Shortly after last month's announcement of nominations for the
83rd annual Academy Awards, I offered my
predictions for winners in the top tier categories. Five weeks later, and just hours away from the Oscarcast, I can't say I'm ready to back away from any of those choices -- except, maybe, in the Best Actress category. Even though I remain convinced that Annette Bening is (a) the sentimental choice for many over-35 Academy voters, and (b) an altogether worthy choice strictly on the merit of her excellent performance in
The Kids Are Alright
, Natalie Portman now appears to have the momentum -- an impression only reinforced Saturday by her victory at the
Spirit Awards -- for her fearless portrayal of an emotionally frazzled ballerina who drives herself to extremes while pursuing perfection in the
Black Swan (arguably the least likely megaplex box-office hit of the past year).
As for the Best Picture category:
The Social Network
may have been the front-runner during the early stages of the race, but
The King's Speech looks like the nominee that will gallop into the winner's circle Sunday night. It's a perfectly respectable choice...
Gee, wait, that sounds awfully condescending, and I don't mean to sound that snarky. Truth to tell, I enjoyed
King's Speech quite a bit when I viewed a DVD screener that I received because of my status as a voting member of the
Houston Film Critics Society. I admired the first-rate performances -- Colin Firth richly deserves the Best Actor prize he almost certainly will win, and Geoffrey Rush conceivably could score an upset in the Supporting Actor category -- and appreciated the intelligence of the writing and the potency of the emotional uplift.
On the other hand: I never, ever, felt compelled to rush out and see how the movie worked on the big screen. Because, frankly, I think I watched it in the medium where it likely would work best. Again:
The King's Speech is a very good movie. But not quite as good as the movies I chose for
my Top 10 of 2010. And if, through some unexpected turn of events,
The Social Network were to take home the gold, I would not be disappointed.
And if
Inception
, through some miraculous twist of fate, were to be named Best Picture, I will be, in the immortal words of Addison DeWitt, available for dancing in the streets and shouting from the housetops.
in the title -- while claiming his Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. And a tip of the hat to co-host Anne Hathaway for her tongue-in-cheeky allusion to a genuine injustice: She didn't get a Best Actress nomination for Love and Other Drugs
. ("You know, it used to be you get naked, you get nominated!") My other observations about Sunday evening's Oscarcast -- which, judging from Tweets and blog posting I have sampled, I enjoyed much more than most folks -- can be found here.
and 
each won the same number of Oscars. One.
, a 1969 comedy -- based on the 
by Abe Burrows -- that starred Walter Matthau as a womanizing dentist who pretends to be married to his spinsterish assistant (Ingrid Bergman) in order to avoid a commitment with his hot young girlfriend (Goldie Hawn, whose bubbly performance netted her an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress). Looks like Sandler will be playing the Matthau part, Decker takes over for Hawn -- and 
, director Ridley Scott went all retro-futuristic again for this 
, George Orwell's dystopian novel about surveillance and repression in a totalitarian tomorrow, Scott -- working from a concept developed by Steve Hayden, Lee Clow and Brent Thomas -- pits a hammer-wielding heroine (Anya Major) against the despotic Big Brother (David Graham) in a battle meant to symbolize the notion that owning a Macintosh (as opposed to, say, an IBM personal computer) was a great way to triumph over conformity and assert your individuality. Or something like that. Appropriately enough, the commercial first aired on Jan. 22, 1984 -- during the third quarter of Super Bowl XVII.
), was a tricky, kicky caper in which a cocksure thief (Caine) employed an Eurasian beauty (MacLaine) to pull off a complex con involving a gullible millionaire (Herbert Lom) and a priceless antiquity. (The picture pivoted on a clever switcheroo at the midway point that, back in the day before Internet-disseminated spoilers, actually surprised audiences.) The remake, which will be directed by Michael Hoffman (
, 
), reportedly deals with a London art curator (Firth) who hits upon an elaborate plan to lure a wealthy collector into buying a fake Monet painting. To pull off the scheme, the curator recruits a Texas steer roper (Cameron Diaz, shown above) to impersonate a woman whose grandfather liberated the real Monet masterwork at the end of World War II.