Everything You Need to Have Seen From Last Night's Oscars
The Academy Awards have come and gone, and can you even remember them? I can—almost. Neil Patrick Harris had a briefcase, from what I can recall, and Birdman won (I think) all of the trophies. Also: It rained. Let's take a look back at the memorable moments, of which there were few.
On the rain-soaked red carpet, Dakota Johnson mom was so embarrassing about Dakota's sex movie, jesus christ, mom, holy shit, on her big night?, come on, and also Tegan and Sara looked great.
[There was a video here]
Neil Patrick Harris opened the show with a joke about how the room was filled with "Hollywood's best and whitest," which would be funny if it weren't so uncomfortably and upsettingly true and unlikely to change in the near future.
The musical introduction, featuring Harris and Anna Kendrick, was met with—I'm guessing—audible sounds of non-enjoyment from your entire Oscar viewing party. Though it was cloying and lengthy, it, at the very least, served to remind us of the great importance of film. Films: What would we do without them? Not watch films? I couldn't imagine.
[There was a video here]
The Grand Budapest Hotel won a surprising amount of awards. At multiple points throughout the night a stilted actor would announce the winner of an award and you'd look down at your Oscar pool sheet and think, "Wait, why did I pick The Grand Budapest Hotel to win this? I mean, I'm glad I did, but—."
Another Grand Budapest Hotel-related surprise was Wes Anderson's girlfriend, who seemed nice enough.
One of the best moments of the night came after Ida won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Director Pawel Pawlikowski straight up refused to get off of the stage when the band demanded he do so, ultimately defeating their orchestral shade and earning a little Pawel Pawlikowski-shaped place in all of our hearts. Our baby!
[There was a video here]
Neil Patrick Harris had a skull dick.
People won awards, blah, blah, blah. Miles Teller did not ask Margot Robbie out on a date, though he should have. More awards, blah, blah. Rita Ora, whoever that is, bowed. This guy held his trophy like a dick, which seems honest. Patricia Arquette demanded that women get paid, and Meryl Streep agreed.
Of course, it wasn't all wealthy white pretenders accepting accolades for Best Pretend—also dead people were remembered. Did your favorite dead person get a snowy shout-out? If your favorite dead person is Joan Rivers, she, for some reason, did not. Unfortunate for you. (On the bright side, if your favorite dead person is Gabriel Garcia Marquez, he did!)
[There was a video here]
Like we noted at the top, there were very few "memorable" moments to be found within tonight's ceremony, and perhaps not a single moment that could be deemed "viral." No "left sharks" here, for sure. (Remember?) No "Adele Nazeem." (Though they tried, and there were a few John Travolta moments, which we will get to in a sec.)
However, Terrance Howard did seem super fucked up, which was, um, fun:
[There was a video here]
And Neil Patrick Harris had a fun little dig at Jennifer Aniston, an actress who, by the way, is fine.
What else? Perhaps the single sincerely enjoyable and worthwhile bit of the show was John Legend and Common's performance of their now Academy Award-winning song "Glory," which—haha—moved actor Chris Pine to tears.
Lady Gaga sang and was good at it, which surprised some people, even though she is a professional singer.
John Travolta and Idina Menzel presented an award together in order to address last year's "Adele Nazeem" blooper, the likes of which were—unfortunate for both the academy and the Internet content academy—not duplicated during this ceremony. John did get, uhhh, ahhh, eeeehhhhhh, rather handsy, however.
Well, here’s a weird picture of Scarlett Johansson and John Travolta at the #Oscars: http://t.co/uv6KXxyIcn pic.twitter.com/jFlDSJ3Kko
— Vulture (@vulture) February 23, 2015
After winning the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, Imitation Game writer Graham Moore spoke about his own attempted suicide. You can watch the speech and read the full text here.
To close the show, roughly 400 hours after it was supposed to have ended, following a lengthy briefcase-related Neil Patrick Harris bit that, jesus christ, should have been cut for time, my goodness, Sean Penn made a weird, racist joke about director Alejandro González Iñárritu:
[There was a video here]
Award shows: they're always great, never uncomfortable, and for sure never four hours too long.
Finally, let's take a look at some reactions from around the web:
The Oscars are a sad joke, very much like our President. So many things are wrong!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 23, 2015
I saw the Oscar show tonight was terrific.
— Larry King (@kingsthings) February 23, 2015
Great! And here's your full list of winners:
Best Supporting Actor: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Achievement in Costume Design: Milena Canonero, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling: Frances Hannon, Mark Coulier, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Foreign Language Film: Ida (Poland)
Best Live Action Short Film: The Phone Call
Best Documentary Short Subject: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Achievement in Sound Mixing: Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley, Whiplash
Achievement in Sound Editing: Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman, American Sniper
Best Supporting Actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Achievement in Visual Effects: Paul Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter and Scott Fisher, Interstellar
Best Animated Short: Feast
Best Animated Feature: Big Hero 6
Achievement in Production Design: Adam Stockhausen (Production Design); Anna Pinnock (Set Decoration), The Grand Budapest Hotel
Achievement in Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki, Birdman
Achievement in Film Editing: Tom Cross, Whiplash
Best Documentary Feature: Citizenfour
Best Original Song: "Glory," Selma
Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, The Grand Budapest Hotel
Best Original Screenplay: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. & Armando Bo, Birdman
Best Adapted Screenplay: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game
Best Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman
Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Best Actress: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Best Picture: Birdman