The 85th Academy Awards honored not only the best films of 2012, but as always–the actors, actresses, directors, and other crew members who make these films the purest form of entertainment that they can be. The night began with unexpected host Seth Macfarlane cracking jokes about the nominees, engaging in lighthearted fun with audience, and even participating in several musical numbers. Although one might argue that a good amount of Macfarlane’s jokes were based on racism, sexism, and the likes of on-again Chris Brown and Rihanna, overall his performance was witty and at times–hilarious.
The biggest and most intense moment of the night of the Oscars is always when the Best Picture of the year is named, and it undoubtedly was again when Argo was crowned. Besides winning the Oscar for Best Picture, Argo also scored the Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Ang Lee won Best Director for Life of Pi, for the most part surprising the audience especially since he shared the category with Steven Spielberg. However, the competiton for Best Animated Feature proved to be nonexistent when Brave won the Oscar. In the category of Best Actor, Daniel Day-Lewis pulled out the win for his role in Lincoln, portraying none other than the 16th President of the United States himself. Day-Lewis beat out both Bradley Cooper’s riveting acting skills in Silver Linings Playbook and Hugh Jackman’s captivating performance in Les Misérables. As for Best Actress, Jennifer Lawrence was victorious with her role as troubled widow Tiffany Maxwell in Silver Linings Playbook. The 22 year-old made her usual modestly mature acceptance speech–after falling up the stairs to accept her Oscar.
Django Unchained snagged its first out of two Oscars of the night with the win of Christoph Waltz as Best Supporting Actor. Then, Les Misérables won one of its three Oscars of the evening when Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for her emotional role as Fantine in the original French musical. Hathaway cried as her Oscar statue was being engraved with her name backstage, as this is the first Academy Award she’s ever won.
Not only did the Academy praise the actors, actresses, and directors of the year’s top movies, but also the writers, musicians, artists, and cinematographers who contributed to the films’ successes as well. For Best Original Screenplay, Quentin Tarantino won for Django Unchained, repeating his past success in the same category with 1994’s Pulp Fiction. Adele collected her very first Oscar for “Skyfall”, from Skyfall, which was named Best Original Song. Claudio Miranda took home Best Cinematography for Life of Pi, while the Best Makeup and Hair Styling went to Lisa Westcott and Julie Dartnell for Les Misérables. Finally, Best Production Design was aquired by Rick Carter and Jim Erickson for Lincoln, and Jacqueline Durran earned Best Costume Design for Anna Karenina.
