Sunday, February 26, 2012

Oscars 2012: Last Year's Awards-Night Headlines

Billy Crystal's return as host foreshadowed at 2011 Academy Awards.
By Kevin P. Sullivan


Billy Crystal at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards
Photo: Kevin Winter/ Getty Images

It certainly doesn't feel like it's been that long, but it was a year ago that "The King's Speech" won top honors at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards.

As we head into the 2012 Oscars on Sunday, it's an appropriate time to look back on last year's winners that surprised, moments that shocked and snubs we're still not quite over yet.

Anne and James
In an attempt to appeal to a younger demographic, the Academy enlisted the help of Anne Hathaway and James Franco and "youth-oriented" segments including an Auto-Tuning of some of the year's biggest movies. The result was a confusing three hours of underwhelming laughs and jokes that fell mostly flat. Afterward, blame flew both ways, but it seems unlikely that either will host again.

Kirk Douglas, Show Stealer
Leave it to a 94-year-old to show all the kids how it's done. With more energy than the two hosts combined, Douglas won over the audiences in the Kodak Theatre and at home, overtly hitting on Hathaway and making sweeping generalizations about Australians and Brits.

The King's Night
Despite hanging in second behind "The Social Network" for most of the awards-season love leading up to the Oscars, "The King's Speech" came from behind to win three of the top categories: Best Picture, Actor and Director. Colin Firth locked up his award months in advance by sweeping the earlier ceremonies, but the race for picture and director came down to Oscar night, ending with Tom Hooper's controversial win over David Fincher.

The Dark Knight Rises
His victory for Best Supporting Actor might not have come as a surprise, but Christian Bale's tough-guy image was nowhere to be found. The actor sincerely thanked his wife and daughter after accepting the prize for "The Fighter." Not only was he happy, but he even made fun of himself and his previous bouts with bad language.

Billy Crystal's Standing Ovation
In the evening's most-apparent act of foreshadowing, Billy Crystal took the stage to honor former Oscar host Bob Hope, and the audience welcomed him with a standing ovation. It wasn't long after that talk of bringing Crystal back to host started, setting up the Oscar night we're now anticipating.

The MTV Movies team has the 2012 Oscars covered! Stick with us for everything you need to know leading up to the awards show, and on Sunday, February 26, tune into MTV.com at 5 p.m. ET for our two-and-a-half-hour red-carpet live stream and updates on the night's big winners. To join the live conversation, tweet @MTVNews with the hashtag #Oscars.

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1679913/oscars-2011-highlights.jhtml

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