Post-Oscar Post

Another year, another Oscars.  I thought Seth MacFarlane did a passable job, and mostly kept things moving.  Overall the production was okay, some so-so moments but no huge clunkers (except the First Lady giving out the Best Picture award--this is Hollywood's big night, let's not have politicians horn in on it).  But who cares. Let's talk about the winners.

Christoph Waltz won the first award given out, Best Supporting Actor--that wasn't expected (and wasn't deserved) and suggested a suprising night which didn't really happen, but at least it kept us on edge.

Here are all the awards, in fact:

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Best Animated Short Film: Paperman
Best Animated Feature Film: Brave
Achievement in Cinematography: Life of Pi, Claudio Miranda
Achievement in Visual Effects: Life of Pi
Achievement in Costume Design: Anna Karenina, Jacqueline Durran
Achievement in Makeup & Hairstyling: Les Misérables
Best Live-Action Short Film: Curfew
Best Documentary Short Subject: Inocente
Best Documentary Feature: Searching for a Sugar Man
Best Foreign-Language Film: Amour (Austria)
Achievement in Sound Mixing: Les Misérables
Achievement in Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty & Skyfall
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Achievement in Film Editing: Argo
Achievement in Production Direction: Lincoln
Original Score: Life of Pi, Mychael Danna
Original Song: "Skyfall," Adele Adkins & Paul Epworth; Skyfall
Adapted Screenplay: Argo, Chris Terrio
Original Screenplay: Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino
Achievement in Directing: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Best Motion Picture: Argo

Lincoln for Production Design was a bit of a surprise, as was Tarantino for Original Screenplay and Lee for Best Director, but none of these were shocking.  The only real shock was a tie in Sound Editing. And Jennifer Lawrence tripping on her way to receive her Oscar.

The Oscars were fairly spread out.  Life Of Pi won the most awards, with four. Lincoln, which looked like a juggernaut when the nominations were announced, took only two, though that includes Best Actor.  Django won two, both major and neither exactly expected.  Les Mis took three, mostly minor.  Zero Dark Thirty won only one (which it had to share).  Silver Linings Playbook, a rare film to get four acting nods, won only one Oscar, but it was a big one, Best Actress. Argo won Best Picture, but won only three overall, quite low for the big winner.

By the way, my post yesterday included my predictions, but I didn't say how.  If you look at the photo next to each category, they show what I expected to win (as opposed to what I wanted to win).  How'd I do?  Nine out of fifteen (though I got pretty much every other category that I didn't mention yesterday).  Not good, but in a  night where everyone knew they were going to spread the wealth, predictions were tough.