The King's speeches

Sunday night, as expected, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named The King's Speech the best film of 2010 when it handed out its 83rd annual Oscar awards. All told, representatives of that movie approached the microphone four times on the evening, matching Inception for the most Oscar wins this year.

In a moment, we'll reveal how accurate the experts -- and Metacritic users -- were in making their predictions, and we'll also sample the critical (with an emphasis on the word "critical") reaction to the broadcast itself, and the performance of first-time hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco in particular. But first, let's look at the evening's winners and losers.

The winners... and the surprises

Wait -- did we say "surprises"? You won't find any in the major categories (including acting and writing), which went pretty much as expected for months. Though a majority of experts had predicted that The Social Network's David Fincher would triumph over The King's Speech director Tom Hooper, it is not too unexpected the latter won the trophy, given that the director award usually goes to to the director of the best picture winner.

One surprising victory came in the admittedly hard-to-predict animated short category, where winner The Lost Thing was the only one of the five nominees not to be predicted to win by the three dozen experts we tracked. And Wally Pfister's win in the cinematography category for Inception can also be considered an upset; most experts had the award going to True Grit's Roger Deakins.

Listed below are this year's winners in each of the 24 categories.

83rd Annual Academy Award Winners

Category	Winner
Best Picture	The King's Speech
Director	Tom Hooper, The King's Speech
Lead Actress	Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Lead Actor	Colin Firth, The King's Speech
Supporting Actress	Melissa Leo, The Fighter
Supporting Actor	Christian Bale, The Fighter
Original Screenplay	David Seidler, The King's Speech
Adapted Screenplay	Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Animated Feature	Toy Story 3
Animated Short	The Lost Thing
Documentary Feature	Inside Job
Documentary Short	Strangers No More
Foreign-Language Feature	In a Better World
Live-Action Short	God of Love
Original Score	Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, The Social Network
Original Song	Randy Newman, "We Belong Together," Toy Story 3
Art Direction	Robert Stromberg and Karen O'Hara, Alice in Wonderland
Cinematography	Wally Pfister, Inception
Costume Design	Colleen Atwood, Alice in Wonderland
Film Editing	Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, The Social Network
Makeup	Rick Baker and Dave Elsey, The Wolfman
Sound Editing	Richard King, Inception
Sound Mixing	Lora Hirschberg, Gary A. Rizzo and Ed Novick, Inception
Visual Effects	Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb, Inception

How accurate were the predictions?

Out of the 38 experts we tracked, just one -- Deadline's Pete Hammond -- was able to correctly predict at least 18 (75%) of the categories. (Last year, by contrast, there were seven experts with at least 18 correct picks.) These experts averaged just 15 correct picks, with the short film categories, cinematography, and director (where David Fincher was heavily favored) among their biggest failings.

Most Successful Oscar Prognosticators

Expert	Site/Publication	Correct Picks (out of 24 possible)
Pete Hammond	Deadline Hollywood	19
Thelma Adams	US Weekly	17
Tim Appelo	Hollywood Reporter	17
Peter Howell	Toronto Star	17
Michael Musto	Village Voice	17
Tom O'Neil	The Envelope	17
Bob Tourtellotte	Reuters	17
Peter Travers	Rolling Stone	17
Chuck Walton	Fandango	17
(uncredited)	Moviefone	17
Metacritic User Consensus		15

As a group, Metacritic users performed as well as the average expert, and also picked one more category correctly than they did last year. Individually, however, there were five Metacritic users who had more correct picks than the leading expert. The most accurate individual participants in our Oscar poll were:

• Conor Samphire, 20 of 24 (83%) correct
• Andrew Warshauer, 20 of 24 (83%) correct
• 3 anonymous users, 20 of 24 (83%) correct

Another 16 users had 19 correct picks, tying the leading expert.

How was the telecast?

