Frontrunners in major categories for the 86th Academy Awards have successfully proven their worth after winning their respective awards. “12 Years a Slave” was the biggest winner of the night after bagging the Best Picture award and the Best Adaptive Screenplay. “Gravity” and “American Hustle” were the closest rivals, but have failed to snatch the title. However, it was “Gravity” that raked the most number of wins, including a Best Director award for Alfonso Cuaron and 6 other awards mostly for the technical categories.
After an almost landslide win in other award giving bodies before the Oscars, the victory of Lupita Nyong’o as Best Supporting Actress for “12 Years a Slave” no longer came in as a surprise. Jared Leto also bagged the first big win of the night for his performance as a dying AIDS victim in “Dallas Buyers Club” where he was already expected to win as Best Supporting Actor.
Days before the Academy Awards, Leonardo DiCaprio was set to pull an upset for the Best Actor category after being denied of an award in the past years. However, frontrunner Matthew McConaughey did not let DiCaprio snatch the title and still went home with the award for his outstanding performance in “Dallas Buyers Club.” For the Best Actress category, Cate Blanchett already dominated in other award giving bodies prior to the Oscars for her performance in “Blue Jasmine.” Amy Adams of “American Hustle” and the multi-awarded Meryl Streep of “August: Osage County” were expected to possibly snatch the award away from Blanchett. However, Blanchett managed to win her second Oscars and delivered a heartfelt acceptance speech.
Disney’s “Frozen” won the Best Animated Film award and also took home the Best Original Song award for “Let It Go.” These victories were already expected though.
Scene Stealers of the Night
Probably the biggest highlight of the evening is when Ellen DeGeneres took an all-star selfie that immediately landed on top of Twitter. It set an instant record as the most retweeted tweet of all time. She has surpassed 1 million retweets in just one hour. Among the stars included in her photo were Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Lupita Nyong’o, Kevin Spacey and Bradley Cooper. Copper was the one who took the shot.
As expected, stars walked the red carpet in their most impressive evening wear. Among the standouts is Amy Adams in her well-fitted navy blue gown. Lupita Nyong’o also surpassed expectations in her princess like pale blue ball gown. Angelina Jolie also appeared glamorous with her husband Brad Pitt. After having a double mastectomy last year, Jolie came out proud with her newly restructured breasts.
However, the biggest scene stealer of the night was Liza Minelli in her electric blue trouser suit with a streak of blue dye on her hair. It was made more controversial with her nip slip. Whether she intentionally forgot to wear her bra or not, she definitely made a scene at the Oscars.
Jennifer Lawrence once again stumbled while walking on the red carpet. Last year, she also stumbled as she was walking towards the podium to receive her award. This prompted Ellen DeGeneres, the show’s host, to make a joke about it. She said that if Lawrence will win the Oscars, the trophy will be brought to her.
Pre-Oscars Controversies
As always, the Academy Awards won’t be completed without controversies. Topping the list is Woody Allen, the man behind Blue Jasmine. In February, an open letter was sent by Dylan Farrow, his adoptive daughter, which recounts the details of the sexual assault she suffered in the past. Allen has already denied this allegation before, but now that it resurfaced, it has totally affected his candidacy. A best picture nominee, Philomena, was also under fire after being branded as anti-Catholic. In fact, a documentary was released to counter the claims shown in the movie. Finally, “Alone Yet Not Alone” also became controversial after being nominated as Best Original Song, but was eventually pulled out.
This year’s Academy Awards has once again become a memorable event in Hollywood history.
Photo credit: Taken by Travis under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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