The Best Actor category has been one of the most contended this year. At first, it seemed like the race was going to be between Brad Pitt and George Clooney, with their competing in-your-face Oscar campaigns. Then Jean Dujardin came from behind (no puns) and started picking up some major awards – the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical, the SAG, the BAFTA. And now this… Jean Dujardin pulled it out! Way to go, Harvey Weinstein.
Jean Dujardin’s speech was lovely and simple – my favorite was his first line – “Thank you! Oui! I love your country!” He thanked the Academy, his costar, his director, and then he thanked his wife – “Ah, my wife, I love you!” And no, I don’t know what he said at the end – “If George Valentine could speak, he would say [French stuff]”
Congrats to Jean! He looked lovely, and I just love how… FRENCH he is. Is this the beginning of new era of Francophilia? I hope so.
But mostly, I’m just happy Clooney lost. Thank God. I couldn’t take one more holier-than-thou speech from him.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Yay! I thought he was great in The Artist.
Yeah Dujardin looks damn good in a tux but Gary Oldman was robbed.
I agree with you %100. Gary Oldman had to win.
ABC!!! Anyone but Clooney is good with me. :Thumbs Up:
i totally agree wiht you WELL DONE DUJARDIN!!!
Yah a guy no one is going to remember. But yes to Clooney losing.
I wish Brad or Oldman won:(
But congrats to him…
Ugh agreed, anybody but Clooney!
Dujardin was so endearing. Oh and he was just swearing in French, not saying anything meaningful, just joyous dribble :).
The Artist won big!!! A unique film that deserves all these prizes. Love it!
YES!!!! Dujardin won, I love him!! I loved his speech and how in the end he just couldn’t hold it in anymore and bursted out in joy and shouted merci, merci beaucoup.
I wanted Oldman to win because I think he’s brilliant. Though, I haven’t seen his movie, so can’t compare the performances.
Clooney must have had a deal with the camera people because they never showed him again.
Hopefully he puts Oscar Barbie in a cab and we never see her again.
Ha-ha, I wanted to see Clooney’s reaction, especially since his lady-friend was dressed as an Oscar statuette, like he was already a certain winner. Mysteriously (!) his face was absent from cameras, while Brad was acting polite and supportive. Personally though I wanted Gary Oldamn to win, he is an amazing actor, but I guess not as old as Christopher Plummer therefore obviously has more than enough time ahead of him (!)
They showed George clapping enthusiastically for Dujardin. You couldn’t see his face because he was actually watching Dujardin’s reaction to the news. He seemed genuinely pleased for him. As for not showing George again, the show was over. Really don’t understand the George hate.
I do not hate Mr. Clooney at all. In fact, I like a lot of his films, Michael Clayton, Syriana and the Descendants to name a few. I just think he is becoming a bit untouchable and too “Hollywood legendary” while there are a lot of other tremendous actors who simply do not waste so much of their time on the endless self-promotion. Also, I do disdain a little bit his personal life-style, the way he discards his women. Jack Nicholson, another charismatic notorious “playboy/ladies man” has much better taste and way more class when it comes to ending his relationship, and he is a brilliant actor. I am happy that Clooney was clapping though, I guess I just missed that part.
Oh, Oldman! I’m really glad for Jean-still haven’t seen the film, but he’s my Kind of manly-man handsome(I’m Awfully picky in that category)…. But Oldman is a class of his own, and nothing says better about the fakeness of the Oscars as Oldman not getting recognition(refusal to campaign hard), and Streep winning for, by all acounts, on mediocre film.
I love how he got stuck with Uggie at the end! When everyone was up on stage when The Artist won, he was off to the side feeding Uggie and was holding him! So adorable! I love a man with a dog. 🙂
See, if that was me, I would have been begging the owner to let me hold Uggie and give him cookies. I love that dog!
J’aime Uggie! And his little bow tie! Awww!
I haven’t seen The Artist yet but everyone I know who has seen it says it’s a great film. So congratulations to him.
Save your money and go see something else. A black and white film with no sound…like a hundred years ago! I kind of thought it would win. Hollywood loves those hipster and gimmicky films. I was halfway surprised that Midnight in Paris didn’t win. Everyone in Hollywood thinks Woody Allen is just too cool for words. I’d be very much surprised if we ever see this guy in anything else. I was very pissed that Gary Oldman didn’t get it.
