Over at Deadline, Pete Hammond reports Tom Hanks will present the first two Oscars of the night for Art Direction and Cinematography. I typically don’t think it’s newsworthy to discuss what awards will be handed out first, but considering the heat between The King’s Speech and The Social Network this could prove to be the start of an Oscar night sweep for Speech, or a pair of awards that show it’s a wide open race.
I have Speech winning neither of these awards so I guess, as far as my picks go, should Speech win one or the other it only solidifies my decision to pick it as the top award getter. My picks have Alice in Wonderland winning for Art Direction and True Grit winning for Cinematography. You can check out my full list of predictions right here.
Also, if you’re curious — because I was — I went back through the last five years of RopeofSilicon Oscar Live Blogs to see what award is typically handed out first because I remember it most often being one of the Supporting categories. I was right. Here are the last five years of awards to kick off the night and their respective winners:
- 2006: Supporting Actor – George Clooney (Syriana)
- 2007: Art Direction – Pan’s Labyrinth
- 2008: Animated Feature Oscar – Ratatouille
- 2009: Supporting Actress – Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
- 2010: Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)
So it looks like we’re headed back to 2007, though that year Pan’s Labyrinth started the night two-for-two followed up by Best Makeup, so there’s a bit of a shuffle going on. And speaking of shuffling, here is a video James Franco posted featuring he and Anne Hathaway rehearsing a Grease number for what I assume would be a big musical number during the Oscars… Yeah, they’re really getting quite innovative.
