Oscar Winners 2012: Who Won the Academy Awards and Who Should Have Won!

by Shannon Lintott

Another year, another Oscar awards ceremony.  The 84th Annual Academy Awards were held Sunday night: who won the Oscars 2012?

While 2011 wasn’t my favourite year for life changing films, there were a lot of gems. Here are the Academy Award 2012 winners, followed by the films that I thought (in my humble opinion) should have won for each category:

Best Picture

Winner: The Artist.

Who should’ve won:  The Artist – best film should be less about who’s in the movie or who directed it and more about what the film brings to the world of cinema.It should show people something original about people, or script writing or even some tricks with cinematography, lighting and audio. The Artist had it all. Second choice would be Moneyball.

Director

Winner: Michael Hazanavicius, The Artist.

Who should’ve won: The Artist. Plan and simple. There was nothing wrong with his movie, everything was perfect and Michael Hazanavicius had a big hand in that. Second choice would be Woody Allen.

Actor

Winner: Jean Dujardin, The Artist.

Who should’ve won: Jean Dujardin for The Artist. Second choice is Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Both for style. Both for bringing characters to life. And both for perfecting old tricks of the trade.

Actress

Winner: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady.

Who should’ve won: Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs or Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady. Both fully became their characters, physically and emotionally, to the point that it was hard to see the difference between reality and acting.

Supporting Actor

Winner: Christopher Plummer, Beginners.

Who should’ve won: YAY!! Christopher Plummer – because he’s Canada (not really a reason, but a personal plus) and has never been nominated after all these years AND if that wasn’t enough his performance was full and powerful. Second choice would be Jonah Hill because he stole the show from Pitt and showed the world that he wasn’t just a comedian.

Supporting Actress

Winner: Octavia Spencer, The Help.

Who should’ve won: Berenic Bejo for The Artist. She brought style and truly brought back the old dame in cinema. Octavia was still a good pick though.

Cinematography

Winner: Hugo

Who should’ve won: War Horse. It was so beautiful, really captured the wide angle war scenes and made simple scenes beautiful.

Art Direction

Winner: Hugo

Who should’ve won: Hugo deserved this win. Out of all the categories it was nominated for it actually deserved to win this one.

Music

Winner: The Artist.

Who should’ve won: The Artist – music really shapes a film and music is such a key element in silent films that this is an easy choice. Second choice would be Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Foreign Language

Winner: A Separation.

Who should’ve won: A Separation. Easy win.

Original Song

Winner: The Muppets. Woohoo Bret Mckenzie!!!

Who should’ve won: The Muppets – hilarious, catchy and the film would not have been the same without it.

Film Editing

Winner: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Who should’ve won: The Artist. I liked Girl with the Dragon Tattoo but didn’t think it stood out in terms of film editing.

Sound Editing

Winner: Hugo.

Who should’ve won: Drive – ripped off in my opinion for this years Oscars but if there is one thing this movie should be known for it is the sound editing because the music was mesmerizing and incredibly well done.

Visual Effects

Winner: Hugo.

Who should’ve won: Harry Potter or Rise of Planet of the Apes.

Adapted Screenplay

Winner: The Descendants.

Who should’ve won: Moneyball (second choice Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).

Original Screenplay

Winner: Midnight in Paris.

Who should’ve won: Good choice but A Separation had lots of depth to each character and every scene (Second choice, Midnight in Paris, original and enticing).

Did your favourites win?

Shannon Lintott works in production at a professional theatre company in Toronto. A recent graduate of the Ryerson Performance Production BFA program, she spends her free time exploring the internet, taking photographs, reading or writing on one of her numerous and addictive websites. The majority of her time is spent watching movies and reviewing them on her movie review blog I Like (good) Movies. Follow Shannon on Twitter.