85th Annual Academy Awards... Ben Affleck received vindication tonight as his political thriller Argo took home the Oscar for Best Picture. Life of Pi's Ang Lee pulled off an upset on Steven Spielberg (Lincoln) and David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) by winning the trophy for Best Director, Quentin Tarantino won Best Original Screenplay for Django Unchained while Argo also got the nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. Catwoman—err, Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables, Christoph Waltz won another Best Supporting Actor trophy (as expected) for being in a Tarantino film (Django Unchained this year, Inglourious Basterds in 2010), Daniel Day-Lewis was crowned as Best Actor for his portrayal of the 16th U.S. president in Lincoln, and Jennifer Lawrence won Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. I was rooting for Jessica Chastain to get props for her portrayal as Maya in Zero Dark Thirty...up until I watched Lawrence hold her own against the likes of Robert De Niro in Playbook. You still cool in my book, Jessica.
Anyways— With the dry recap of who took home the gold this year now out of the way, just thought I'd mention that the 85th Annual Academy Awards were quite—interesting. Seth MacFarlane didn't disappoint in delivering gasp-inducing jokes such as the one about John Wilkes Booth being "the only actor to get inside Lincoln's head" ("150 years...and it's still too soon?"), the fact that Django Unchained was considered a "date movie" for violence-prone music artists Chris Brown and Rihanna, and singing a song about all the actresses who went topless on-screen [looks like Naomi Watts and (I think) Charlize Theron weren't so amused when their names were mentioned in this music number]. On another amusing note, I found it hilarious that the cast of The Avengers (Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Chris Evans and Samuel L. Jackson) was invited to present the award for Best Visual Effects...only to name Life of Pi as the winner and not Joss Whedon's hugely-successful comic book flick. Ditto with Norah Jones—who sang the Oscar-nominated tune for Seth MacFarlane's Ted (which Jones had a cameo in)...only to have the trophy (rightly) go to Adele for Skyfall (which had the rare accomplishment of sharing the Best Sound Editing award with Zero Dark Thirty). And lastly, imagine if the orchestra played the Jaws theme (to signify when a winner's speech went on one second too long during the ceremony) during Michelle Obama's presentation of Best Picture. Needless to say, the wrath of the White House against the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences would be much greater than the one heaped upon Zero Dark Thirty by Senator John McCain and his fellow congressmen. Then again, maybe not.
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