Thanks, Equipoise. You missed the Original Screenplay winner – “Her,” I believe, no?
Ooops. And that was my favorite win of the night too! Too excited.
Ellen was an awesome host.
Glad to see Lupita, Jonze, Cuaron, and McQueen getting their due.
Though I fear Leo will never get his.
Best Picture goes to the producer(s). They hired the director, and everything followed from there. If they hadn’t chosen to produce the film, it wouldn’t have happened. Unless the director was the producer, or a co-producer.
The movie that wins either tends to win both, so to that extent, they do, sort of. I think it’s reasonable that acting, script, etc. will occasionally push a different movie over the top.
Anyway, thanks to everyone for this thread. Btw, I happen to have heard just this past week that Mr. Ford is a big stoner, from someone who had an unpleasant encounter with him (nothing too interesting, I think, but I forget the details).
and in the case of 12 years a slave the director was one of the producers. it was wonderful to see how excited mr mcqueen was by the win.
i was a bit concerned that gravity may have edged 12 years out.
I can’t believe Steve McQueen doesn’t use a middle initial or something. It’s R by the way. or initials. S.R. McQueen has a nice ring to it. Yeah, he’s the living one in the industry, and you’d never mistake them in a lineup, but while webs will forever list him as Steve McQueen (director), in my head I’m thinking (black) Steve McQueen.
It was in Old School. When Vince Vaughn needed to say something off-color in front of his kids he would say “earmuffs”. He must have done it a lot because the kids would instantly know to cover their ears.
I’m late to the party, but the most true line of the night was the “joke” about either **12 Years a Slave **wins or we are all racists. I know the Academy likes an epic about a Noble Subject (“Make a Holocaust movie, Winslet”) and I am ecstatic that Gravity didn’t win, but 12 Years a Slave taught us nothing new and won because it kind of had to.
Nothing about Kim Novak’s face?
Y’all are so nice.
Yeah, I was disappointed by 12 Years’ win. I saw it, and it was good, but I thought it was the fifth or sixth best picture of the year*. It was very sledge-hammery and Brad Pitt’s short scene very much seemed like producer Brad Pitt was parachuted into the movie to make some wise observations about slavery and then save the day. Anyway I had all kinds of complaints about it, and I hope it didn’t really win because the subject matter pushed it over the top.
Folks who haven’t seen Nebraska - it’s available on video/streaming now, so see it as soon as you can. June Squibb was only one of the delightful things about that movie.
Aside from the BP award, I was pretty satisfied with the rest of the winners. Gravity deserved BD and the technical awards sweep. All of the acting wins were expected and deserved. Ellen was serviceable - not terribly edgy, but that’s what the producers want. Safe and funny enough.
Oh, I’m so glad they brought back performances for the Best Song nominees. Didn’t they eliminate those last year? I also liked the Wizard of Oz tribute.
*No reason you would care, but my favorite movies of the year were:
- Blue Jasmine
- American Hustle
- Nebraska
- Her
- Gravity
- Dallas Buyer’s Club
Sally Fields sure is aging well!
my random thoughts: Why did Brad PItt have that awful weird haircut? Darlene Love, Pink, and Idina Menzel were the highlights for me. What great voices. Ellen was disappointing, boring. Bring on Jimmy Fallon, or Neil Patrick Harris to host. So glad Bill Murray mentioned Howard Ramis. forgettable show.
I agree on the technical awards, but Best Director is a tough one. Do you reward directing special effects or getting great performances out of actors? I would have given it to Alexander Payne for the latter.
And yes, Brad Pitt’s turn in 12 Years a Slave was so…clumsy.
Or Steven McQueen. Sounds more ‘directory’.
Of course, as time goes on, and he becomes more well-known, young people well say, “Did you know there used to be an actor named Steve McQueen back in the olden days?”
That’s what I came here looking for. Disappointed. 
And not just her face (much obvious bad work done) but I wondered if she’d had a stroke recently.
It’s a minority opinion, but my favorite part of each Oscar telecast is the film montages, and I thought they were poorly done. Animation was kinda random – you’d think it would lead into the Best Animated category. And the one about “heroes” (apparently) caught me off guard – I thought it was about real-life heroes, unti Atticus Finch popped up.
And Bette shoulda sung her song during the In Memoriam, not after. Just dragged it out unecessarily.
Where was George Clooney? Tom Hanks? Denzel Washington? Tom Cruise? Affleck & Damon? (I missed the red carpet, so if they were there, fine…but they never got on camera during the ceremony)
And just to be clear, neither of those guys is any relation to Lightning McQueen.
Yeah, Kim Novak looked rough. And seemed a little crazy. It was somewhat random to have her there presenting - had she been in anything/done anything in the industry for the last 40 years?
Travolta lost some weight and got a better surgeon - he looked way better than he has in a while.
And I know I’ll probably be called some bad name for this, but Lupita looked awful in that dress. It was a beautiful dress, and she’s clearly in excellent shape and I’m sure she’s a nice person and super talented or whatever, but a plunging necklace looks terrible on her. Her chest looks like a 14 year old boy’s chest, and it was distracting and very unattractive.
I thought the clip packages were awful - just kinda sitting there, a random string of clips. And the Wizard of Oz tribute was dull - why not do a nice package of film clips and still photos from the set or something? We’ve all seen the movie 100 times, we don’t really need to see the Reader’s Digest version.
And I agree that Midler should have sang during the necrology instead of after it. Although I think they did a good job including who they should have included for a general viewing audience - big name actors even if the weren’t 100 years old, like Paul Walker. The producers must have been freaking out over the past three weeks as big names kept dying. And I was glad to see they put in Harold Ramis and put Phillip Seymour Hoffman at the end. I wish they would do some kind of special tribute next year for each of them, instead of random file clips.
Too bad Gil Cates is gone - he was the greatest Oscar producer ever. He had the touch.
Jeez guys, Kim Novak is 81*, cut her some slack…
*Of course, her face is much younger.
What they should have done: 1939 is generally acknowledged as the best year EVER for Hollywood. They could have done a great montage of the amazing films that came out that year: Gone with the Wind, Stagecoach, Oz, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Goodbye Mr Chips, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka…instead of an opportunity to hear Yet Another Version of Rainbow for the billionth time.
The problem with the montages was that they played “guess that theme” instead of explaining the theme and tying it together with the presenters and awards.
The theme was “Heroes”, which were referenced in:
- Montage of animated heroes
- Montage of “ordinary” heroes (people doing extraordinary things, rather than superheroes or action heroes)
- Montage of traditional movie heroes (basically superheroes and action heroes, with a few classic mold movie heroes thrown in)
- Bette Midler singing her song about heroes in tribute to the people being memorialized
I think it all would have worked just fine if Ellen or anyone else had bothered to mention it and tie it all together. They could have referenced the heroic elements of the Best Picture nominees, or by introducing presenters with heroic roles they played, or just by letting us know what the heck they were doing.
That said, I enjoyed the show very much, as I almost always do, and found myself laughing quite a bit at Ellen, although I thought the pizza bit went on too long (I could have done without the collecting money part). And leave it to Matthew McConaughey to finally tie it all today with a speech about how he is his own hero (is there a gagging smilie?)