Oh! I have to respectfully disagree, The Artist is a true work of art!
The thought of Woody Allen winning anything is repulsive. May as well root for Polanski. At least I like what I’ve accidentally seen of his work. What I’ve seen of Woody’s I just don’t get. Can’t blame my hometown for that. It’s too NY.
And yes, I boycott them since I’ve known about them.
He’s hardly a newcomer. Sure, he’s not bludgeon you over the head with the forced and fake PR bonhomie displays (thank God), but he’s not an obscurity outside of France. Marion Cotillard seems to be doing well. We’ll see.
The Artist is a powerful masterpiece. Some idiots beg to differ.
My heart is broken for Gary Oldman.
mine too, everyone knows he deserves one.
Mon dieu! I think I am in love!
Like a few people here I wanted to Gary to win, but am more than happy that Jean won.
Ditto
well, no suprises here that the artist took it all away and brad pitt didn’t… snicker… i bet somebody told meryl that she’d win again which explains the colour of her dress. what idg was angelina tonight. yes the dress was pretty but girlfriend is so tacky she wore it again with the wrong shoes, no jewelry, and bedroom hair. i guess she must hate stylists. and she looked like she lost extra weight for this event. ed to the core, i used to defend her on this very site saying she isn’t trying to lose more weight but modelling in your youth can really warp the way you’re thinking. i bet she thinks those arms look great. and what was up with the leg exhibitionism? the only point of wearing a deep cut skirt is the excitement it brings to randomly see the leg while you’re walking around as usual. it’s tacky to bring out your leg like that, no subtlety at all. i can’t believe she’s hollywood royalty and acts like megan fox the trailer queene. anyway and she seemed more sad than brad pitt when he lost. i don’t think pitt believed he’d really win with that cheezy movie or maybe he got word his chances weren’t high. well now that this is over maybe this caricature brad with the gross hair and glasses will go away and maybe they will stop acting like their arranged relationship hasn’t drifted apart since a while.
and how silly did dujardin look when he gave his acceptance speech? i was facepalming the whole time. everybody made unfunny jokes but he gave me the most 2nd hand embarrassment idk
I give foreign people a pass, because it must be super weird to have to give a speech in another language when you’re joyously overwhelmed.
English-speakers, ESPECIALLY the actors, should know better. Prepare a damn speech and time yourself. And those who are nominated who aren’t actors should be preparing even more. There’s no excuse for the bad jokes and too-long rambling with “oh I never expected this!” You were nominated, weren’t you? Get ready just in case, geez!
Well, so silly and happy he got an OSCAR. What did you got ? Team Jean !
@dahlia noir judging by your english grammar, i’m guessing you are french. no need to get so defensive because it will only make me snicker. no i haven’t gotten any academy awards, seeing as i’m not and have never been in the movie business. have you gotten any? or are you jean or somebody close to him? lol and no worries darling i thought everybody who presented/talked that night was rather silly. except chris plummer and melissa mccarthy ’cause i can’t hate. but oscar speeches in general are fake, long and silly as hale.
well! you are just a bundle of joy, aren’t you?
i knew somebody would say that. face it the whole ceremony was a bore idk why i watch well maybe b/c in the years i didn’t, i would never know about the new movies that everybody talked about. for some reason reading about who won isn’t as memorable as watching this cringe-fest
@anytime – i wasn’t bored. The Oscars are the Oscars. not trendy, cool, surprising, innovative etc. They are what they are, and i enjoy them for what they are, not for what i’d like them to be because it isn’t going to happen. Why put yourself through what seems a torturous experience for you??
LAK- it’s not -that- much of a torture, just really lame. i can’t be the only one having this opinion. i already gave the reason why i have been tuning into the ceremony halfway through for a couple of years now. i guess it’sa huge event too and you want to know what everybody else was talking about, not to be left out. well other than that i had time to kill-procrastinate i guess
Wait… you are surprised Angelina is trashy. Um… BBT??? Blood??? Jen Shimizu? Creepy brother??? Married man????
I don’t hate her – regardless of what that sounds like but classy broad she is not.
I don’t like Brad Pitt because he is way too honest with the media about how boring and bland The Aniston was and how only a raging pothead (like he was) could have stayed married to her.
Yeah she was boring but Brad, without Angelina so are you and what is with the icky dirty hair and looking your age? This is Hollywood, we don’t like our hunks old looking (see Clooney comments).
