The first Academy Awards ceremony took place in 1929 and was attended by 270 people. Today roughly 2,700 people attend the awards. The actual award is supposed to depict a knight standing on a reel of film and clutching a sword. Although to me it kind of looks like a sad robot. There are many stories about why people started calling the award an "Oscar" but the most popular one is that a librarian or a secretary joked that the statue resembled her uncle Oscar. At the first ceremony everyone already knew who won, and the awards became much more popular after the Academy decided to adopt the methods of secrecy they use today. If you want to learn more about the history of the awards there is a whole lot on their website.
One of the things I wondered about the Academy Awards was who actually votes on the winners. Their are more than 6,000 members of the Academy and they are experienced people from every area of the movie industry. When it comes to nomination's, they can only nominate people in their field of work, for example, directors can nominate a person for best director but not for best actress. The only thing that everyone in the Academy gets to pick nominees for is best film. After the nomination process everyone in the Academy votes for the winners.
This Year's Oscar winners were:
Best Picture: The King's Speech
Best Actor: Colin Firth (The Kings Speech)
Best Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)
Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)
Best Director: Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)
Best Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3
Best Documentary Feature: Inside Job
Best Foreign-Language Film: In a better world (Denmark)
Best Original Screen Play: David Seidler (The King's Speech)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network)
Best Original Song: Randy Newman (Toy Story 3)
Best Original Score: Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network)
Best Cinematography: Inception
Best Film Editing: The Social Network
Best Documentary Short Subject: Strangers No More
Best Animated Short Film: The Lost Thing
Best Live-Action Short Film: God Of Love
Best Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland
Best Costume Design: Alice in Wonderland
Best Makeup: The Wolfman
Best Visual Effects: Inception
Best Sound Mixing: Inception
Best Sound Editing: Inception
There weren't too many huge upsets this year. I was one of the few people who was really hoping that Toy Story 3 would take Best Picture. I think that just making a third film in a franchise that is actually good deserves and award of some kind. Maybe there should be a new award category called "This Movie had a lot of potential to suck but it came out really good". I suppose they would have to shorten that to Best Pleasant Surprise. I also was hoping Hailee Steinfeld would take home best supporting actress, but other than that I was pretty pleased with years winners. I can't think of anyone more deserving of an Oscar than Natalie Portman in Black Swan. Of course the one question I really want to know about the Oscars might never be answered... did Banksy show up?