Simon Dillon vents his spleen

Once again, like a teacher who is not cross but "very disappointed", I must berate the poor choices of the Oscar voters this year. I know I really shouldn't care about what wins at the Oscars, given that it is such a blatantly political, self-congratulatory organisation, but somehow I can't help it.

Best Picture: The King's Speech. By now, I realise I am in a minority in thinking this film was little more than a well-made TV movie, albeit an exceptionally well acted one. But there were several other films nominated I would have preferred to win (and some that weren't). Of the nominated films that would have been better choices the obvious one would have been Inception, but since there is officially no justice in the world, that was never going to win. I honestly expected The Social Network to win, but since America is going through something of a self-loathing phase in it's collective consciousness at present, the chances for the Brits to earn Oscar glory had increased somewhat, and this is a factor I had clearly overlooked in my predictions. At any rate, Inception notwithstanding, The Social Network was probably the most deserving choice that actually stood a chance of winning, and several other of the nominees would also have been preferable (Toy Story 3 and True Grit being the other prime candidates).

Best Director: Tom Hooper for The King's Speech. This is one that really rankles, since the best director was clearly Christopher Nolan and he wasn't even nominated (Hollywood snobbery at its worst). I have far more of an issue with Inception missing out on this award than Best Picture, as it was such an exceptionally well-directed piece crafted with considerable cinematic flair and imagination that really stretched the possibilities of cinema. Whatever one feels about The King's Speech, the same cannot be claimed for that film. In fact, just about any of the other nominees would have been preferable (Black Swan was stunningly directed by Darren Aronofsky, for instance). When all is said and done, I suspect future film buffs will look back on this Oscars the way they look back at the 1981 Oscars. In that year, Chariots of Fire beat Raiders of the Lost Ark to Best Picture/Director. The former is worthy but now seriously dated. It also lacks the staggering flair of the latter, which has become a timeless masterpiece and if anything looks even better today.

Best Actor: Colin Firth for The King's Speech. Fair enough.

Best Actress: Natalie Portman for Black Swan. I would have preferred Jennifer Lawrence to win for Winter's Bone, but that was never going to happen.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale for The Fighter. As predicted, the only actor who stood a serious chance of upsetting Geoffrey Rush for The King's Speech.

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo for The Fighter. An interesting choice, but I would have preferred Hailee Steinfeld for her extraordinary performance in True Grit (which I hadn't seen when I made my predictions). Then again, that is really a lead role so what it was doing in the support nominations is beyond me. Perhaps it should have gone to Helena Bonham-Carter, who is wonderful in The King's Speech.

Best Original Screenplay: The King's Speech. Should have been Inception, but again, worthiness over imagination seems to be the order of the day.

Best Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network. I have no argument with this.

Best Animated Film: Toy Story 3. I love Toy Story 3, so that gives you some idea how good The Illusionist must be for me to have wanted it to win this award. Still, that was never going to happen.

Best Editing: The Social Network. This ought to have gone to Inception, but shockingly the film wasn't nominated.

Best Music Score: Trent Reznor for The Social Network. Should have been Hans Zimmer for Inception, and I don't normally rate Hans Zimmer highly.

Best Cinematography/Visual Effects/Sound/Sound Effects Editing: All four awards went to Inception, and all were well deserved (though part of me wanted Roger Deakins to be in with a shot for cinematography after I watched True Grit).

I shall not comment on the other awards. However, my message to Hollywood is, in true school teacher style (looking sternly down at the pupil): must try harder.