Liveblogging: The 85th Annual Academy Awards

Song Lyric of the Day:

Something still unclear / Something not yet here / Has begun. / Suddenly the world / Seems a different place / Somehow full of grace / And delight. / How was I to know / That so much love / Was held inside me?

Les Miserables Cast / “Suddenly

8:25PM

My predictions for who will take home Oscars tonight:

Picture — Argo; all signs have been pointing to this winning

Actor — Hugh Jackman; who doesn’t love Hugh? More people love him than Daniel Day-Lewis

Actress — Jessica Chastain; it’s her year

Supporting Actor — Philip Seymour Hoffman; The Master got people talking

Supporting Actress — Anne Hathaway; she’s lobbied her ass off for this and I think it will pay off

Animated Feature Film — Wreck-It-Ralph; it was more beloved than Brave

Directing — David O. Russell; I think Silver Linings Playbook resonated emotionally with people more than Lincoln did. And, you know, Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated since Argo magically directed itself.

Foreign Language Film — Amour; mostly because it’s the one I’ve heard the most about

Original Song — “Skyfall” by Adele; this one’s a no-brainer

8:31PM

Argo tells the previously classified story about an American hostage rescue in post-revolutionary Iran. Now, the story was so top secret that the film’s director is unknown to the Academy.” Well said, Seth.

8:34PM

On Django Unchained: “This is the story of a man fighting to get back his woman who’s been subjected to unthinkable violence. Or as Chris Brown and Rihanna call it, a date movie.” Now there’s the Seth MacFarlane we know and love. And expect.

8:38PM

Captain James T. Kirk plays a recording of a song Seth will sing which will ruin the Oscars, “We Saw Your Boobs”: Kate Winslet in Heavenly Creatures and Jude and Hamlet and Titanic and Iris and Little Children and The Reader and whatever you’re shooting right now. We saw your boobs. We saw your boobs.

Seth: “Just so you know, I’m not actually a member of that (Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles) chorus. I was just joining in at the end there.”

Captain Kirk: “Oh, trust me, in July 2015, you join the chorus.”

8:41PM

A sock-puppet version of Flight? I’d watch that.

8:47PM

I love that Channing Tatum, Charlize Theron, Daniel Radcliffe, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt joined Seth and the chorus on stage for that last song, “Be Our Guest.” A new Broadway musical starring all of them is already in development.

8:50PM

First Oscar of the night goes to Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained. I picked this one wrong, but I’m happy — Waltz is a great actor. “I borrowed my character’s words. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.”

8:56PM

I hope Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy go backstage and slap the writers who wrote their awful dialogue.

8:57PM

“Paperman” wins for Animated Short Film.

8:59PM

Brave wins for Animated Feature Film. Good thing I didn’t bet any money on my picks, eh?

9:05PM
The Avengers is was the most popular movie of the year, which is why it was only nominated once.” And out come Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jeremy Renner.

9:07PM

Claudio Miranda wins for Cinematography for Life of Pi. Deservedly so.

9:10PM

Life of Pi wins for Visual Effects. The team got played off by the Jaws theme. That was a bit harsh. In an ironic way, considering their movie is about a man and a tiger adrift in a boat, no?

9:16PM

At least I didn’t bet on whether or not Jennifer Aniston would’ve branched out style-wise. Woman, do something different!

9:18PM
Costume Design goes to Jacqueline Durran for Anna Karenina. Les Miserables wins for Makeup and Hairstyling. Now we’ll never hear the end of Anne Hathaway’s short hair — it’s been validated.

9:24PM

Loved the Bond tribute. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Academy for the shot of Daniel Craig in the blue swim briefs. Sigh. And, oh, Sean Connery, we miss seeing you on screen.

9:27PM

Dammmmmmn, Shirley Bassey! Woman’s still got some pipes on her. Kudos on the much-deserved standing O.

9:34PM

Shawn Christensen wins Live Action Short Film for Curfew. Documentary Short Subject goes to Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine for Inocente. Which by all appearances has nothing to do with the concept of “inocente” Modern Family introduced us to last year.

9:41PM

Discussing actors who have portrayed Lincoln, Seth comments, “I would argue, however, that the actor who really got inside Lincoln’s head was John Wilkes Booth.” The audience groans in horror. “Really? A hundred and fifty years and it’s still too soon, huh?” Switching gears to praise Ben Affleck’s upward trajectory: “I feel like we’re six months away from having to call him Benjamin Affleck … I thought we cut this joke, but really, you wanna do it? The first time I saw him with all that dark facial hair, I thought, ‘My God, the Kardashians have finally made the jump to film.'” When the audience laughs, Seth adds, “OK, alright, so it worked. This is why it’s live.”

9:44PM
Malik Bendjelloul and Simon Chinn’s “Searching for Sugar Man wins for Documentary Feature.

9:49PM

“It’s Sunday, everybody’s dressed up. This is like church, only with more people praying.” Jennifer Garner and Jessica Chastain come onstage to present the next award. Jennifer’s dress looks like it’s birthing Big Bird’s cousin, while Jessica is almost invisible thanks to her dress color washing her out. She’s far too pale for that dress.

9:50PM

Amour (unsurprisingly) wins for Foreign Language Film. Finally, one of my picks wins!

I need to take a break, make some popcorn, walk around or something. This year’s ceremony is very boring so far. Oh, I can write a blog post for tomorrow, too. I’ll still be watching and liveblogging this, though.

9:53PM

I really wish John Travolta would give up the hairpieces. His hair tonight looks like something I’d find on one of Coraline’s Little People dolls. Or a Lego person.

