Stammers, Swans and Social Networks

When the Oscar nominations are announced, I have usually only seen about half of the nominated films on the list, mainly because a lot of the films haven't yet been released in the UK yet. This year, through a combination of seeing several films at the London Film Festival and various advance preview screenings, I had seen almost all of them. As such, it feels like I've been waiting a long time to make my own selections from the nominees.

These choices reflect how I would vote and not the way I expect the Academy to vote (for example, I think The King's Speech might just scoop the Best Picture award but my favourite film from among the nominees was The Social Network). And, of course, I'm disappointed that Andrew Garfield didn't get nominated--for Never Let Me Go, if not for The Social Network, although he was also good in the latter.

Best Picture: The Social Network [seen 10/10]
Leading Actor: Colin Firth, The King's Speech [4/5]
Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, The Fighter [5/5]
Leading Actress: Natalie Portman, Black Swan [5/5]
Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit [4/5]
Director: David Fincher, The Social Network [5/5]
Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network [5/5]
Original Screenplay: The King's Speech [4/5]

Incidentally, last year, I tried to predict the winners as well as picking my favourites. I was right for five out of the seven categories and if I had seen The Secret in Their Eyes before last year's Oscars, I may well have predicted it as the Best Foreign Language Film winner ahead of A Prophet. This year, I suspect there would be a bigger overlap between my favourites and my predictions. Here's hoping that the 2012 Oscars will highlight such a bumper crop.