Oscar Predictions: The Major Awards

Welcome back to our annual Oscar Predictions special, a yearly exercise in beautiful futility. Having dealt with the Technical awards we will now talk about the ones that actually matter. (I'd just like to point out that, whilst I have been a bit disparaging towards the other awards, I do think that they are very important, but also realise that the Oscars that get peoples attention on posters and DVD covers are the ones I am about to discuss.)

Let's get to it.

Oscar Predictions: The Technical Awards

Welcome once again to A Mighty Fine Blog's Oscar prediction special! Much like the ceremony itself, it promises to be overlong, sporadically interesting and ultimately futile. On the plus side, there will be no interpretative dance sequences or mawkish tributes to people you've never heard of, and it won't take you five hours to read. (Though it may take me that fucking long to write.)

As with last year, I will split the predictions into two posts; one for the Technical Awards and one for the Main Awards. This is intended to make them easier to digest, so that you, the reader, won't have to read through one mammoth post, but it also means that if you don't care about Best Cinematography you can just look at the other post and see who is going to win the awards that most people care about.

So, unfunny introduction down, let's delve into the Academy Awards, 2011, and try to make some sense of them.

Film Review:The King's Speech (2010)

The King's Speech, a film based on the life of King George VI (Colin Firth) and his efforts to overcome a stammer that made his frequent public speaking engagements nothing short of torture, is a film that perfectly illustrates how great chemistry can allow a film to transcend the trappings of its genre. In this instance, a film that could be a stuffy and staid period piece emerges as a fun, lively film about an unconventional friendship that just so happens to be set against the backdrop of earth-shattering events.