10:12PM

Mark Paterson, Simon Hayes, and Andy Nelson win the Oscar for Sound Mixing for Les Miserables. I need to hurry up and see that movie.

I’m kind of weirded out by Ted co-presenting with Mark Wahlberg. Guess we know who drew the short straw tonight.

There’s an audible gasp from the audience when Mark Wahlberg announces there’s a tie for Sound Editing: one Oscar goes to Paul N.J. Ottosson for Zero Dark Thirty and the other goes to Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers for Skyfall. I can’t even remember the last time there was a tie for an Oscar.

Thank you, Google. Now I know this was only the third tie in Oscar history.

10:22PM

Surprising absolutely no one, the Oscar for Supporting Actress goes to Anne Hathaway. You just know she’s had her speech memorized for weeks now.

10:34PM

A win for Argo: William Goldenberg for Film Editing.

Jennifer Lawrence looks like a living Barbie doll — in a good way — when she introduces Adele to sing “Skyfall.” They may as well hand her the Oscar mid-performance.

10:47PM

Seth introduces presenters Daniel Radcliffe and Kristen Stewart: “He’s a boy wizard and she’s a girl vampire. So together they’re pretty much everything the Christian right says is wrong with Hollywood.” I imagine presenting will be the closest Kristen ever gets to an Oscar.

Rick Carter and Jim Erickson win the Oscar for Production Design for Lincoln, the only nominated movie other than Amour I’m not that interested in seeing.

10:50PM

Oh. My. God. This year’s ceremony is soooooo boring! There hasn’t even been an interesting/funny/entertaining/amusing/notable/stirring acceptance speech in the bunch. When the host is the only person worth quoting tonight, something is wrong.

10:56PM

George Clooney introduces the In Memoriam segment. Time to get the tissues.

The final tribute, to composer Marvin Hamlisch, seques into Barbra Streisand singing “The Way We Were.”

11:10PM

Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, Queen Latifah, and Richard Gere give a coma-inducing presentation. The applause when Mychael Danna wins for Original Score for Life of Pi woke me up.

Oh, look the four most boring presenters of the night are back. Yawn.

11:15PM

Oh, look, Adele wins Original Song for “Skyfall.” As surprising a win as Anne Hathaway earlier tonight. Not. I need to go and buy the song in iTunes already. At least Adele’s speech made me happy — peppiest speech of the night.

11:22PM

If only the rest of us mere mortal women could pull off a hairdo as short as Charlize Theron’s and look even halfway decent.

Chris Terrio wins Adapted Screenplay for Argo, further convincing me the movie is going to win Best Picture later.

11:26PM

Woohoo! Knoxville native Quentin Tarantino wins for Original Screenplay for Django Unchained. Our hometown boy done good.

11:30PM

How are the Oscars not done yet? It’s not like anyone gave an extra-long speech tonight. Eh. I’m going to walk the dogs now.

11:34PM

Wow — Ang Lee won the Directing Oscar for Life of Pi. Didn’t see that one coming.

11:43PM

Holy crap — Jennifer Lawrence wins Actress in a Leading Role for Silver Linings Playbook. And she tripped on the stairs on her way to the podium. It looks like Hugh Jackman rushed to help her. (See? He deserves an Oscar just for being a gentleman.) I thought Jennifer’s speech reflected her genuine surprise at winning.

11:47PM

Presenter Meryl Streep cuts to the chase, doesn’t she? And the Oscar goes to Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln. Again, I’m glad I didn’t bet any money on my picks this year.

Ha — Daniel says he’d been committed to playing Margaret Thatcher three years ago and Meryl Streep was actually Steven Spielberg’s first choice to play Lincoln. He goes on to pay lovely tribute to his wife. Color me impressed.

11:52PM

A late surprise: Jack Nicholson introduces FLOTUS Michelle Obama via satellite to help present Best Picture.

And the Oscar goes to Argo. Yay! The win is all the more impressive since it directed itself.

“I want to thank my wife, who I don’t normally associate with Iran, but, uh … I want to thank you for working on our marriage for ten Christmases. It’s good, it is work, but it’s the best kind of work. And there’s no one I’d rather work with.” I get why Ben moved Jennifer to tears. Sweet that Ben choked up when he dedicated his award to his kids: “Violet, Sam, and Sera, I love you. This is for you.”

And now it’s time for bed.

2 Comments

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2 Responses to Liveblogging: The 85th Annual Academy Awards

  1. Oh my GOD!!! We should have done this live together. I never watched the Oscars, ever, but this year, my sister and I did, and shared a rare bonding moment.
    We got pissed (at the boob song), we laughed hysterically, I was annoyed at everything Les Mis (I read the book when I was ten, all volumes, forced upon me by my mother and my aunt and will forever hate anything by Victor Hugo).
    So so annoyed at Ann Hathaway.
    I have so much to say, but lets resume, Booo at the boob song, awesome Charlize Theron (my definite girl crush), cried at Barbara Streisand (my mom’s favorite all time singer), wtf at Michelle O (though she’s hot and heck, why not), loved Ben’s speech, which was real and raw.
    Sad that my fave movie got nothing (Beasts of Southern Wild), glad that the child actress didn’t win, as I believe that a child is TOOOOO young in crazy Hollyweird to have an oscar and not get messed up for life.

    • administrator

      That would have been fun! đŸ™‚ I’m laughing at your hatred of everything Les Mis and Anne Hathaway. I think she got on everyone’s nerves this awards season — I know she did mine. I definitely think Ben’s speech was one of the high points of the evening. Overall, I think it was the usual hit-and-miss show we get with every Oscars. Agreed that the little girl was too young to have won; I really don’t want to see her on Celebrity Rehab someday.

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