"The Social Network" failed to pick up any of the major awards at last night's Oscars, but the show was still a hot topic on sites like Twitter.
As expected, Aaron Sorkin walked away with the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for penning "The Social Network," a fictionalized account of Facebook's inception and the rise of Mark Zuckerberg. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross also earned gold statues for original score, while Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter won for editing the film. But "The Social Network" lost out to "The King's Speech" on the major awards - director Tom Hooper bested David Fincher, Colin Firth beat Jesse Eisenberg, and "The King's Speech" took home the night's top honor, Best Picture.
But despite the big night for "The King Speech," it was a veteran actor who stole the show, at least according to Twitter. Kirk Douglas was on hand to present the award for Best Supporting Actress, and during his five-minute presentation, the 94-year-old actor managed to flirt with host Anne Hathaway, tease Colin Firth and Hugh Jackman, and intentionally stall the announcement of the winner. Luckily, the audience ate it up, and Douglas eventually presented the award to "The Fighter's" Melissa Leo (above), who kept the censors on their toes by dropping the f-bomb during her acceptance speech.
It was Douglas, however, who captured Twitter's attention. By Monday morning, his name was atop Twitter's trending topics worldwide, in the U.S., and in various U.S. cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Douglas has never actually won an Oscar, though he was awarded an honorary one in 1996.
Hathaway and last year's Best Actress winner, Sandra Bullock, were also a trending topics in New York. Hathaway hosted the event with actor James Franco, himself a nominee last night for "127 Hours," but Bullock's quips while presenting the Best Actor award apparently won her some new fans. After her appearance, several Facebook groups popped up, demanding that Bullock be next year's host. So far, the main group only had 83 fans, but hey, Betty White got her "Saturday Night Live" hosting gig thanks to a Facebook fan page, so you never know.
In Los Angeles, where the award show was held, several other Hollywood titans made the Twitter trending topics this morning, including Randy Newman, Billy Crystal, and Tom Hanks. Newman won for Best Original Song and had a rather amusing acceptance speech, former host Crystal appeared to introduce an odd, hologram version of Bob Hope, while Hanks was on hand to present the makeup and art direction awards.
Another trending topic in LA? Actor Corey Haim. The 80s teen star died in March 2010, but did not appear during the Oscar's "In Memoriam" segment. Fans took to Twitter asking why Haim had been snubbed. Blog Jezebel joked, "Memo to the Academy: You can't act like License to Drive just didn't happen."
As the Toronto Star noted, however, Haim was also snubbed during the Screen Actors Guild dead reel, while fans were also annoyed that Peter Graves, Betty Garrett and Maria Schneider did not make last night's Oscar tribute.
The term "Oscars," meanwhile, was a promoted tweet, sponsored by LivingSocial.
(Image: Robert Gauthier, MCT)