To briefly sum up this year's Oscars:

To briefly sum up this year’s Oscars:

Hugo pretty much swept the technical awards, but somehow Scorsese’s direction wasn’t an important factor in the look of his film. Michel Hazanivicius won Best Director in a field that included four of the our best working filmmakers.

Jean Dujardin: Robert Begnini 2.0.

Meryl Streep pulled off the most surprising upset since Crash won Best Picture. I think the logic on this one was, “It’s been thirty years. Let’s just give her this one so we can ignore her for thirty more.”

Christopher Plummer finally scored gold. I haven’t seen Beginners, but I won’t complain about a living legend with only one previous nomination getting his due, especially in a very weak field.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo surprisingly (and deservingly) picked up Best Editing. That’s the least the Academy could do.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes was shut out of Best Visual Effects. The mo-cap in that film are as much of an achievement as the Na’vi and Gollum. There’s no excuse for no recognition, no matter how gorgeous Hugo is.

Not that it stood a chance of losing, but The Muppets winning Best Original Song brought a big dumb grin to my face.

I went 11/24 in my predictions: Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, animated film, score, foreign film, the screenplays, song and animated short.

There were several movies I liked in 2011, and a few I loved (most of which weren’t nominated in the major categories). But it was overall a disappointing year for prestige films. All we can do is shrug this shit off and look forward to the inevitably epic year in film that will be 2012.