a big surprise. It hits the right notes, it makes you "feel", yes but it's intention of doing so blatant that it ended up making me feel nothing. The Social Network on the other hand (which had more of a chance at trumping TKS than Inception or Swan), is a great film. It doesn't particularly make you "feel" for it's characters. But guess what, I ended up "feeling" for Zuckerberg and Saverin. I could feel the betrayal, not wanting to be an asshole, being socially awkward. These emotions aren't going to lift your spirits up but they are very much there. These are the dark aspects of the human condition. The Social Network excavates these and makes you "feel" but not blatantly. The Godfather is about a man taking over his father's "business". Except, that their business is to kill. Another enigmatic anti-hero that we all loved but not for the "right" reasons. Over here, I pick the anti-hero over the hero.

Guess what? I know King's Speech is not a bad film. But I have ended up hating The King's Speech now. I am human, after all. Knowing is not everything, sometimes you just do what you've got to do. I guess this is why I connect with The Social Network more. I know what I'm doing, it may not be "right" but you see.. I just have to do it.

Other bad stuff:

Corey Haim not mentioned in the In Memoriam segment.

The Auto-tuned faux-musical segement of Harry Potter and Twilight. Utter crap!

True Grit being completely shut out. 10 nominations and 0 wins is just sad.

 

On my way out, I want to applaud the Academy for nominating films like Inception, The Social Network, Black Swan, True Grit, 127 Hours, Winter's Bone and The Kids Are All Right. None of these films fit into a genre as such (barring Grit), they aren't your regular Oscar movies and yet these personal, daring, small films got nominated. Even if sticking it in to the "Oscar movie" for the big one was inevitable. The changing trend at the Oscars is great. No Country For Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker and The Departed are not "Oscar movies". Here's to next year. Fix it while you can.