2012 marked a significant year for me as a film buff.
This year, after a really long lie-in and a practically redundant nap, I stayed up to pull off my first Oscars all-nighter.
After bitching about some of the dresses (it looked like Shailene Woodley stripped a wedding cake of its marzipan and made into a dress from the 1930’s) and entertained about the stunt by Sacha Baron Cohen, it was time to dive into the 84th Academy Awards.
For the first hour or so (during which there were a million ad breaks and Alex Zane was pretty unbearable, as well as unsuitable, as a in-between host), Hugo starts sweeping the technical awards, including the award for Best Visual Effects – one that I feel should have gone to Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not because of my deep hatred for Martin Scorsese’s supposed ‘family adventure’ (a term so loosely used…) but RotPotA added an extra dimension to their film with its use of motion capture, without needing to cash in on the 3D bonanza taking over our cinemas.
First major award was ‘Supporting Actress,’ which went to The Help‘s Octavia Spencer, who has been the award season’s frontrunner in this category. The Artist‘s Bérénice Bejo should have been included in the ‘Best Actress’ category (unless the Academy thought that Missi Pyle’s short appearance counted as the main female performance in the film) and Jessica Chastain could have been nominated for Tree of Life or Take Shelter; she was easily overshadowed by Spencer in The Help.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo winning ‘Best Film Editing’ was a surprise, but then again, that trailer with that cover of ‘The Immigrant Song’ should have been a clear indicator…(see below if you need to refresh your memory)
I was very excited to see Kermit and Miss Piggy at the ceremony, especially since the campaign for the Muppets to host the Academy Awards was unsuccessful. Hurrah for Bret McKenzie beating the competition of, ummm….one fellow nominee, to ‘Best Original Song’ for Man or Muppet?
Still the highlight of the Muppets movie 🙂
The main categories were not much of a surprise – the eventual winners were the frontrunners from the start, except Midnight in Paris for ‘Best Original Screenplay’; I half expected that to go to the big winner of the evening, The Artist.
Following the somewhat cruel (I’m not afraid to type it) snub for the Best Actor BAFTA, it was cool to see Gary Oldman nominated for the first time in his prolific career but in the back of my mind, I had hoped to see George Clooney lift the award for his touching and almost bittersweet performance in The Descendants, as well as Viola Davis for The Help. Alas, you cannot compete with Streep and star of the moment, Jean Dujardin.
Billy Crystal was entertaining and I was almost expecting him to pull off a miracle (heehee…), so the evening was not just random actors/actresses unemotionally reading the teleprompter (example: Emma Stone – I wonder what she’d be like hosting the MTV Awards….). I just hope next year that will a bit more controversial or have more surprising winners.
Musings of Guitargalchina 