While it didn’t win the Oscar for Best Picture, Gravity left the Academy Awards with the most wins for the night – seven, including Best Director. Winning so many awards, it was a little shocking that Sandra Bullock did not win for Best Actress. Co-stars, Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto won for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for Dallas Buyer’s Club and both gave incredibly heartfelt speeches. McConaughey gave special thanks to God acknowledging the importance of the all mighty in his life, which was a lot better than his odd rambling speech he gave earlier at the Golden Globes for the same honor. Finally, 12 Years a Slave won for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay.
For a production that has been presented over and over again for 86 years now, it was nice to see how this year’s Academy Awards presentation was able to keep things fresh. Not shorter (it just barely ended at 3.5 hours), but fresh. No surprise that this year’s host, Ellen DeGeneres, kept things classy during the opening by gently teasing the stars in attendance rather than put them down. (Though the comment “Hello to the best Liza Minnelli impersonator I’ve ever seen. Good job, sir,” to the real Minnelli was a little tacky.) DeGeneres managed to take selfies and snapshots throughout the evening to post on Twitter. In one particular one, she posed with a bunch of stars and announced that she hoped that it would become one of the most shared photos on the site ever. No word if that endeavor worked, but it did shut down the site for awhile.
At one point in the evening, DeGeneres joked that she was going to order a couple of pizzas to feed the crowd as that is something a good host does. About a half hour later, she brought out on stage a real pizza delivery man with three pizzas and started passing out paper plates and napkins to anyone who wanted a slice.
The overall theme for the night appeared to be “heroes” as various tributes were presented for animated heroes, real heroes, superheroes, fantasy heroes, etc. A special tribute was given to the 75th anniversary of the movie, The Wizard of Oz with Whoopie Goldberg announcing the tribute while wearing striped socks and red slippers under her dress. The children of Judy Garland, Liza Minnelli, Lorna Luft and Joey Luft, sat together as Pink sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (my new favorite version of the song). Bette Midler sang for the first time at the Oscars for the Memoriam singing, “Wind Beneath My Wings.”
Other musical performances for the year’s best nominated songs included Karen O (“The Moon Song” from the movie Her), Idina Menzel (“Let it Go” from the movie, Frozen), Pharrell Williams (“Happy” from Despicable Me 2) and U2 (“Ordinary Love” from Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.)
Here is the complete list of tonight’s winners:
- Best Picture: “12 Years a Slave”
- Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club”
- Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave”
- Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, “Gravity”
- Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyer’s Club”
- Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine”
- Best Original Screenplay: “Her”
- Best Adapted Screenplay: “12 Years a Slave”
- Best Animated Feature: “Frozen”
- Best Short Film (Animated): “Mr. Hublot”
- Best Short Film (Live Action): “Helium”
- Best Documentary (Short): “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life”
- Best Documentary: “20 Feet from Stardom”
- Best Foreign Feature: “The Great Beauty,” Italy
- Best Visual Effects: “Gravity”
- Best Cinematography: “Gravity”
- Best Costume Design: “The Great Gatsby”
- Best Documentary Feature: “20 Feet from Stardom”
- Best Documentary Short: “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life”
- Best Film Editing: “Gravity”
- Best Sound Mixing: “Gravity”
- Best Sound Editing: “Gravity”
- Best Makeup and Hairstyling: “Dallas Buyers Club”
- Best Production Design: “The Great Gatsby”
- Best Music (Original Score): “Gravity” (Steven Price)
- Best Music (Original Song): “Let It Go” from “Frozen”