A worthy look back at the Oscars

By Michael J.W. Stickings

No real surprises -- where there any at all? -- in what was a horrendously bad show (with some incredibly bad hosting, especially the not-quite-there James Franco and the awkward Anne Hathaway, though it surely had a lot to do with some even worse writing). Maybe the main surprise is that it was that bad, which is to say, even worse than usual.

I amused myself by tweeting excessively.

And that's really all I have to say. I haven't seen all the major contenders yet, but it was, from what I could tell, a crappy year for Hollywood. And that was reflected tonight.

The King's Speech? Okay, fine, but I doubt anyone will look back on it years from now and say, "Wow, that's a historically great film." (Not that Oscars really reward historical greatness, mind you.)

I mentioned my favourite movies of 2010 -- movies I saw for the first time in 2010 -- a while back. I'd still go with Sacha Guitry's wonderful The Story of a Cheat (1936), released in an Eclipse set by Criterion. For "new" movies in 2010, I'd go with the restored, complete Metropolis (on Blu-ray), Fritz Lang's stunning 1927 masterpiece. To that list I'd like to add Michael Haneke's marvellous (and deeply troubling) The White Ribbon (2009).

As for new 2010 movies, I found most of the big ones highly overrated: The Social Network, Toy Story 3, Inception.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was a lot of fun, but I'd say Winter's Bone was the best, pending others, like Black Swan and The Fighter (which I highly doubt are better), I'll see when they're out on video.

And that's that. It was a terrible show, and none of the major winners, however genuinely deserving (Colin Firth in particular, with a performance, and a role, that was Oscar-perfect -- overcoming a disability, a lot of emoting), really jumped out for me.

I wish I could say it can only get better from here, but I was also saying that during the show, and then out came Celine Dion.

And now I need to get to bed.