by Isabelle Esteves

Created on: February 26, 2013

The 85th Annual Academy Awards have come and gone and there were very few surprises. Seth MacFarlane hosted the long winded award show and while the jury is still out on how good of a job he did, it appears that the show did appeal to the 18-49 age group which is what they were shooting for.  Hosting the show is a thankless job and while he is no Billy Crystal,  he is also no James Franco and Anne Hathaway.  Twitter was blazing last night with over 8.9 million tweets about the Oscars. 

The highlight of the evening was the appearance of First Lady Michelle Obama to help Jack Nicholson present the award for the Best Picture which went to “Argo”.  Ben Affleck proved that he is a gentleman when he seemed to forgive the academy for snubbing him in the Best Director category.  Among the films that did not win the award were “Lincoln”, “Les Miserable”, “Django Unchained” and “Life of Pi”.

In the Best Actor category, Daniel Day Lewis made Oscar history by being the first man to ever win three Best Actor Oscars. He was very humble in his acceptance speech and when he suggested that he had turned down the role of Margaret Thatcher that Meryl Streep got and she had been Spielberg’s first choice for Lincoln, you could see everyone’s mind considering the possibilities that this casting would have provided. He called the losers his equals and his betters and they included Hugh Jackman, Bradley Cooper, Denzel Washington and Joaquin Phoenix, certainly a formidable group of nominees.

Jennifer Lawrence wowed everyone in Dior couture and when she stumbled on the steps to accept her Best Actress award, she endeared herself more. She was given a standing ovation which she thanked the audience for and commented that she was sure it was because they felt bad for her for falling. She beat out Jessica Chastain, Emmanuelle Riva, 9 year old Quvenzhane Wallis and Naomi Watts for the award.

In the Best Actress in a supporting role, Anne Hathaway was not a surprise winner for her role of the tragic Fontine in the epic movie  “Les Miserables”.  She beat out Sally Field who was outstanding as Mary Todd Lincoln, Amy Adams, Helen Hunt and Jacki Weaver.

The award for Best Actor in a supporting role went to Christoph Waltz for his performance in “Djano Unchained”. The losers were Alan Arkin, Robert DeNiro, Tommy Lee Jones and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

With so many big films and so many big directors it was refreshing to see Ang Lee win for the Life of Pi. He beat out Steven Spielberg for “Lincoln , Michael Haneke for “Amour , Benh Zeitlin for  “Beasts of the Southern Wild” and David O. Russell for “Silver Linings Playbook”.

The high points of the evening were performances by Barbara Streisand, Shirley Bassey,  Adele and Jennifer Hudson.  The entertainment award certainly goes to the women.

At over three hours, the main complaint about this show is always the length. When you consider the pre-show red carpet and the after shows, it is endless.  It is more than time that they take a lesson from some of the other shows and only do the top awards live at the show. It might actually get people to watch again.  

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