So glad Brad Pitt didn’t win.
@ZenB!tch yeah that was trailer tacky as hale. i thought being the offspring of two celebs would make her somewhat sophisticated but i guess she’s just the stereotypical us’ian celeb in the ranks of the kartrashians. i admired her acting in a couple of movies, and admired her for doing a lot of good in the world. but i haven’t cared for her for a while and now she seems so insecure. things she did before that seemed cute to me (like putting on lip gloss real quick while at an award ceremony) seem trashy and insecure and well, dumb. now i see what everyone was saying when they said sometimes she copies j.a.’s clothing style too, it isn’t just a one way street. oh or when she wore that dress backwards. guuurrlll hire a stylist or learn how to dress yourself properly the whole world is watching. i guess money can’t buy style? if it did britney would be in a whole diff. level
I’m glad I get to be the first to translate! At the end, he said:
“If George Valentin (his character in the movie) could speak, he would say: ‘Wow, putain, génial, merci, formidable! Merci beaucoup! I love you!'”
i.e.: “Wow, (swear word), great, thanks, wonderful! Merci beaucoup! I love you.’
‘Putain’ literally translates as ‘whore’, but it’s used generically to express surprise or amazement or dismay, like ‘holy sh%!’ maybe. A little swearing for the français dans les chaumières.
Interesting on “putain”. I know the literal meaning based on speaking Spanish and extrapolating from HS French and relative as but in Spanish the slang/swearing definition is what “@$$hole” means in English.
Can also be used with “Son of a…” to denote the same a-hole meaning.
Like the Italian pasta dish.
I think Putain is the closet thing to the f-bomb in French.
I think that would be “putain de merde” no?
Putains are nothing to blush about in France. There’s a French E-word that maybe would be the equivalent of the English F-word in terms of blushing.
Putain is an excamation word in french.
it’s argotic, but not an insult in this case.
i think you know in french, a lot word have so much meaning.
at the orgin, “putain” want’s to say prostitute.
today it’s in the common language.
i think it’s like “fuck” in english.
(excuse me for the english, i’m french ^^)
* puts hand up for the anyone but Clooney train.
Thank goodness!
UGGIE! 😀
What’s with all the Clooney haters? I wasn’t rooting for him but I wasn’t rooting against him lol. I’m not saying that Jean didn’t deserve to win, but I was really hoping Gary would win!! He is such a great actor and just likeable in general.
Ce qu’est un homme chaud!!!!
LOL!
Sorry, I meant MDR “mort de rire”
T’as raison; il est trop beau!
So glad he won. Used to be a huge Clooney fan but totally turned off after his aggressive campaign with that classless bimbo this year. I’m actually glad the awards season is over JUST so I won’t have to see/hear her every time I get on the internet.
Me too. I actually really enjoy his work both as an actor and director/writer. But his desperation for this Oscar was extremely off-putting.
Excuse me if I am wrong but doesn’t he have an Oscar or maybe 2? So what if it’s not Best Actor.
Remember Matt and Ben and Goodwill Hunting? Neither one has a Best Actor or Supporting actor but they won Best Screenplay and for the last 15 years have been introduced as “Academy Award Winner Ben Affleck” and “Academy Award Winner Matt Damon”
So what if they had won for best basketweavers, “Academy Award Winner” is what it is.
I like George when he turns off the Hollywood BS but he rarely does. What is he hiding?
Holy cow, that was fifteen years ago
Anyone but Pitt checking in! That and Jean DuJardin loves our Cinnamon Rolls and his film was the only one filmed all in LA!
I support the local economy! Thank you Mr. Weinstein for that.
Don’t hate the guy. Just didn’t think he or his film deserved the accolades they got. I was rooting for Pitt, Oldman & Clooney in that order.
Hate Pitt but I would have LOVED it if Oldman wins. LOVE him for his talent. He is a one of our generation’s (long definition of generation)’s best actors. He is consistently good.
well, to be fair no oscar movie deserved the accolades it got. every year there will be a movie that swipes away the majority of the awards, but every year that movie will be average with some nice visual effects, dramatic score and -maybe- a memorable performance or two. they care about what the movie is about, is it about something universal/a human condition which is heartbreaking/a lookback to history? the artist has a couple of these elements and it’s about the past of cinema. it was just a given that it’d win.
