Monday, March 3, 2014

My Reaction to the 86th Academy Awards

        Well if you didn't know it, The Oscars were on last night and like everybody else I was watching and following along very closely and I even did my first live blog. As with every Oscars ceremonies there are always some great things and some very controversial things that happen or are said. With all of that being said I'm going to give you my 5 overall thoughts on the Oscars as well as a small look ahead to the 87th Academy Awards. So without further ado...






86th Academy Awards poster.jpg


Before I give you my overall thoughts let us recap the winners from last night...


Best Picture- 12 Years a Slave (Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen, Anthony Katagas, Bill Pohlad and Arnon Milchan)
Best Director- Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity)
Best Actor- Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club as Ron Woodroof)
Best Actress- Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine as Jeanette "Jasmine" Francis)
Best Supporting Actor- Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club as Rayon)
Best Supporting Actress- Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave as Patsey)
Best Original Screenplay- Her (Spike Jonze)
Best Adapted Screenplay- 12 Years a Slave (John Ridley)
Best Animated Feature- Frozen  (Chris Buck, Jennifer Lee, and Peter Del Vecho)
Best Foreign Language Film- The Great Beauty (Italy) (Paolo Sorrentino)
Best Documentary Feature Film- 20 Feet from Stardom (Morgan Neville, Gil Friesen, and Caitrin Rogers)
Best Documentary Short Film- The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life (Malcolm Clarke and Nicholas Reed)
Best Live Action Short Film- Helium (Anders Walter and Kim Magnusson)
Best Animated Short Film- Mr Hublot  (Laurent Witz and Alexandre Espigares)
Best Original Score- Gravity (Steven Price)
Best Original Song- "Let It Go" from Frozen (Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez)
Best Sound Editing- Gravity (Glenn Freemantle)
Best Sound Mixing- Gravity (Skip Lievsay, Niv Adiri, Christopher Benstead, and Chris Munro)
Best Production Design- The Great Gatsby  (Catherine Martin (Production Design)); (Beverley Dunn (Set Decoration))
Best Cinematography- Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki)
Best Makeup & Hairstyling- Dallas Buyers Club (Adruitha Lee and Robin Mathews)
Best Costume Design- The Great Gatsby (Catherine Martin)
Best Film Editing- Gravity ( Alfonso Cuaron and Mark Sanger)
Best Visual Effects- Gravity (Tim Webber, Chris Lawrence, Dave Shirk, and Neil Corbould)


Alright here are my 5 takeaways from The Oscars last night...

1. Although I missed my picks in four categories (which were my personal preferences I knew they wouldn't win), there were no real big real big surprises and no big robberies.
2. For the four that won in the acting categories, absolutely deserved it. Not to put the other nominees down as they could have easily won as well, they just were not as good as the 4 winners.
3. Somebody needs to let The Academy know that John Travolta never needs to come back to the Oscars unless he magically gets nominated for something. How hard is it to pronounce Idina Menzel.
4. The In Memoriam tribute was beautiful other than them leaving out Dennis Farina, and Tom Clancy and the song after the montage was over (it should have been played during the montage). People are complaining that the left out James Avery and Cory Monteith, but both of those guys (while their deaths were tragic) they were better known as TV stars so I can see why they were left out.
5. Finally we get to the big elephant in the room and that is host Ellen DeGeneres. Now I really like Ellen and her show is very enjoyable to watch and during her opening monologue started off great and then she went down hill from there. She had a couple of good jokes but she just didn't let loose like Seth McFarlene did last year (which made him a great host). Me personally after some of the jokes that McFarlene made last year, I think the Academy simply told Ellen to play it safe and just announce who was presenting next and they sort of reserved her talents.

Overall I'm going to give this years Oscars a 9 out of 10

Now looking forward to next year there are some great films coming out later this year (such as Grand Budapest Hotel and Interstellar) that will make next years Oscars very interesting and as for next year's host I don't think the Academy will bring back Ellen next year (eventhough the ratings for last night were the best since the 72nd Academy Awards) and I look for these people to be in contention to host The Oscars next year next year...

1. Neil Patrick Harris
2. Kevin Spacey
3. Justin Timberlake
4. Steve Martin
5. Kevin Hart
6. Jimmy Kimmel

        So ladies and gentlemen what were some of you overall impressions of last night's Oscars? Let me know in the comments section below and let your voice be heard.

                                                                                                                           Jonah Sparks

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