2011 Oscar Winners

Last night's Oscar winners: Christian Bale, Best Supporting Actor for "The Fighter"; Natalie Portman, Best Actress for "Black Swan"; Melissa Leo, Best Supporting Actress for "The Fighter"; and Colin Firth, Best Actor for "The King's Speech".

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Our complete Oscar coverage later today.

So Much for Facebook Friends

It's over. Charlie Sheen has sent the last hooker home, Elvis has left the building and the fat lady has sung. "The Social Network" will not win the Oscar for Best Picture, it will go instead to "The King's Speech". Just a few shorts weeks ago, it looked as if "The Social Network" would cruise to an easy Oscar win after winning all the earlier critics awards, but now, "The King's Speech" has won the Producers Guild Award, the Directors Guild Award, and last night, the SAG Award for Best Actors Ensemble. It's done.
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If you're wondering how a movie could be almost universally recognized by every critic in the country as the year's best movie, and not win the Oscar for Best Picture, you just have to remember one thing, the people who vote for the Oscars are not critics. Oscar voters and movie critics are two, very different animals. Don't see the difference? Imagine Sarah Palin going on the show, "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?"; Sarah Palin and a reasonably intelligent 5th grader: two very different animals. Got it now?

(melissa leo wins for best

supporting actress)

Not that we're saying the Oscar voters are as dumb as Sarah Palin, it's just that Oscar voters vote for movies and their fellow actors for a lot of reasons other than "critical assessment". Oscar voters vote for sentiment, career achievement, popularity, and sometimes, only sometimes, for critical reasons.

One movie critic today wrote that the Oscar voters should "be forgiven for they know not what they do", in an obvious reference to the fact that he thinks "The King's Speech" is an inferior movie to "The Social Network" and shouldn't win the Oscar for Best Picture. Now he knows how millions of us felt a few years ago when we watched the inferior "Crash" beat out "Brokeback Mountain" for the Best Picture Oscar. Thank you.

As for last night's SAG Awards, do we really need another nationally televised show in which multi-millionaire actors hand each other trophies which only serve to further inflate their already massively bloated egos? No. No, we don't. But our opinion won't stop the SAG's from happening, so we are left with no other choice than to make fun of them and everyone on them.


Natalie Portman won for Best Actress, and she's beautiful, graceful and composed. But come on, Natalie, bring back the donkey laugh. At the Golden Globes, she was in the middle of a very refined speech, and then she started to crack from nervousness, and this thing came out of her mouth that could only be described as the sound made by an excited, very confused barnyard animal. Whether or not Natalie will win the Oscar is a foregone conclusion; she will. The thing we'll be watching for that night is if she can manage to keep the door closed on the donkey. God, we hope not.



Ernest Borgnine got a Lifetime Achievement Award. Well deserved. This guy made his first movie in 1951 and, of course, won the Oscar for Best Actor for 1955's "Marty". And at 94, he's still working; so far for 2011, he has three movies coming out. Take that, Betty White!
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Speaking of Betty White, she won an award last night for her role on the sitcom, "Hot in Cleveland", and as usual, she stole the show last night. She did a quick comedic bit in her acceptance speech, proving that she can do more comedically in two seconds than what some actresses can do in an entire movie. And yes, we're looking at you, Jennifer Aniston.







Christian Bale won the Best Supporting Actor award for "The Fighter". It's amazing how fast this guy has gone from quirky character roles to sexy leading man.


Julianna, Julianna, Julianna. Oh dear, where do we start? She's a real head-scratcher. She wins award after award, but why, oh god, why? She's as charismatic as a bag of wet potato chips; she's so boring that the U.S. Government is trying to find a way to bottle her performances into a spray gas which we'll use on Al Qaeda which will simply put them to sleep. She bored us for years on "E.R." and now she's bringing all of her emotional range, (both facial expressions), to something called "The Good Wife". Dear god. And then we have to watch her win an award and thank everyone she's ever met, and everyone who helped her to get where she is now. We'd actually like to track down those people and hurt them. Julianna, please make it stop. Please use your talent somewhere more suited for your demeanor, at the DMV where a blank, vacant stare is in high demand.




