ARTICLE: Oscar Winners! How Did Wild Bore Do?

Was it worth the wait? The Oscars are finally over and were there any surprises? No. None. I had already  made my predictions here - but let's see how well we did.










Best Picture Winner: The King's Speech
WRONG
Unfortunately I thought 'The Social Network' would win this and the real shock was that Fincher's Facebook Film didn't fare better.

Best Actor In A Leading Role: Colin Firth
CORRECT
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out Firth was going to get this. Apparently the bookies said never before had the odds been better for an actor in this category.

Best Actor In A Supporting Role: Christian Bale
CORRECT
'The Fighter' had to pick up something and got the Supporting roles. However, Bale was a shoe-in with a decent backlog of films and a worthy successor to Heath Ledger's same award a couple of years back.

Best Actress In A Leading Role: Natalie Portman
CORRECT
Predictable until the end - but a very deserving win.

Best Actress In A Supporting Role: Melissa Leo
CORRECT
Even with a full page spread in Variety that Leo financed herself - her shameless self-belief that she should win the award didn't hinder her chances.

Best Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3
CORRECT
Critics and fans love it alike.

Best Art Direction: Alice In Wonderland
WRONG
I thought Harry Potter would get this, but it's lack of awards makes me wonder if it will do a Return of the King next year and scoop up a huge amount in 2012.


Best Cinematography: Inception
WRONG
I thought 'True Grit' would get this, and I'm not the only one. The Coen's latest offering was up for 10 nominations and got nothing. That was another shock!

Best Costume Design: Alice In Wonderland
CORRECT
These kind of films where a lot of money is haemorrhaged in will always get more technical awards than creative ones. "But Costume is very creative!" - Well, sometimes it is ...

Best Directing: Tom Hooper
WRONG
I really didn't think Hooper would win this. He is perhaps the most undeserving director on the list and I'm positive a lot of people won't be happy about it. I guessed Fincher would get this one.

Best Documentary Feature: Inside Job
WRONG
I didn't think "Inside Job" would be as good as it turned out to be. "Restrepo", I thought, had Oscar all over it. Apparently not!


Best Documentary Short Feature: Strangers No More
WRONG
"Killing In The Name" was very apt for such a time of Middle Eastern uprising. However, this more homely subject matter took the golden goose home.

Best Film Editing: The Social Network
WRONG
I should have guessed "127 Hours" would walk away with nothing. Danny Boyle himself knew he wouldn't win anything, damn.


Best Foreign Language Film: In A Better World
WRONG
I've never seen it. Maybe I should then.

Best Make-Up: The Wolfman
CORRECT
The fact this terrible film won anything was ridiculous. Even though I guessed correct, "Barney's Version" really should have won.


Best Music: Original Score: The Social Network
CORRECT
Not a surprise. I still think Daft Punk should have won this - but they weren't even nominated.
TRON!

Best Music: Original Song: Toy Story 3 - "We Belong Together" Randy Newman
WRONG
I thought "127 Hours" would get this. But it didn't. Randy Newman did for those God-awful country songs that make me want to rip my eyes out of their sockets and stick them down my ears.

Best Short Film (Animated): The Lost Thing
WRONG
I actually wanted The Lost Thing to win - but didn't think it would. I guess someone has to have some kind of taste along the line. Instead I thought "The Gruffalo" did.

Best Short Film (Live Action): God of Love
WRONG
I thought "Na Wewe" would get this. That's all I got to say about that.


Best Sound Editing: Inception
CORRECT
"Inception" was given a few nods from the Academy but Nolan is still yet to make a huge impression. Until he takes on a more 'serious' project, I feel they won't accept him as an auteur which is a shame seeing as a nobody like Hooper is supposed to be better than him.

Best Sound Mixing: Inception
WRONG
Really? "Inception" got both Sound ones? Jesus. I thought "True Grit" would get this, but it didn't even get a look see.

Best Visual Effects: Inception
WRONG
I really should have got this right but I really saw "Inception" taking more mainstream awards and thought "Alice In Wonderland" being pretty much all in CG and being Burton would scoop this, but it rightfully went to Inception, which was my personal choice anyway.

Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay): The Social Network
CORRECT
Aaron Sorkin. 'Nuff said.


