Oscars Analysis: How has The Artist Triumphed so Utterly?

A few months ago, The Artist's success was unimaginable. How has it come to pass?

It has become easy over the last few months, as The Artist has been celebrated by every single awards ceremony in existence, to forget quite how extraordinary its success is. To remind us of that fact, let’s put it in plain terms. A black and white,almost completely silent film has just won the Oscar for Best Picture. Had someone predicted this 12 months ago, they would have been laughed out of Tinseltown.

The Artist Takes the Oscars

Silent Movie Wins Five Awards; Hugo also wins five

As widely expected, it was The Artist’s night at The 84^th Annual Academy Awards, as it won five awards, including Best Picture, Director, and Actor for Jean Dujardin. However, the Academy also showed its affection for Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, which also won five awards in technical categories. Meryl Streep, Christopher Plummer and Octavia Spencer won the other acting awards.

Oscar Predictions

Here's a full list of my Oscar predictions, excluding the short film categories, and it looks like it's going to be a very good night for The Artist

Best Picture: The Artist

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin – The Artist

Best Actress: Viola Davis – The Help

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer – Beginners

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer – The Help

Best Original Screenplay: Midnight in Paris

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Descendants

Best Animated Feature: Rango

Best Foreign Language Film: A Separation

Best Cinematography: The Artist

Best Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best Art Direction: The Artist

Best Costume Design: The Artist

Best Makeup: The Iron Lady

Best Original Score: The Artist

Best Original Song: The Muppets – “Man or Muppet”

Best Sound Mixing: Hugo

Best Sound Editing: Hugo

Best Visual Effects: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Best Documentary Feature: Pina

The Best Picture Nominees Ranked and Reviewed

The Best Picture Nominees Reviewed Ahead of Tonight's Oscars

9. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close – Truly one of the worst Best Picture nominees ever, Stephen Daldry’s cold and irritating post-9/11 dirge is boring, manipulative and features the most annoying child character for quite some time. To get on this year’s list, 5% of Academy voters had to put the film as their first choice. How they could do that for this tripe and not for films such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or We Need to Talk About Kevin is just beyond the comprehension of the sane and rational.

Potential Oscar Shocks

The Oscars seem predictable this year, but are there some surprises on the horizon?

The awards season finally comes to an end this weekend with the 84^th Academy Awards, the Oscars, taking place on Sunday evening in Hollywood.  What originally held some promise to be one of the most keenly contested races for quite some time, has, like so many races before, become a procession in favour of one film.

There is no real doubt that The Artist will be dominating the world’s press for the last time on Monday morning, but Oscar has shocked us before and there is the slim possibility that it may do so this year. So, in the most probably vain hope of surprise, let’s go looking for some potential Oscar shocks.

Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

The Most Undeserving Best Picture Nominee for a Very Long Time

Well, I didn’t hate it. Not the most encouraging start to a review and I reckon that it’s probably the high point, because Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is one of the most baffling and disappointing Best Picture nominees ever. Often irritating and constantly unmoving, this is a film which completely fails to do justice to the dreadful event of 9/11 which it invokes.

The story is simple enough. A boy, who may have Asperger’s, loses his father in 9/11 and a year later he finds a key amongst his father’s possessions in an envelope simply marked “Black”. Determined that this was left by his dad deliberately, the boy, Oskar (Thomas Horn), goes about New York seeking the lock that the key fits.

If you missed The Muppets last week, catch it now

It's time to start the music. It's time to light the lights. It's time to meet The Muppets...

With the days still dark, and a cold and wet weekend on the way, it seems like we could all afford to cheer ourselves up a bit. I can recommend no better tonic than The Muppets which is an absolutely ideal combination of silly, absurd and musical fun for all the family.