Taye Diggs and Sofia Vergara presented an award. Wow. Beautiful face with perfect features and full lips, incredibly sexy body. Wow. And Sofia's not bad, either. Thank you.

Much Ado About Nothing

A couple of days ago, we gave you the highlights of the Miss America Pageant, and now it's time to scan the high points of another event in which pretty people are asked to whore themselves in public while groveling for money and attention, The 2011 Golden Globes Awards, which took place on Sunday night.
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First let's get the obvious out of the way. By now, unless you've been hiding out in the backwoods of Alabama, plotting to shoot up an abortion clinic, you've certainly heard about host Ricky Gervais'
"outrageous" jokes he made about many of the stars at the Awards. Among other things, he introduced Bruce Willis as "Ashton Kutcher's dad", he said that "many of you probably know Robert Downey, Jr. from the rehab clinic and the L.A. County Jail", and he openly mocked the fact that the Globes nominated the critically savaged movie, "The Tourist". But let's get real, he didn't say anything that wasn't true, and that wasn't hilarious to hear. The ratings for the Globes went up this year, and over 70% of viewers polled yesterday said that they thought Gervais was very funny and entertaining. So the only people really insulted by Gervais' humor were a handful of celebrities who were the butt of his jokes. And do we feel sorry for a bunch of spoiled movie stars who are vastly overpaid for not even working very hard? No. No, we don't. In fact, our advice to movie stars in 2011 is that if you're going to get paid millions of dollars for working a few weeks a year by speaking lines in front of a camera, then you should not only be forced to be the butt of jokes every so often, but also keep your mouth shut while listening to them, and silently thanking god for your extraordinarily good luck in life.
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And now, with that out of the way, the winners were no surprise. The four major acting winners were Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale and Melissa Leo. These are the same four who will also probably win the Oscars next month, unless Hailee Steinfeld can edge out Leo for the Supporting Actress prize. We were most happy to see Melissa Leo get some recognition; she's one of those people who's been knocking around Hollywood for many years, and is just now beginning to realize her potential. Natalie Portman was the essence of grace and poise in her acceptance speech until she let loose with some incoherent ramble about her boyfriend knocking her up with a baby, afterwhich she emitted what can best be described as a full-on donkey laugh.
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Robert DeNiro got a lifetime achievement award, and in his acceptance speech, made several jokes. He should not have. Luckily, humor was more adroitly handled by Tina Fey and Steve Carell, who are so funny, and so funny together, that we just keep scratching our heads and wondering why the Oscar people have never asked them to host the Academy Awards. Actually, on second thought, DeNiro did get out one funny line in which he "was glad that the Globes people decided to give him the award before they saw "Little Fockers". Amen, sister, amen!





We've always thought Christian Bale was sexy, and we're actually digging the Jesus H. Christ look with the long hair. But please, Christian, no more movies in which you have to starve yourself.  You can keep your own body next time; it's called "acting".
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Annette Bening got the Best Actress trophy in a Comedy for "The Kids Are All Right", which is strange, considering that the movie is not a comedy. But it's okay, we feel really bad for Bening since she was the early odds-on favorite to finally win an Oscar this year until the juggernaut of momentum shifted in Natalie Portman's favor.
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"True Grit"'s new star, Hailee Steinfeld made her first appearance as a newly-minted movie star when she took the stage as a presenter, and for such a young girl, and a novice in the industry, she was completely poised and really quite beautiful. Sadly, though, Steinfeld was forced to share the stage with the much shorter, and much more immature, Justin Bieber. The two teens are almost the same age, but watching them together was like watching a mature, 21 year-old college coed allow her 4th grade nephew to stay up past his bedtime to accompany her to the party with the grown-ups. Jesus. Take notes, Bieber.

Attention K-Mart Shoppers: Today's Blue Light Special, 50% Off on All Golden Globes!

