Hooper also won top honors in the category of Direction, and Colin Firth, who played the titular speech-challenged king, won Best Actor.

It was really a two dog race. David Fincher’s techno-hip “The Social Network,” about the founding of Facebook, was the only real challenger. And many Oscar prognosticators considered King’s win an upset.

“The Social Network” did, however, win for Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), Best Original Score (Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Atticus Ross), and Editing.

Natalie Portman won her first Oscar for Best Actress for her performance as a psychologically troubled ballerina in “Black Swan.”

See list of winners below:

1. Best Picture: “The King’s Speech.”

2. Actor: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech.”

3. Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan.”

4. Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, “The Fighter.”

5. Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, “The Fighter.”

6. Directing: Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech.”

7. Foreign Language Film: “In a Better World,” Denmark.

8. Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network.”

9. Original Screenplay: David Seidler, “The King’s Speech.”

10. Animated Feature Film: “Toy Story 3.”

11. Art Direction: “Alice in Wonderland.”

12. Cinematography: “Inception.”

13. Sound Mixing: “Inception.”

14. Sound Editing: “Inception.”

15. Original Score: “The Social Network,” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

16. Original Song: “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3,” Randy Newman.

17. Costume Design: “Alice in Wonderland.”

18. Documentary Feature: “Inside Job.”

19. Documentary (short subject): “Strangers No More.”

20. Film Editing: “The Social Network.”

21. Makeup: “The Wolfman.”

22. Animated Short Film: “The Lost Thing.”

23. Live Action Short Film: “God of Love.”

24. Visual Effects: “Inception.”

The musician confirmed the news during a live interview with Jon Pareles at Times Talk, the livestream site of The New York Times.

Reznor, who earned wide acclaim for his scoring of Fincher’s “The Social Network,” which adapted a controversial book on the rise of Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg, will answer the director’s call once more.

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” is the first book in Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, and follows Lisbeth Salander, a rape victim and social outsider, on a thrilling journey across continents and into the worlds of corporate greed, criminal violence and investigative journalism.

“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” starring Rooney Mara, Robin Wright, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer and Stellan Skarsgårdand is scheduled for release December 21, 2011.

“The Social Network,” the dramatized examination of the personalities and incidents behind the launch of the Facebook social media movement, was named Best Picture in the 14th annual Online Film Critics Society Awards. The film also won in the categories of Best Director (David Fincher) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin).

The OFCS Awards for acting were divided among a quartet of productions: Colin Firth in “The King’s Speech” for Best Actor, Natalie Portman in “Black Swan” for Best Actress, Christian Bale in “The Fighter” for Best Supporting Actor and Hailee Steinfield in “True Grit” for Best Supporting Actress. “True Grit” was also honored for Roger Deakins’ cinematography.

“Inception” received two awards: Christopher Nolan for Best Original Screenplay and Lee Smith for Best Editing. “Toy Story 3″ was named Best Animated Feature, “Exit Through the Gift Shop” received the Best Documentary Award, and the South Korean production “Mother” was named Best Picture Not in the English Language.

The complete list of winners of the 2010 OFCS Awards follows:

Picture: “The Social Network”
Director: David Fincher “The Social Network”
Actor: Colin Firth “The King’s Speech”
Actress: Natalie Portman “Black Swan”
Supporting Actor: Christian Bale “The Fighter”
Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld “True Grit”
Original Screenplay: Christopher Nolan “Inception”
Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin “The Social Network”
Foreign Language Film: “Mother”
Documentary: “Exit Through The Gift Shop”
Animated Feature: “Toy Story 3″
Cinematography: Roger Deakins “True Grit”
Editing: Lee Smith “Inception”

Founded in 1997, the Online Film Critics Society has been the key force in establishing and raising the standards for Internet-based film journalism. The OFCS membership consists of film reviewers, journalists and scholars based in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Latin America and the Asia/Pacific Rim region. For more information, visit the Online Film Critics Society at www.ofcs.org.

While the pharma rep character is relatively new in Hollywood comedy, the products they offer are not. Predictably enough, erectile dysfunction medication has been a target for comedy from the moment it first appeared on the market. Little Fockers and Love and Other Drugs also focus primarily on this type of medication. The latter film gives its reference a documentary flavour, as it is set in the 90s when Pfizer first introduced Viagra. Little Fockers substitutes an invented but equally evocative and just as (un)believable name for the same type of product: Sustengo. And both films, of course, include a gag about adverse reactions to the drug.

