86th Academy Awards Summary
Last night was the 86th annual Academy Awards and it was easily the best show in recent memory. It was hosted by Ellen Degeneres who really did a great job keeping the mood light and fun. It made the show enjoyable and even entertaining to watch which is quite the contrast from last year’s disaster with Seth MacFarlane.
The big winner of the night was 12 Years a Slave which won Best Picture. Lupita Nyong’o won Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film. It also won Best Adapted Screenplay. Not to downplay the film or what it represents, but Ellen’s opening monologue turned out to be very poignant: “Possibility number one: 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture. Possibility number two: You’re all racists.”
Gravity seemed to be on a rampage during most of the show winning a total of 7 awards in categories including Best Director for Alfonso Cuarón, but fell short for the other major awards.
Cate Blanchett won Best Actress for her role in Blue Jasmine and voiced that her win proved that major films can be very successful with female leads. Matthew McConaughey won Best Actor for his role in Dallas Buyers Club and gave what was probably the best acceptance speech of the night detailing the prinicples he lives by.
The image that probably everyone will remember from the night is the selfie. Many selfies were taken, but the most famous one involved Ellen pulling out her tablet to take a picture of her with Meryl Streep. Surround stars gathered around and Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts plus others all ended up in a fun, candid shot. Ellen asked viewers to retween the photo with the goal of making it the most rewtweeted photo ever, which ended up becoming true (to the point where twitter crashed due to the traffic).
Another surprising event was when Ellen had a pizza delivery guy bring in pizza which she proceeded to walk up and down the aisles with the delivery guy handing out slices of pizza to the biggest names in Hollywood. It was this sort of candid nature that let the viewers see real interaction between all these famous people that made the viewing experience much more fun to watch than the regular scripted lines we are all used to.
In a night where the only mishaps, such as John Travolta butchering Idina Menzel’s name or Jennifer Lawrence tripping again, added to the fun, 2014’s 86th annual Academy Awards will surely go down as one of the most memorably enjoyable. Ellen will surely be back to host again at some point and I’m sure the stars who got some of the pizza she brought in will appreciate it as well.