Welcome to the twelfth annual Oscar™ blogging!
Multiple Oscar winners:
- Life of Pi: 4
- Argo: 3
- Les Misérables: 3
- Django Unchained: 2
- Lincoln: 2
For those who are unfamiliar with me doing this, you can find previous year’s Oscarblogging at:
Updates will be (mostly) placed at the end, so scroll down.
I think that Seth MacFarlane is wicked talented, so I’ve been looking forward to him as host. His opening bits range from the ridiculous (anything with Captain Kirk) to the sublime (soft shoe with Daniel Radcliffe and Joseph Gordon-Leavitt).
The awards start off with Best Supporting Actor, with the Oscar going to Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained. Not quite who I would have picked, but he’s an intense actor.
Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy come out to give the award for Best Animated Short Film. Their bits together fall flat, and it’s a relief when they get to the nominees. The award goes to John Kahrs for Paperman. Tom exclaims about how they appear to have the nominees for the lesser awards in a box near the stage so that they don’t have to run up from the nosebleed seats. Next up is the Best Animated Film, and I’m expecting it to go to Pixar as usual—Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman for Brave. Huzzah for kilts!
Reese Witherspoon (in a so-so dress) introduces a few of the best picture nominees: Les Misérables, Life of Pi, and Beasts of the Southern Wild.
The guys from The Avengers come out to give the award for Best Cinematography. It goes to Claudio Miranda for Life of Pi, and Tom complains about the choice—given that most of the movie was CGI, why is he getting an award for lighting done by the computer artists? Next up is Best Visual Effects, again to Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer and Donald R. Elliott for Life of Pi.
Wow, they’re vicious this year about cutting people off when their time is up. Playing the theme from Jaws is a little over the top.
Channing Tatum and Jennifer Aniston give the award for Best Costumn Design to Jacqueline Durran for Anna Karenina. I’m surprised; I thought this might go to Les Misérables. The award for Best Makeup and Hair goes to Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell for Les Misérables; no surprise there, as it has to be hard work to make Anne Hathaway look that bad.
Halle Berry comes out to celebrate fifty years of James Bond. A montage of film clips are shown, which (to my surprise) got all the Bonds, including Lazenby and Dalton. Shirley Bassey comes out to sing “Goldfinger” and gets a standing ovation.
Kerrie Washington and Jamie Foxx come out to give the award for Best Live Action Short Film, which goes to Shawn Christensen for Curfew. The Best Documentary Short Subject award goes to Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine for Inocente.
Liam Neeson introduces further Best Picture nominees. Sadly, he’s wearing a tie, not a bow tie. Is it too much to ask that gentlemen wear a proper tuxedo? He presents Argo, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty.
“The actor who really got inside Lincoln’s head was John Wiles Booth”. Groan.
Ben Affleck gives the Best Documentary, which goes to Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn for Searching for Sugar Man.
Jennifer Garner and Jessica Chastain come out to present the Best Foreign Language award. Tom objects to the former’s butt bow, but I disagree. The award goes to Austria for Amour.
John Travolta comes out to present a celebration of movie musicals. Catherine Zeta Jones sings “All That Jazz” from Chicago, Jennifer Hudson does “I Am Telling You I Am Not Going” from Dreamgirls, and the entire cast of Les Misérables sings a medley of songs from the show.
Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana cover the Sci Tech awards.
Mark Whalberg and Ted give the Best Sound Mixing award, which goes to Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson and Simon Hayes for Les Misérables. Best Sound Editing is a rarity: a tie! One goes to Paul N.J. Ottosson for Zero Dark Thirty and one goes to Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers for Skyfall.
Christopher Plummer gives the Best Supporting Actress award to, as widely-expected, Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables.
Sandra Bullock gives the award for Best Editing to William Goldenberg for Argo.
Jennifer Lawrence, wearing an amazing dress, introduces Adele, singing “Skyfall”.
Nicole Kidman introduces the next batch of Best Picture nominees, including Silver Linings Playbook, Django Unchained, and Amour. Tom notes that her forehead never quite seems to move.
Daniel Radcliffe and Kristen Stewart (limping) give the award for Best Production Design, which goes to Rick Carter and Jim Erickson for Lincoln.
Selma Hayek gives the Governor’s awards (i.e., honorary Oscars).
George Clooney gives the In Memoriam tribute, which ends with Barbra Streisand singing “The Way We Were”.
The main cast of Chicago gives the music awards. The Oscar for Best Original Score goes to Mychael Danna for Life of Pi, and for Best Original Song goes to “Skyfall,” Music and lyric by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth for Skyfall. Huh, never knew her last name before.
The writing awards are given out by Dustin Hoffman and Charlize Theron. The Best Adapted Screenplay award goes to Chris Terrio for Argo, and the Best Original Screenplay award goes to Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained.
Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas present the Best Director award to Ang Lee for Life of Pi.
Jean Dujardin awards the Best Actress Oscar to Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook. That amazing dress got away from her and she tripped on the way up and that just makes her more lovable to the Academy. Tom notes that she appeared to have forgotten to thank the director—whoops!
Seth MacFarlane announces that the next presenter needs to introduction and leaves the stage. Meryl Streep comes out to give the Best Actor award. It goes to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln, to no one’s surprise.
Jack Nicholson introduces Michelle Obama live from the White House, who gives a short speech and then turns it back to Nicholson to announce the nominees. He passes it back to Michelle, who annouces that the winner is Argo.
All in all, I think that MacFarlane did a great job. I’ll be interested to see what the general buzz is tomorrow about how well he hosted. Although Life of Pi won more Oscars, I think that the big winner tonight was Argo, which I did not expect to win Best Picture.