Best Writing (Original Screenplay): The King's Speech
WRONG
David Seidler? I mean ... really? His last film went straight to TV and was called "Kung Fu Killer". I thought "The Fighter" would get this - but they like stutters.

So that's it!  10 out of 24 - not great but not bad either. Not as spot on as my predictions last year, but I got almost all the main ones. Which is what matters really.

REVIEW: The Fighter

A double whammy for Aronofsky as he produces this David O Russell film based on a true story about Mickey 'Irish' Ward and his relationship with his brother Dickey. Is it the next Rocky? No, not really.


Coming out of The Fighter I was a bit unsure of what I felt. It's as if I should recognise this was a great film, but I just couldn't accept that it was. It's all there, downtrodden fighter, against-all-odds, the love interest, drugs, hope, despair but I couldn't help but think it was a mere shadow compared to sporting films in the past and the obvious link to The Wrestler, the reason why this was directed by O Russell rather than Aronofsky, makes it abundantly clear that it's just not top quality. It's a rather standard movie that has appeared at the right time to be considered for awards. A bit of a dirty shot as I doubt had it been released a while ago, it would have been considered.

Why is it not the big hit it's supposed to be? Well, the story is pretty mundane to be honest. Mickey is trying to be an accomplished boxer but living in the shadow of his drug-using, egotistical Dickey played by Bale as well as having an over-bearing mother and a gaggle of sisters. All the while he's dating strong-spirited Amy Adams and trying his best to train and yet not let everyone down at the same time. The real focus of the story here though is Bale and Mickey Ward is a strong, yet simple man who just wants to fight and really he's just too weak to stand up for himself. How ironic and something Oscar judges will probably cream themselves over. However, it's been done.

The acting here is pretty good but swings from cartoonish to overly-serious. Bale's Dickey is a force to be reckoned with and again Bale has completely taken over the role looking similar to his skin-and-bones Machinist persona. Dickey is clearly deluded into creating a legacy that is bigger than himself, and unfortunately so is his mother. It's some great acting but I felt at times it was a little too much, perhaps much like Dickey himself he becomes a caricature and it's slightly off-putting compared to the rather wooden Wahlberg. I honest to God cannot see why he is still being cast in anything, he has exactly the same look, the same tone, he might as well be reading off the page. There's no emotion behind his eyes and I might have liked him in some performances, but the role has to cater to Wahlberg, Wahlberg doesn't cater for the role. I'm no boxing expert, but I still felt Wahlberg was unconvincing as a boxer, he can hit a speedbag and do some combinations but it's not exactly Raging Bull. Instead Wahlberg looks like a stone as he boxes, it's so insular and looks amateurish, the fights themselves look extremely fake at times and even by filming with the same cameras used in the sport to give it that 'TV' effect, it still doesn't stand up to any real or Hollywood fights, it's even got shitty 'whump' sound effects.

Wahlberg might have predictably ruined the film, but Melissa Leo as their mother makes a great middle ground between Wahlberg's stone-cold serious 'acting' and Bale's OTT method performance. She shines through and Amy Adams struggles slightly in comparison. Adams does a decent enough job but really I felt she was more of a distraction rather than a help. The story is about strong females just as much, if not more so, than strong males and Adams isn't afraid of the horrible, gossiping sisters that crowd around the film like an ancient Greek chorus. However, I feel the role was a bit too much for her and as good as she was, I felt she didn't quite have the gravitas needed.

I enjoyed watching this, but I really felt that the directing wasn't O Russell at his best, it was too similar to The Wrestler's handicam approach and there was nothing about it I can look back on and think 'that was great' - even the fight scenes weren't exactly gripping. Bale chewed up the scene alongside Melissa Leo and left everyone else in their wake. Some people will probably just big it up because it's called The Fighter and it's about boxing and is very macho macho and that's enough to keep people excited, but in truth it's overrated already. Compared to True Grit that I have just watched, it's definitely not as good, and I didn't think that was amazing either. If The Fighter gets any Oscar nods for anyone other than Melissa Leo and perhaps Bale, then it's undeserved. It touches on important issues so lightly that they might as well have been left alone - there's nothing giving it any integrity apart from the fact that it's a true story and the most interesting stuff was the real footage, which makes me rather watch a real documentary on the fighters rather than see this film again.

Rating: 7/10