Despite the hype surrounding the publicity behemoth that is tonight's Golden Globes Awards, most industry insiders don't see the Hollywood Foreign Press's annual bestowing of movie awards as a serious indicator of Oscar success. The Golden Globes, over the years, have been tainted by too many scandals, including a brand new one accusing the head of the HFP of taking kickbacks and bribes for nominations, to be taken seriously as an objective measure of the best of Hollywood's annual output. For those who really wanted to gauge the latest scoreboard on the 2011 Oscars, all eyes were on Friday night's Critics Choice Movie Awards, which are awarded annually by the largest U.S. critics' group, the Broadcast Film Critics Association. The Critics Choice Movie Awards are the final awards given by a critics group before the hoopla of the Golden Globes, the SAG's, and the Oscar nominations themselves, and they have the distinction of being a very accurate predictor of Oscar success. The Critics correctly predicted the Oscar Best Picture the past four years in a row, and eight of the past ten years. On Friday night, the Critics awarded "The Social Network" as Best Picture, Colin Firth as Best Actor, Natalie Portman as Best Actress, Christian Bale as Best Supporting Actor and Melissa Leo as Best Supporting Actress.

Oscar Is Heading For the Final Turn

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Oscar winners for 2011: Colin Firth for Best Actor, Natalie Portman for Best Actress, Christian Bale for Best Supporting Actor, Hailee Steinfeld for Best Supporting Actress, and "The Social Network" for Best Picture.

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(mark wahlberg in "the fighter")

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Okay, we know the Oscars haven't been given out yet, the nominations haven't even been announced, but as we wrote last year, there are so many movie awards which are given out now before the Oscars, that it almost becomes a foregone conclusion who will win the Oscars by the time the winners are actually announced. In other words, there are almost never any surprises any longer.

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(hailee steinfeld and barry pepper in "true grit")

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In the past few days, three more critics groups, the Kansas City Film Critics Circle, the Phoenix Film Critics Society and the Online Film Critics Society, announced their 2010 film award winners. All three groups selected Colin Firth, Natalie Portman and Christian Bale in the Actor, Actress and Supporting Actor categories, respectively. They disagreed slightly over Supporting Actress and Best Picture; Kansas City and the Online folks picked Hailee Steinfeld and "The Social Network", but Phoenix picked Melissa Leo and "The King's Speech".

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(geoffrey rush and colin firth in "the king's speech")

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With these newest awards, the latest tally for critics groups wins stands at "The Social Network" having won 22 of 27 awards; Colin Firth having won 14 of 27 awards; Natalie Portman at 14 of 26; Christian Bale at 16 of 25; and Hailee Steinfeld at 8 of 25.

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And thus, our confidence in announcing, now, who will win the Oscars. That's not to say that the Oscar voters always vote the same way that movie critics do, hardly!, but at this point, peer pressure starts to have an effect. In other words, if one actor has won the bulk of praise from the country's critics, it becomes really difficult for a lowly Oscar voter, who might be an actor or film editor who hasn't worked in two years, to claim that they know better than the nation's critics. Another reason why the Oscar Awards sometimes resemble an election for junior high prom queen.

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(natalie portman in "black swan")

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However, and this is a big "however", one force that is always present at the Oscars is sentiment. And Oscar sentiment is a hell of a force. Sentiment means that Oscars voters often like to reward actors for "career achievement" or simply for their overwhelming popularity. You have to look no further than last year's wins for Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock to see the results of Oscar sentiment. Not that Bridges and Bullock weren't good in their roles, but you'd be hard pressed to find many film critics who really thought Bridges was better than Colin Firth last year, or Bullock was better than Meryl Streep.

