This year's Oscars awards ceremony was one of the hotly tipped events of the celebrity socialite calendar. With The King's Speech having swept the board at the BAFTA Awards earlier on this month, it was a close race between the stammering monarch, the underdog computer nerd in The Social Network and the mind-heist thriller that left many wondering what was actually going on, Inception.
Surprisingly the evening also went on without an embarrassing hitch.Celebrity gossip sites were having a hard time guessing who would be left red faced at this year's awards ceremony after Rosamund Pike was left rather flustered after her slip up at this year's BAFTA Awards.
Big Winners
The battle between the trio of Hollywood heavyweights was a tough one, but the big winners of the evening were The King's Speech, winning 4 of the 12 awards it was nominated for, and Christopher Nolan's Inception winning 4 of the 8 Oscars it received nominations for. As expected Natalie Portman won the Best Actress award this year, beating some of Hollywood's powerful leading ladies, including Nicole Kidman and Annette Bening.
Rule Britannia
Britain was definitely the stronger ally of the evening, with established names winning top awards. Colin Firth finally won a Best Actor award for his role as King George VI after missing out on last year. Tom Hopper also won the Best Director award, easily seeing off competition from Darren Arronofski and David Fincher. Keeping the British flag high, Christian Bale won Best Supporting actor for his appearance in The Fighter and Christopher Nolan's Inception won a range of technical awards during the evening.
Thankfully this year, there were no bitter rivalries for the celebrity news to report as was the case last year between Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron. The movie elite provided an obvious prediction that the stammering monarch would be the big winner of the evening, having already been praised by the worldwide cinematic community over its American counterparts.
The evening also saw its hosts, Anne Hathaway and James Franco shine throughout their presenting duties. Having spoofed some of the nominees in the introductory opening, they certainly pulled it off, after taking the stand from last year's hosts Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. The evening was a glorious success and showed our friends across the pond how vital British stars are to the movie industry, whether an actor, screenwriter or director.
