The 86th Academy Awards that took place on Sunday was both predictable and unpredictable. The winners of the awards were ridiculously predictable. I read several prediction articles and I knew who was going to win every category before the show even started. This made it pretty difficult to sit through some acceptance speeches, but no one was cut off this year. 12 Years a Slave won the highest honor (Best Picture) while Gravity wiped the floor in just about every category it was nominated in, taking home a total of seven statues.
It was everything else about the ceremony that was unpredictable. Host, Ellen DeGeneres, and other A-list actors literally broke Twitter when they set a record of 2 million retweets of one selfie featuring the faces of Ellen, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Lupita N’Yongo, Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, and Julia Roberts.
Ellen ordered several large pizzas during the show and handed out slices to the nominees. She later passed around Pharrell Williams’ massive hat to collect cash to pay for the pizzas.
Jennifer Lawrence tripped again, this time on an orange traffic cone before she walked on the red carpet.
Idina Menzel’s voice cracked when she was belting out the now Oscar-winning song “Let it Go” from the also Oscar-winning film, Frozen. Maybe that’s because John Travolta completely butchered her name when he introduced her, calling her “Adele Dazeem.”
Ellen also walked out in a ridiculous version of the Good Witch’s costume from The Wizard of Oz after Pink sang a wonderful version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Honestly, the all of the acceptance speeches were very good. Jared Leto thanked his mother who worked incredibly hard to raise her two sons. Lupita, while trying to catch her breath, profusely thanked director Steve McQueen for casting her as Patsy in 12 Years a Slave. And then thanked Solomon Northrup for telling Patsy’s story. Cate Blanchett gave a gracious shout-out to all the other nominees in the Best Actress category. Steve McQueen literally jumped for joy when his film, 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture. Matthew McConaughey’s speech really stuck with me. He talked about three kinds of people he always has in his life: people to look up to, people to look forward to, and people to chase after. He looks up to God and his late father, he looks forward to his family, and he chases after a better version of himself.
As for the awards, Matthew McConaughey won Best Actor; Jared Leto won Best Supporting Actor. Cate Blanchett won Best Actress, Lupita won Best Supporting Actress. Alfonso Cuaron won Best Director for Gravity, Her won Best Original Screenplay, and 12 Years a Slave won Best Adapted Screenplay.
The theme of the 2014 Oscars was heroes. They featured a montage of all kinds of heroes from animated and fictional, to real-life heroes throughout history. They had a memoriam of people that passed away this year including Paul Walker, Richard Matheson, Shirley Temple, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
And Leonardo DiCaprio STILL doesn’t have an Oscar.
(photo courtesy of ABC)