Oscar Pool 2013 pt.2

Throughout the entire Oscar broadcast, Josh continually checked his phone and giggled while reading his favorite comedians tweet their thoughts on the spectacle of the celebration. 

In a rare moment, there was a tie in the Best Sound Editing category. A collective gasp rolled in from the audience as Mark Whalberg assured everyone it wasn’t a gag. “No BS,” he said.

Adam “MCA” Yauch and Nora Ephron were two of the very few who elicited an audible applause during the memoriam montage that honored well known, and some not-so well known, contributors to modern and classic cinema.

Quentin Tarantino took home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. “Yeah I know. I know. I’m getting off,” he said as the music began to play… “Peace out.” 

The night’s first standing ovation went to Ang Lee when he won Best Director for “Life of Pi. “Thank you movie God,” he began. Our room exploded after this Spielberg-upset.  Toward the end of his speech, Lee thanked his lawyer and got some hearty laughs from the crowd. “I have to do that,” he said.

Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for her performance in “Silver Linings Playbook.” She had a misstep on her way up the stage, but shrugged it off pretty well with, “You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that’s really embarrassing, but thank you.” 

I’m kicking your guys’ asses,” Josh humbly reminded us, checking off his fifteenth correct win.

Daniel Day-Lewis became the first actor to win three Best Actor awards. “Greatest actor of all time - you can safely say that now,” Josh said. Lewis referred to his fellow nominees as “betters” and thanked his wife for living with numerous, different men (his characters... I'm guessing) over the years.

Michelle Obama made a video feed appearance to introduce the Best Picture category, before handing it back to Jack Nicholson. “And the Oscar goes to... ‘Argo,’” he said with his classic grin.

And the director of “Argo,” Ben Affleck kept it classy with a great speech that not only looked back on his win for “Good Will Hunting,” but gave props to Canada.

Photobomb by Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Overall, I really like this year’s Academy Awards. So often, one film sweeps or at least wins several of the major awards. This year, the major awards were pretty evenly dispersed among all the major nominees: “Argo,” “Life of Pi,” “Lincoln,” “Django Unchained” and “Les Miserables” were all pretty equally recognized. 

“I liked it, Josh said. “He did a good job (referring to MacFarlane’s hosting duty execution). Last couple years have been super boring.”

Garrett came in fourth with 5 wins on his ballot, Annie came in third with 8 wins, I came in second with 10 and Josh took home the gold with 17… but he cheated.

I had a great night. I began this blog thinking I would focus on awards in general, but I‘ve found myself gravitating back to the Academy Awards. I don’t hold a grudge against the Oscars or the Academy’s voting trends. It might seem like I do, but I truly love this celebration of creativity. I don’t see it as an entire community giving each other shoulder massages. I see it as an encouraging pat on the back to those who truly love creating and sharing their work. Of course there’s a degree of overindulgence, but there’s a lot of love too. These people love what they do, and I find that inspiring.