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(jackie weaver and joel edgerton in "animal kingdom")

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So at this point, you can pretty much count on Colin Firth, Natalie Portman and Christian Bale wins. Annette Bening might upset Portman, but it's doubtful. And "The King's Speech" might upset "The Social Network", but that looks doubtful, too. The only major race that's still in contention is for Best Supporting Actress. Steinfeld, Melissa Leo and Jackie Weaver have split the critics votes three ways, but not nearly as many people will see Leo's and Weaver's movies as they will see Steinfeld in "True Grit", and Oscar voters will also want to reward the Coen Brothers' film with at least one acting award. Also, don't forget, Oscar voters are suckers for rewarding child actors, i.e. Patty Duke, Tatum O'Neal, Anna Paquin, etc.

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Next up are the industry awards, i.e. The Screen Actors Guild Awards, The Producers Guild Awards, etc. And these people, unlike the nation's film critics, actually belong to the Oscar Academy, which means they actually vote for the Oscars. So their selections over the next few days will really give us an even more accurate prediction of who will take home the most coveted naked man in Hollywood.

Oscar Grub Payoff Round 2

The National Board of Review has just handed out their 2010 film awards, and the Best Picture winner was "The Social Network".

.(jennifer lawrence)

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But don't get too excited. While The National Board of Review is one of the handful of national organizations which annually hands out awards for film, the NBR almost never selects the same films and actors which eventually win the Oscars. So while many Oscar watchers respect the NBR choices, they don't necessarily pay a great deal of attention to them. The main reason being is that very few members of the NBR are also members of the Oscar "Academy", the people who actually vote for the Oscars.
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(lesley manville)
.But with that said, it's still a great honor to be named as a winner by The National Board of Review. In addition to the NBR heaping praise on "The Social Network", it also named its star, Jesse Eisenberg as Best Actor. Best Actress went to Lesley Manville for "Another Year", Best Supporting Actress went to Jackie Weaver for "Animal Kingdom, and Best Supporting Actor went to Christian Bale for "The Fighter".

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(jackie weaver)

..Maybe the most notable award was given to Jennifer Lawrence of "Winter's Bone" in the category of Breakthrough Performance. "Winter's Bone" just won the Best Picture Award on Monday night at the Gotham Independent Film Awards, and although The Gothams don't give awards for individual actors, they did award the cast of "Winter's Bone" for Best Ensemble Performance. This is all a long way of saying that we think Jennifer Lawrence's Oscar chances are getting better and better with each passing day. The buzz from these early awards is going to peak for her at probably just the right time to snag an Oscar nomination.

Oscar Grub - Balls to the Wall

The Best Supporting Actor category for the upcoming 2011 Oscars is quickly taking shape, and it looks to be a two-man race between Mark Ruffalo for "The Kids Are All Right" and Geoffrey Rush for "The King's Speech". Rush has won the Best Actor trophy before, and it's rare to win more than one Oscar, plus Ruffalo is one of those actors that is beloved by the Academy but has never even gotten a nomination before. But not so fast, Ruffalo, there's only one problem standing in your way: Rush has been earning the best reviews of his career for "The King's Speech".

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Other strong contenders include newcomer Andrew Garfield for "The Social Network", Christian Bale for "The Fighter" and Matt Damon for "True Grit". But "The Fighter" and "True Grit" haven't even been released yet, so we'll have to wait and see what kind of reviews those guys get for those flicks. In the "Are You Out of Your Fucking Mind" category, there's even some talk that Justin Timberlake could grab a nomination for "The Social Network", but come on, unless they come up with a new Academy division for fro-headed, moderately talented actors who also put out really bad pop music, we ain't buying it. Timberlake will more likely grab a Golden Globe, which is sort of like the cotton candy version of an Oscar, but hey, if Madonna and Sharon Stone can take home a Globe, there's no reason why Timberlake can't buy one, too.

(below: Melissa Leo and Christian Bale in "The Fighter";

and Andrew Garfield in "The Social Network")

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2009 Baftas - 8:03

(jonathan ross - the host)

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The Bafta announcer failed to introduce the Host, and the Host didn't introduce himself, and we don't who he is, but he's funny. He explained Christian Bale's angry tirade by saying that "Bale was given a shockingly under-cinnamoned cappucino, so you couldn't blame him."