I thought Moneyball was a good movie. I liked the Descendants because it struck several cords with me about my family. I thought Tinker, Tailor, Spy was a bit tedious in spots & was only saved by Oldman. I was bored with the Artist & wasn’t impressed with its story. The dog was cute, but not enough to save the film for me.
@the original mia i wasn’t talking abouearly 90’s there has been that one oscar movie which gets nearly all the awards and that movie is almost always guaranteed to be average with some touching music, maybe a bit of good acting, some universal/human dramatic condition and the more historical the better. titanic, the english patient, forrest gump, a beautiful mind, shakespeare in love, actually almost all these oscar favourites of their respective years come to mind. it seems like a winning formula and has been a bore since forever.
I haven’t seen Tinker, Tailor… but I’ve heard that it’s not Gary’s best work (maybe that is too harsh not a script that showcases his talent enough)- so he was probably still better than pretty-boy Pitt.
There is an opening for an actor with a funny but understandable accent since Antonio Banderas seems to have retired to voicework. So Dujardin can fill that role here.
PS: I’m mostly French and Spanish so please don’t take the funny accent comment the wrong way. My family sounds like either Antonio or Jean or Salma or Penelope… NOT Sofia though… YIKES!
This bothers me too. Anyone with half a brain can see Gary is deserving and way overdue, but do we want it for a role that’s far from his signature work? The same way people moan about Meryl’s win in a shoddy movie, only because they couldn’t wait another 17 losing nominations for her again? And let’s not forget, Alec Guinness’ performance in the TV version is basically a big landmark in the dry-and-gloomy sprawling spy genre, also criminally unawarded!
I was also hoping for a Gary Oldman win… or at least Pitt.
But chances for them to be repeat nominees are decent.
And this Jean Dujardin, probably won’t be heard from again.
Maybe now that poor Jack Russell puppy can get some sleep. Poor Uggie has been on the red carpet non stop for the last month too!
I wanted Oldman to win. Tinker, Tailor was just superbly acted but I’m ok with Jean’s win. I’m not complaining with this one.
YES! I’m so happy Jean won! And I definitely hope this is his introduction to a great film career in America. I hope The Artist did for him what, say, Four Weddings &a Funeral did for Hugh Grant. Jean is too handsome and talented to fade away. And anybody who can prevent that smarmy ass Clooney from winning is ok by me!
Based on the KABC after show, we won’t be seeing him again for a while. He has a slate of French films coming up that most Americans avoid.
Awww… he just gave up on English and was speaking in French. I like trying to understand it.
Yes, I’m really interested in seeing what he does next. I think he’ll get an even bigger bounce than Marion (who still has never had a leading role in English).
I can see Jean in some big budget fun film playing a larger than life Frenchie like Jules Verne or Jaques Cousteau.
I could see him in an “Oceans” type film, the Clooney kind, not the Cousteau kind. If he starts playing nothing but “Frenchies”, he’ll pigeonhole himself. I also predict that 6 months from now, he’ll have lost the accent
Jean is so HANDSOME!
i grew up in France and i do remember Jean Dujardin and his character Brice de Nice.. I wish you understood french because it’s so funny.. http://youtu.be/z6-6mVfIZMo
Un beau mec and a great actor! Bravo!!!
Congrats to him !
Was really hoping for Gary Oldman, a long and varied career. Well Christopher Plummer had to wait until age 82….. Next time Gary.
I also wanted to say to the person who accused me of having an “anti-Pitt bias” when I said weeks ago that Clooney was talking up Pitt because he knew his real competition was Dujardin… I told you so.
So glad he won! I was equally rooting for him, Brad Pitt, and Gary Oldman. I don’t care about Clooney.
I fell in love with Jean Dujardin even more when I saw his surprise guest appearance on SNL, parodying “The Artist”. He’s just crazy. Haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZQK2pANtARU
Yay, Jean!
Yeah! I’m so glad Clooney didn’t win anything… I couldn’t stomach another smug look of him
The French stuff he said is :
If George Valentino could speak he would say : Great! Amazing! I can’t believe it!
Did anyone else notice just how much MAKE-UP Jean DuJardin was wearing early in the broadcast? YIKES!
Haven’t seen any of the performances except Clooney’s, but I was rooting for Jean or Gary. I like it when an underdog with no massive media attention comes out on top.
Oo la la!!! Le swoon!
I’m just happy that Clooney lost. Thank god for that! 😀