"Anne Hathaway and James Franco host a disastrous Academy Awards telecast" reads the headline of Alan Sepinwall's review at HitFix.com, and while some television critics weren't quite so extreme in their hatred of the broadcast, it is safe to say that few enjoyed it. The one portion of the broadcast that critics seemed to universally enjoy was the pre-taped opening film featuring Alec Baldwin and Morgan Freeman. But it was all downhill from there. And Hathaway and Franco as hosts? A major misfire, say the critics. Here's a sampling of their reviews, starting with the critics who had the biggest problems with the event:

"In what could go down as one of the worst Oscar telecasts in history, a bad and risky idea -- letting two actors host -- played out in spectacularly unwatchable fashion on the biggest of all nights for the film world. ... [Franco's] appearance played more like one of his performance art pieces than an actual attempt to be host."

--Tim Goodman, The Hollywood Reporter

"No matter the talent involved nor the intentions, virtually nothing worked. ... [Franco's] demeanor from the evening started out like he couldn't remember why he had agreed to do this and ended like he deeply regretted the choice. ... The show around the two hosts was as ill-conceived as their chemistry."

--Alan Sepinwall, HitFix

"Anne Hathaway hosted the 83rd Annual Academy Awards on ABC Sunday night, as scheduled. And her co-host, James Franco, did what exactly?"

--Hank Stuever, Washington Post

"In a year offering virtually no surprises among the top winners, the only shock was how quickly the show went off the rails, and stayed there in a sluggish slow dance of glittery incompetence."

--Matt Roush, TV Guide

"Sluggish, badly-written, a near-disaster from start to finish, the Oscar show was the best evidence yet that even if the Academy thinks it want to be younger and hipper, it has no idea how to do that."

--Caryn James, indieWIRE

"At times, the prolonged effort to pander to younger viewers was downright painful."

--Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times

"While Melissa Leo dropped an 'f-bomb' early on, the 'f' words best describing the proceedings would be 'flat,' 'fumbling' and 'familiar' -- proving it takes more than a new coat of paint to invigorate a ceremony that easily flummoxes innovation."

--Brian Lowry, Variety

"You can't blame Franco and Hathaway for the tame, unmemorable jokes written for them (though a comedian might have at least punched them up). But whether it was nerves or inexperience, their delivery was off from the get-go: they stepped on each other lines and over the audience laughter (or worse, seemed to pause for laughter that wasn't there). ... [But] plenty blame for the plodding show belongs to the producers. There was a rough, dress-rehearsal feel to much of the show, which also suffered from odd long shots, the usual slack middle and several clip reels which, weirdly, spoiled plot points and key moments from movies that, in part, the awards are supposed to promote to viewers who haven't seen them yet."

--James Poniewozik, Time

"Overall, the evening had an oddly business-like feel, a mind-numbing evenness that was exacerbated by the relentless predictability of the winners."

--Mary McNamara, Los Angeles Times

"Even when they stumbled, there was a sweetness to their performance that kept them from being aggravating. After so many hosts who seemed determined to prove they were smarter than the room, it was a pleasure to see two hosts who seemed happy to be in it. Unfortunately, as the evening wore on, as Oscar evenings tend to do, the pleasure diminished. Joy is nice, but professionalism, poise and — especially in Franco's case — presence would have been nice as well."

--Robert Bianco, USA Today

"James Franco and Anne Hathaway gave the 83rd Academy Awards the youthful energy it has needed for a long time ... But that energy quickly faded into the inertia of a bloated, self-important ceremony."

--Dominic Patten, The Wrap

A few critics enjoyed the affair a bit more than the others, however.

"Funny, poised, relaxed, and smart, Anne Hathaway and James Franco made for marvelous Oscar hosts. ... It was a fun, briskly paced night."

--Ken Tucker, Entertainment Weekly

"James Franco and Anne Hathaway didn't necessarily make a brilliant splash as co-hosts -- Hathaway seemed determined to overcome Franco's sodden, wooden presence through sheer perkiness -- but they acquitted themselves respectably. ... This was not an Oscar telecast for the ages ... but as awardsfests go, this was a mild but entirely watchable celebration."

--Maureen Ryan, TV Squad

What do you think?

Were you happy with the Academy's selections? What did you think of the broadcast, and Franco and Hathaway as hosts? Let us know in the comments section below.