Little Fockers and Love and Other Drugs also show what is wrong with pharma reps themselves. Although the drug reps in both films are outwardly attractive and charming, both have hidden problems. In Little Fockers, Andi Garcia is a trained nurse with a funny, warm and laid-back personality: however, she also takes advantage of Greg’s disagreement with his wife to spend an intimate evening with him. When Greg retreats to the house that is being renovated for his family, Andi turns up with Chinese food and a bottle of wine. Later, she pops a few Sustengo and goes wild, throwing herself at Greg. She ends up pushing him into the unfinished pool in the garden and jumping on top of him. Unfortunately, this type of misogynistic caricature is not unfamiliar in Hollywood comedy. Another Ben Stiller film, The Heartbreak Kid (2007), featured a similar monster, a woman who is physically attractive but psychologically abnormal. It is possible to interpret such characters as symbolic punishment to male characters for focusing on outward characteristics at the expense of inner ones: rather than bringing the expected physical pleasure, the woman horrifies or attacks the man physically. At the same time, the fact that these female characters are so exaggerated serves to assert the old-fashioned notion of the normalcy and reasonability of the male against the irrationality of the female. Ignoring the fact that it is usually men who harass women, Little Fockers shows Greg to be an absolutely innocent, all-round good guy, who risks having his conventional family life destroyed by an over-sexualised, independent career woman.

Jamie, the pharma rep in Love and Other Drugs, has problems too, but his are much more nuanced and seem not to be his fault. Having been brought up in a rather cold, competitive family environment, he is unable to love himself or anyone else. His good looks and choice of career encourage superficiality in all his relationships, from making the sale to his customers to meaningless sex with the many women he attracts. This pattern ends when he meets Maggie: he falls in love with her, and craves a long-term relationship with her in spite of her poor health. Maggie, in turn, helps him to recognise his problems. She asks him why he feels the need to impress his parents, and points out his good qualities (something he himself is unable to do). This film ends with the most unromantic expression of devotion since Mr. Darcy’s in Pride and Prejudice: Jamie tells Maggie that he ‘unfortunately’ can’t live without her, and praises her because she helped him to learn to love himself. The difference is that Mr. Darcy’s reluctant love was haughtily rejected, whereas Jamie’s is gratefully accepted. Like Little Fockers, Love and Other Drugs is highly conventional in its attitude to gender: as The Guardian‘s Peter Bradshaw pointed out, it was necessarily the female character who suffered from a disease, and the male character who loved her in spite of it, as it is woman’s role to be vulnerable and the man’s role to protect her (for a notable exception to this, though, see David Fincher’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)). Love and Other Drugs appears to make Maggie Jamie’s equal, as she too is initially seeking meaningless sex. However, the film makes it clear that the reason for this seemingly modern and empowered stance is Maggie’s illness. She only rejects long-term relationships because she believes that no man would want her long-term: it is her illness that forces her to take this approach to relationships, but ultimately she and Jamie help each other to conform to the norm of long-term commitment.

While Little Fockers and Love and Other Drugs both explore the character of pharma reps more or less superficially, neither seriously questions the pharmaceutical industry itself. Both films highlight doctors’ unease with any relationship with the industry: Greg Focker only agrees to make a speech for Sustengo because it offers a chance for better control over his family’s finances, while the unsavoury doctor character in Love and Other Drugs confesses to Jamie that he used to be an idealist. Both films also show that it is difficult to be a drug rep, and that the job encourages superficiality at best and, at worst, underhandedness and drug abuse. In his Guardian review, Peter Bradshaw also observed that Pfizer would not have allowed its name to be used in Love and Other Drugs if the film had reflected poorly on the company. Neither film suggests that the pharmaceutical industry encourages the unnecessary use of drugs. Love and Other Drugs only briefly brings up the question of harmful side effects and the industry’s dismissal of them. It refers coyly to refusal of health insurance (Maggie’s wry presentation of a wad of cash when the doctor asks about her coverage) and to the fact that drugs cost less in Canada (the cross-border bus trips Maggie organises for senior citizens).

