The 85 Annual Academy Awards Reviewed
By Houston Coley
After watching this year’s Academy Awards (aka, the Oscars),
the two adults in my family and I suspect my grandparents complained about Seth
Mcfarlene’s adult content humor. But before I rant about how he had drunk
jokes, sang a song about actresses’ breasts, and even had Ted (the teddy bear
from the movie under the same name) come out and make a bunch of worse jokes, I
want to start with the red carpet. Kristin Chenoweth hosted the interviews
(with too much eye shadow), snagging Jennifer Lawrence and a few other celebs
for a few quick questions. It seemed that she was either very uncomfortable
talking, or just plain obnoxious with the amount of times she called people
‘sweetie’ and ‘girlfriend’. Still, that fashions on the red carpet last night
were a little surprising. I was expecting bunches of ‘peekaboo’ dresses like
everyone has been wearing lately, but didn’t see a single one. That night, most
of the actresses were wearing more elegant than modern things (with the
exception of a dress that tried and failed to communicate James Bond). Most
that were wearing Vera Wang were dressed in a Cleopatra style dress, which we
found out that Wang modeled them after in an interview. Jennifer Lawrence, in a
pure white and frilly dress that looked like she was a queen going to a ball,
also looked elegant. There were some strange fashions, but I am pleased to say
most were but one solid color, a style that has been quickly fading, what with
the amount of rainbow beaded and sequined dresses out there. Also, every celeb
Kristin interviewed, she would ask a question: What was in the box to her left?
She a hint: That it had more than 2,000 components. Eventually someone guessed
correctly that it was Dorothy’s ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz, which have
more than 2,000 sequins on them. After a whole hour of red carpet madness, the
celebs were finally let in to the theater, where it had been decorated with
cameras in the background, changing to different things depending on the award
(wigs for hair, computers for visual effects, etc.) Finally, we got to the host,
who was, as said above, Seth Mcfarlene. Though he had some very bad and strange
jokes, at least he wasn’t as bad as cruel Ricky Gervais. Still, I think that the
Oscars would have been way better if Eddie Murphy had not turned down the
hosting offer. I mean, we all know that all of the Oscars at least have some
sort of crude humor, but you don’t have to go over the top. Part of this
Oscar’s strangeness and rudeness could have come from the writers/producers,
that were first timers, but I know for certain most of Seth Mcfarlene’s jokes
came from his own Silver Linings Playbook. From the start though, the writers
for this year’s show certainly had some very random ideas, like having an old
version of Captain Kirk (Star Trek) come from the future to tell Mcfarlene he
was going to have to improve his act, or else he’d ruin this year’s Oscars and
be the worst host ever. He then showed a bunch of things that were going to
happen in the next four hours, like Mcfarlene going out with Sally Field, and
doing a sock puppet show of ‘Flight’. Select parts of these were pretty funny,
but still quite random. Eventually,
Mcfarlene shapes up his act and Captain Kirk says he’ll be okay, but I’m afraid
that the Captain was wrong. Seth Mcfarlene had his funny parts, but even most
of the celebs weren’t amused. (Ironically, Tommy Lee Jones laughed a lot
though…)
After the rather random and only slightly funny opening with
Mcfarlene and Captain Kirk, we FINALLY started the awards, with Mcfarlene
noting that tonight’s ‘theme’ is music in film. So, in between awards, we get
performers singing classic movie-musical songs, and more. One of the highlights
of these performances, was in my opinion, Skyfall, performed by Adele. This
song was featured in the opening of the James Bond movie under the same name,
and in last night’s show, was featured after a five minute tribute to 50 years
of agent 007. Finally, at the end of the show, Kristen Chenoweth and Mcfarlene
sing a duet about how the losers of the awards are still great.
And last but not least, the awards themselves. Countless
people presented, as usual, including Meryl Streep, and the Avengers, with the
exception of Thor and Black Widow (aka, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Samuel
L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, and Mark Ruffalo). Here are the boards of winners:
Best Picture: “Argo”
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence “Silver Linings Playbook”
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway “Les Miserables”
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis “Lincoln”
Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Waltz “Django Unchained”
Best Director: Ang Lee “Life of Pi”
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Argo”
Best Original Screenplay: “Django Unchained”
Best Animated Film: “Brave”
Best Foreign Language Film: “Amour”
Best Music (ORIGINAL SONG): "Skyfall" from
"Skyfall"
(Music and Lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth)
Best Music (ORIGINAL SCORE): Mychael Danna “Life of Pi”
Best Production Design: “Lincoln”
Best Visual Effects: “Life of Pi”
Best Documentary (FEATURE): “Searching for Sugar Man”
Best Makeup: “Les Miserables”
Best Costume Design: “Anna Karenina”
Best Film Editing: “Argo”
Best Sound Editing: Tie between “Skyfall” and “Zero Dark
Thirty”
Best Sound Mixing: “Les Miserables”
Best Short Film (ANIMATED): “Paperman”
Best Short Film: (LIFE ACTION): “Curfew”
Best Documentary (SHORT): “Inocente”
Those are the winners. Now, let’s talk about the losers.
Starting with best animated picture, Wreck It Ralph, Pirates
Band of Misfits, Frankenweenie, and Paranorman were all also nominated. While
Brave was very good with the graphics quality (it took them three years to make
Merida’s hair) what with castles and moors and princess hairdos, it lacked in
story. Wreck it Ralph, however, had great graphics too. Sugar Rush, the candy
go-kart game that Ralph travels to, is made entirely out of sweets, and the
engineers at Disney Animation made the entire world out of real candy, to
simulate it, and even developed software to make the candy more appetizing. Wreck
it Ralph had a great story, all-star actors, and it’s not just Sugar Rush that
had great graphics, everything else did too. On the other hand, the other three
animated films were all Stop-Motion animated (a frame-by-frame process). But
despite their hard working animated quality, none of those were actually very
good, and naturally, lost to the girl with frizzy red hair.
The best picture was predictable. Argo got so many awards
that the other films didn’t that we all saw it coming. Not much to say here,
other than the good acceptance speech, with the exception of someone shoving
Ben Afflick to the side so that they could thank people first.
Visual effects was won by Life of Pi, a good film in itself,
and I do think that it should have won, but the Hobbit could’ve done it too,
which brings me to…
Hair and Makeup. This was won by Les Miserables (of course)
but in my opinion should have been taken by the Hobbit. The amount of intricate
detail in the dwarve’s hairstyles alone could’ve beat out Les Miserables.
The best actor award was taken by Silver Linings Playbook
Star: Jennifer Lawrence. She had been nominated for “Winter’s Bone” a couple
years back, but this is her first win. As Jennifer walked up the stage, she
tripped over the bottom of her dress though, causing bunches of news headlines
to go crazy over nothing. Later in the press room, Lawrence said that the first
thing that went through her mind was a bad word.
Best Actor went to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln. His
acceptance speech was heartfelt, and nothing short of presidential.
I’m not going to go
into more detail, as those are the only awards I actually pay any attention to
most of the time, but I will say this: Even though Seth Mcfarlene pretty ruined
the hosting part of the show, especially when he sang “We Saw Your Boobs” to
all the actresses, the awards were given fairly well, and the acceptance
speeches were even better.
Keep walking on the Other Side, and I’ll see you later.
