Coronation: Oscars 2011 yield no surprises

More Oscars Photos

Winners

Best Picture: The King's Speech

Lead Actor: Colin Firth (The King's Speech)

Lead Actress: Natalie Portman (Black Swan)

Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (The Fighter)

Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (The Fighter)

Director: Tom Hooper (The King's Speech)

Okay, so The Fighter swung in a one-two combination in the Supporting Actor/Actress categories (sorry, Jackie Weaver, I was really rooting for you). But The King's Speech stammered and stuttered its way to the big prizes on Sunday night, as you can see above: Best Picture, Best Actor (Colin Firth) and Best Director (Tom Hooper). Natalie Portman rounded out her awards season sweep as the troubled ballerina in Black Swan, picking up the Oscar for Best Actress.

Inception picked up the Cinematography Sound Mixing and Visual Effects awards, and The Social Network picked up Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score (Trent Reznor must be over the moon). Toy Story 3 earned the Best Animated Feature trophy. 

Its King's Speech vs True Grit, with Fighter and Social Network in there

The King's Speech emerged the top nominated film in the just announced 2011 Oscar Nominations, taking 12 nominations, ahead of the latest Coen Brothers epic, True Grit coming with 10 nominations. Again, we have a directorial snub: Christopher Nolan's dream-thriller Inception is among the Best Picture contenders, but if it wins, Nolan won't be acknowledged by the Academy

The Best Picture nominees are:

The King's Speech;
The Fighter;
Black swan;
Inception;
127 Hours;
Toy Story 3;
True Grit;
Winter's Bone;
The Kids Are All Right;
The Social Network

Our comments and "Who Will Go Home With Oscar" preview begin tomorrow

"Dragon Tattoo" movie gets 'Nine Inch Nails'

Just in time for awards season, we learn that Nine Inch Nails front man Trent Reznor has been tapped to compose the music for "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," the upcoming Hollywood adaptation of the first in Stieg Larsson's best-selling thriller series. This comes on the heels of his Golden Globe nomination for the score for the Facebook movie, "The Social Network.  


The project will reunite the rocker with not only "Social network" director David Fincher, but with his longtime songwriting partner, Atticus Ross. Speaking with the New York Times, Reznor said that the arrangements for this film would be more string-based than those for Social Network. 

"We started recording things in a different way that was all based on performance -- nothing programmed," says Reznor, who has completed two hours' worth of music over the past month with Ross. "That would be my limited skills with stringed instruments... We'd process them in a way that really gave it an interesting, organic feel that felt like something we've never done before."

The US production of "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is scheduled to open Christmas of 2011.