As comedies, both of these films were enjoyable: Little Fockers was not as inventive as the previous installments in the series, recycling a lot of old jokes, but it was still very funny. Love and Other Drugs was engaging and even had an inventive script. The best example of the two films’ ultimate conformism, however, is the fact that these two unrelated comedies both featured a remarkably similar scene, which is becoming too standard a shorthand in Hollywood: in both films, the pharma rep character turns up at the door with Chinese take-out, which is shared with the prospective romantic partner, the food being eaten directly from the boxes, creating a scene of casual intimacy. Seeing this scene in two films in a row reminded me of how clichéd an image this is in Hollywood cinema. It was clearly too much to expect that either of these films, as conventional in their imagery as in their ideology, would aim any powerful satirical punches at the pharmaceutical industry.

Nondisclosure agreements about the plot have been signed by everyone involved but The Vulture was able to intercept a few details.

The film is set 35 years before Scott’s original 1979 horror/sci-fi classic and is especially enticing to studio big-wigs because it contains no expensive set pieces.  Scott as purportedly asked for a budget between $150 million and $160 million, but Lindelof’s script may allow Fox to cut that down considerably — something studios love to do.

Scott has met with a number of actresses about taking on the lead role, a female Colonial Marine general, but one in particular stands at the top of the heap — Natalie Portman.  Having recently freed herself from Seth Grahame-Smith’s “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” Portman’s schedule is clean to pick up the female ass-kicker mantle from Sigourney Weaver.  Also being considered is Noomi Rapace, star of David Fincher’s upcoming version of “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”

Die hard fans may also be happy to know that the tone of Lindelof’s script is much more in line with Scott’s original film than its more action-centered sequels.  “The later Aliens movies were action movies, but the original Alien was a horror-suspense film,” explains one source, “This returns the franchise to its roots.”

And last but not least, fans will finally get an answer about the origin of the “Space Jockey,” i.e. the mangled pilot of a crashed spacecraft with thousands of alien eggs strewn about discovered in the year 2090 by the crew of the Nostromo.

Yesterday, it was announced on the NIN official website that frontman, Trent Reznor, is currently scoring the film along with collaborator Atticus Ross.  Here is the announcement in its entirety:

I was planning on taking some time off after the continual waves of touring that ended last fall and spend this year experimenting around with what would become How To Destroy Angels and some new NIN. Well, that plan didn’t work out so well. David Fincher started inquiring about my interest in scoring his upcoming film, The Social Network. Yeah, the movie about the founding of Facebook. I’ve always loved David’s work but quite honestly I wondered what would draw him to tell that story. When I actually read the script and realized what he was up to, I said goodbye to that free time I had planned. Atticus Ross and I have been on a creative roll so I asked him if he wanted to work on this with me and we signed on.

Months later, I’m happy to tell you we’re nearing the completion of this and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out. The level of excellence that David operates on is inspiring and the entire process has been challenging and truly enjoyable.

As Atticus and I near the end of the scoring process, we’re looking forward to the next phase – distilling the large amount of music we’ve written for this down to a satisfying record (or two). The film opens Oct 1 in the US with the record likely available a couple of weeks ahead of that.

Speaking of the film… it’s really fucking good. And dark!

If Trent Reznor is calling this film dark, I’m inclined to believe him. My guess is “The Social Network” is going to be a lot less “nerdy guy writes some code and gets rich,” and more “nerdy guy writes some code and gets rich and turns into a complete asshole and destroys his (ironically) social life in favor of power.  Nerdy guy’s rise to fame and fortune was faster than he expected and his life turns into shambles.  He’s lonely, hateful and disliked by all even with 500 million friends.”  But that’s just my guess.

We reported Saturday that Disney cut director McG loose from their version of the story, which is already well into development, in favor of the directing prowess of David Fincher.  But THR is now reporting that Fox has decided to get in on the action and develop a “20,000 Leagues” movie of their own.

One might think that Disney, with a heavy-hitter like Fincher attached, has the upper hand in this pre-production studio duel.  But THR reports that director/producers Ridley and Tony Scott through their Scott Free banner are heading up development for Fox and plan to produce.  “Clash of the Titans” co-writer Travis Beacham is said to be taking a crack at the script, and “Wanted” director, Timur Bekmambetov, tops the list for directing duties.

Sources say that this version will closely follow the novel’s structure but will be set in the future with heavy sci-fi elements.