The 85th Academy Awards… The Winners

Well, I found a way to watch the Oscars in time for the pity awards! When I say I, I mean my roommate because she owns the internet and I’m just lost in it. So for these first categories I didn’t actually see them presented because I was at work or freaking out because the link I found I wasn’t working, but I’ll let you know when I got to the parts I actually saw. After I go through this year’s awards, I just briefly wrap-up my best picture marathon because I don’t think it’s worth doing another post on.

Because I didn’t see them, these are probably out of order. Sorry in advance.

1. So Christoph Waltz wins best supporting actor for his performance as Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained. So I got that wrong, I had predicted Tommy Lee Jones to win. Oh well, Waltz was pretty much the best part of Django so that ought to count for something and apparently it does. I’m honestly not sure who I think deserves it, so Waltz winning is fine with me. Except that I’m 0 for 1 so far…

2. Animated short film goes to “Paperman.” I didn’t predict this category or see any films from it so I’m just listing it for completeness.

3. Best animated feature goes to Brave! Yes! A correct prediction without seeing any of the nominees! Apparently watching movies is misleading when you’re trying to do this. Or I’m just lucky. Oscar score: 1 for 2.

4. Cinematography goes to Life of Pi. Dang it, another one wrong. Sad that Skyfall missed out, but I guess I was kind of going out on a limb on that one so I shouldn’t be surprised. Life of Pi was a beautiful film. Now I’m at 1 for 3.

 5. Visual Effects goes to Life of Pi as well, as I predicted! I’m back to half and half. Totally deserved it in my opinion. 2 for 4.

6. Anna Karenina wins costume design! Totally deserves it. They were all so fancy in that film… and this brings me to 3 out of 5. Breaking 500.

7. Les Mis for make up and hair styling. Oh darn, I was just getting ahead and now I’m only breaking even again. Oh well, I wasn’t too involved with this one, so good job Les Mis. 3 out of 6.

8. Documentary goes to Searching for Sugarman. Again, this category doesn’t count for my prediction purposes, but good for them.

9. Thank you Amour for getting me ahead again! I knew that was going to happen. 4 out of 6.

10. Best Supporting Actress is Anne Hathaway. There’s a shocker. Even more ahead now… 5 for 7.

11. Argo gets editing! Loved those scene transitions, man. 6 for 8, or 75%. Sounded better the first way.

12. Production design goes to Lincoln, dang it! I was really rooting for Anna Karenina here. Oh well. Lincoln seemed pretty good too. Back down to 6 out of 9.

13. Sound editing is a tie between Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall, that’s cool. I like ties as a general concept, especially if it means that Skyfall gets an award. I had guessed Argo but I really wasn’t too confident about it. I’m slipping even more here… 6 out of 10.

14. Thank goodness for Les Mis winning sound mixing! I figured that live singing thing would help it out here and I can only assume that it did. 7 out of 11.

15. Live action short goes to “Curfew,” not counted for prediction purposes. Congrats to them nonetheless.

15. Animated short goes to “Inocente.” Nice. Again, I didn’t predict in this category.

AWARDS I ACTUALLY SAW THE PRESENTATION OF:

Best Original Score: So here’s the cast of Chicago yipee! Well, it wasn’t that groundbreaking as far as I’m aware… but whatever. Life of Pi wins it! As I predicted! Still wish Beasts had been nominated, but whatever. I love Williams, but I’m glad he didn’t win. Was not a fan of the music in Lincoln. Ha! 8 out 12! I’m getting back to my former glory (hopefully).

Best Original Song: if Adele doesn’t win this I don’t know what is going to happen…. Didn’t know Scarlet Johanson sang. Geez they’re going to play this song before they announce it? No wonder why I usually don’t watch these things. Yeah Adele wins! Whew, I’m glad that happened. Anyway, British people are cool, I’m down with this. Don’t know any of the songs, but I still think they weren’t as good. And now they’re randomly playing “Singin’ in the Rain”, whatever. The Oscars are baffling me, I’m not gonna lie. Know I’m at 9 out of 13.

Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Argo! This guy is pretty adorable, but he’s taking a long time and now he’s not adorable anymore. He was adorable at the beginning. Not what I predicted, I was thinking Silver Linings Playbook, but ah well. Looking more and more like Argo’s going to win the big one. Down to 9 out 14.

Original Screenplay goes to Tarantino for Django Unchained. Aw, he seems so nice… didn’t think he would seem that nice. I’ve never actually heard him speak before. “Peace out!” Ha ha! He seems cool. Aww… Leo’s not even there, poor guy. But I got another one right! Still sad about Moonrise Kingdom, but at least Flight didn’t get it. Now I’m at 10 out of 15. (That’s like a D but I don’t want to think about it.)

