When it comes to the winners of the 86th Academy Awards that took place on Sunday 2nd March at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, there are few surprises.
A panda bear could have predicted this year’s winners they were so obvious, so I’m not going to make a big deal about the fact I correctly picked the outcome of the eight main awards in a blog last week. As I tell my kids, no one likes a showoff.
Gravity was the big winner on the night, going home with an impressive seven Oscars for Best Director, Cinematography, Original Score, Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects.
12 Years a Slave scooped the big award of the night for Best Picture, along with the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for the star of the evening, Lupita Nyong’o. It’s easy to see why Hollywood has fallen under the spell of this Yale educated, Kenyan actress. She graciously put these awards and the film industry into perspective when she said “It doesn’t escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else’s.”
Dallas Buyers Club had the men’s acting categories all sewn up with Jared Leto and Mathew McConaughey taking home Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor awards. Who would have ever thought the star of Failure to Launch and Fool’s Gold would one day be making an Oscar acceptance speech for playing an HIV infected AIDS activist.
American Hustle left the Oscar’s empty handed, a little embarrassing considering they got ten nominations, but Jennifer Lawrence exceeded expectations by falling over again – this time tripping over a road cone at the beginning of the red carpet. You’ve got to love this girl.
The list of winners might not feature any surprises, but they do represent a series of ‘firsts’ for the Oscars. Mexican Alfonso Cuaron is the first Latino to win the Best Director category, and British filmmaker Steve McQueen is the first black director to be at the helm of an Oscar winning Best Picture film. A feat no African American director has managed to pull off since the Awards began in 1929.
In fact, there was an impressive amount of foreigners taking the stage on Sunday evening. Apart from Cuaron and his team, McQueen and Nyong’o, Australia was also well represented by actress Cate Blanchett (Best Actress – Blue Jasmine) and Catherine Martin (Best Production Design and Costume – The Great Gatsby) who pulled her acceptance speech out of her bra.
Host Ellen DeGeneres did a perfectly good job of keeping things under control and entertaining the audience by cracking mostly kind jokes about the A-listers present, ordering pizza which she distributed to the front row, and by executing one of best product placement stunts by taking a selfie with some of her favourite celebrities using her Samsung Galaxy phone. Ellen then tweeted the photo, which broke the record for most retweets with 1.7 million in less than an hour and crashed the Twitter site. How 2014.
Here’s a full list of who went home with gold:
Best Picture
12 Years a Slave
Actor in a Leading Role
Matthew McConaughey - Dallas Buyers Club
Actor in a Supporting Role
Jared Leto - Dallas Buyers Club
Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett - Blue Jasmine
Actress in a Supporting Role
Lupita Nyong'o - 12 Years A Slave
Directing
Alfonso Cuaron - Gravity
Writing (adapted screenplay)"
12 Years A Slave - John Ridley
Writing (original screenplay)
Her - Spike Jonze
Animated Feature Film
Frozen
Documentary (feature)
20 Feet from Stardom
Music (original song)
Let it Go - Frozen - Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
Music (original score)
Gravity Steven Price
Visual Effects
Gravity
Cinematography
Gravity
Costume Design
The Great Gatsby
Makeup and hairstyling
Dallas Buyers Club
Film Editing
Gravity
Documentary (short subject)
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
Foreign Language Film
The Great Beauty - Italy
Short Film (live action)
Helium
Short Film (animated)
Mr. Hublot
Production Design
The Great Gatsby
Sound Editing
Gravity
Sound Mixing
Gravity