Best Short Film
Curfew
Best Animated Short Film
Paperman
Best Documentary Short Subject
Inocente
Best Documentary Feature Film
Searching for Sugar Man
Best Achievement in Visual Effects
Life of Pi
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Skyfall & Zero Dark Thirty (tie)
Best Achievement in Sound Mixing
Les Miserables
Best Original Song
Skyfall – Adele
Best Original Score
Life of Pi
Best Achievement in Make Up and Hair Styling
Les Miserables
Best Costume Design
Anna Karenina
Best Production Design
Lincoln
Best Editing
Argo
Best Cinematography
Life of Pi
Best Foreign Film
Amour
Best Animated Feature Film
Brave
Best Adapted Screenplay
Argo
Best Original Screenplay
Django Unchained
Best Directing
Life of Pi
Best Supporting Actress
Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Best Supporting Actor
Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Best Actress
Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Best Actor
Daniel Day Lewis, Lincoln
Best Picture
Argo
Well, it’s not every year that the Oscars are surprising, and although there were some good movies nominated, there were certainly some surprises within the awards themselves. The director of the Best Animated Short Film Paperman was kicked out of the awards ceremony for throwing paper airplanes, which was the subject of his winning film.
Jennifer Lawrence got her Oscar, after being nominated previously for Winter’s Bone, and Anne Hathaway got one for Supporting Actress after being nominated for Rachel Getting Married a few years ago.
Life of Pi came away with a surprising three wins for Cinematography, Visual Effects, and Best Directing, none of which I was really expecting, especially considering the general lackluster response for the film, which I have still yet to see.
Daniel Day Lewis won his third acting statue for Lincoln, although the general consensus seems to be that Joaquin Phoenix deserved the award for The Master. However, he badmouthed the awards in general, and that will get you nothing in the highly political awards arena, although I agree with him generally. Movies are subjective, so to say one is better than the other is simply a matter of opinion, however, with these awards, people tend to take them as fact, when really, they are just the movie industry’s best advertising campaign.
I’m glad that Quentin Tarantino got another award for his writing, and Christoph Waltz won another Supporting Actor statue for his performance in a Tarantino film, although I felt Samuel L. Jackson was better deserving of the award (so was Leonardo DiCaprio) despite the lack of a nomination. Then again, I felt Django Unchained was far and away the best film made all year, so it just goes to show that nothing matters in this arena besides the secretive Academy voting process. With people like Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters and HBO‘s Oz) doing the voting, I guess it’s tough to get a handle on what they’re looking for.
Les Miserables didn’t get the recognition I thought it would, nor did Zero Dark Thirty, which only tied with Skyfall for Sound Editing, only the 6th tie in 85 years of award giving for the Academy. Speaking of Skyfall, Adele joined Eminem as a Grammy and Oscar winner. Brave won best animated feature film, despite being far from it in the eyes of most people that saw the film, and Amour took home the Best Foreign Film in a seemingly forgone conclusion.
Argo came away the big winner of the night, with awards for Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Picture. I really thought it only had a chance at the editing award, but I guess it was a toss up after all. I liked the film, but I felt it was far from the best of the year, further proof that the subjective nature of movies is counter-productive to award-giving. All I can say is good for Ben Affleck, who has made better films in his past two outings, but wasn’t given the recognition as such because I guess those movies weren’t up the Academy’s alley.
All in all, a strange experience, and I couldn’t help but be bored to tears with the actual show. No, Seth MacFarlane didn’t improve anything about the stuffed-shirt feeling of the whole thing, and obvious the self-congratulatory nature of the awards is far more important than actual movie fans relating to anything happening at the show. Oh well, maybe next year we’ll see another The Departed or No Country For Old Men actually win big in a year where movies people actually like win the big awards. We’ll see.