Best Director goes to Ang Lee. “Thank you movie god.” That was nice, Lee seems like a pretty nice guy too. Aww, I think I’m going to cry. Especially because I got another one right! Mwa ha ha! That warm fuzzy feeling turned into an evil laugh real quick. “You’re the golden statue in my heart.” Back to feeling like I’m about to cry. I liked his speech, it was adorable. Up to 11 out of 16.

Best Actress: Aw Jean Dujardin. Why did they have to ruin that with cutting to Kristen Stewart’s face? Jerks.  Dang, his accent is so classy. JENNIFER LAWRENCE! So I was wrong, but I’m pretty happy about it. Can’t believe they’re playing THE song though, do they want us to go completely crazy? Apparently I did when I originally guessed Riva, but oh well. 11 for 17.

Best Actor: good call Meryl Streep. I’ve been thinking that this whole time, all of these guys are pretty dang fabulous. Daniel Day-Lewis wins, big surprise. He’s pretty classy to- NO MY CONNECTION STOPPED! PANIC!!! Ok it’s back, whew. If anybody deserves to win 3 of these things, it’s this guy. He’s so composed I can’t get over it… DDL wining may not be too suspenseful or exciting, but at least it helps my prediction average. 12 for 18 (which is still like a D).

Jack Nicholson yeah! Okay, wait, what’s he presenting? Wow, best picture, the only things left, geez, duh. Okay, why is Michelle Obama here? Whatever. Blah blah blah political speech… is Jack coming back? Whew, good. Ok, now we need Mrs. Obama back to tell us who won… Argo! Oh that’s so cute they all match with their beards! I love how they let the guy that nobody knows talk first. Ben’s going to pass out in two seconds if he keeps talking this fast What, how come George didn’t get to talk? Oh well. Nice job, Argo. I definitely have to watch you again. 13 for 19.

Well, that’s that. Besides not seeing the whole thing, trying to write this post at the same time, and my connection going out that was pretty fun. Ok, it wasn’t really, but at least I know who won now. I hope there was more Bond themed stuff at the beginning, because jeez that wasn’t much of a tribute. I actually didn’t see them do any Bond themed stuff. So, to wrap up, I got 13 out of my 19 predictions right, which comes to a 68%. It’s funny because the first time I typed that it was an 86%. Wishful thinking I guess. I hope I do better next year, but at least I got over a 50%. That’s something. So for one more final recap before moving on my marathon recap: Life of Pi has the most wins with four, Argo and Les Mis both win three, Django Unchained, Skyfall, and Lincoln both win two, and Silver Linings Playbook, Anna Karenina, Amour, Zero Dark Thirty, and Brave come home with one, and Moonrise Kingdom, The Master, and Beasts of the Southern Wild get zip. I kind of love how Skyfall got so many in comparison to other films, even if they weren’t “important” ones.

So now onto my marathon wrap-up, which I promise will be short because I want to go to sleep now. I didn’t get to all of the films I originally set out to watch; Terms of Endearment eluded my grasp but I got all of the others. I wasn’t too psyched about it anyway, so I’ll leave it for next year. Probably my favorite out of the films that were new to me was The Apartment, with The Departed coming in second. My favorite overall would have to be Lawrence of Arabia, closely followed by The Godfather. I had already seen both of those, but I was glad to do posts on them finally. The only ones I really didn’t care for were Grand Hotel and From Here to Eternity, but they weren’t horrible or anything. Other high points included All About Eve, Gladiator, and Platoon. Beside getting around to Terms of Endearment, next February I’ll be looking forward to doing Tom Jones (’63), Mutiny on the Bounty (’35), Annie Hall (’77), and Out of Africa (’85). That is if I manage to save them until then.

Hope everybody is reasonable satisfied with the way the Oscars turned out! I for one, am mainly just relieved they’re over. Now I know how my predictions were and I can start focusing on 2013 films as well as getting back to catching up on classics that I haven’t seen yet. I got some pretty good films lined up for March and April, and most of them are completely random! However, for March I am going to do Tarantino Tuesday, which is basically just what it sounds like. I’m just posting all of my reviews of his films on Tuesday, because I want them to be sort of spaced out and if I do it this way it’s an alliteration. It might go into April, but for some reason I can’t get excited about Kill Bill even though I’ve heard it’s good. It’s just doesn’t sound like something I’d like. Grindhouse also does not sound good, but I’ll be doing the rest. Other than that it will just be a completely random exploration of cinema, and I’m pretty excited about it.

PS: Though I didn’t see them all, I would say Ang Lee had the best speech. Tarantino comes in second.