“Gravity,” director Alfonso Cuaron’s technical achievement, took home the lion’s share of awards Sunday night at the 86th Annual Academy Awards. The film, nominated in 10 categories, took home 7 Oscars, including two for Cuaron: Best Director and Best Film Editing. The film also took home awards for Visual Effects, Sound, Sound Editing, Cinematography and Best Original Score.
The award for Best Picture went to Steve McQueen’s “12 Years a Slave,” which also took home awards for Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress for Lupita Nyong’o. Cate Blanchett won her second Oscar, this time as Best Actress, for her role in “Blue Jasmine.” On the actor side, the boys from “Dallas Buyers Club” took home the gold with Jared Leto winning Best Supporting Actor and Matthew McConaughey winning Best Actor.
“Frozen,” Disney’s latest animated blockbuster, took the award for Best Animated Feature as well as for Best Song, “Let It Go.” Another multiple award winning film was Baz Luhrmann’s “The Great Gatsby,” which won for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design.” Spike Jonze took home the Original Screenplay award for “Her.”
The telecast, hosted by Ellen Degeneres, was tame when compared to recent shows. In fact, except for a couple of “Jonah Hill penis” jokes and a bit delivering pizza to those in the audience, Degeneres was pretty non-existent, only showing up to introduce the next presenters. All four Best Song presentations were well received, as was Pink’s version of “Over the Rainbow,” performed to help celebrate the 75th Anniversary of “The Wizard of Oz.” There also appeared to be a problem with the teleprompter as several presenters stumbled through their lines. When introducing Idina Menzel to sing the song from “Frozen,” John Travolta appeared to introduce her as “Adele Nuzim.”
A bit of old Hollywood was represented with presenting appearances by Kim Novak and Sidney Poitier. In her first performing appearance on the show Bette Midler earned a much deserved standing ovation for her rendition of “The Wind Beneath My Wings” after the annual “In Memoriam” sequence.
Here is a list of this year’s winners:
Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave
Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, Dallas Buyer’s Club
Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
Achievement in Directing: Alfonso Cuarón, Gravity
Best Adapted Screenplay: John Ridley, 12 Years a Slave
Best Original Screenplay: Spike Jonze, Her
Best Original Score: Gravity, Steven Price
Best Original Song: “Let It Go,” Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez; Frozen
Achievement in Costume Design: The Great Gatsby
Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling: Dallas Buyers Club
Animated Short Film: Mr. Hublot
Animated Feature Film: Frozen
Achievement in Visual Effects: Gravity
Live Action Short Film: Helium
Best Documentary Short Subject: The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
Documentary Feature: 20 Feet from Stardom
Best Foreign Language Film of the Year: The Great Beauty, Italy
Achievement in Sound Mixing: Gravity
Achievement in Sound Editing: Gravity
Achievement in Cinematography: Gravity, Emmanuel Lubezki
Achievement in Film Editing: Gravity
Achievement in Production Design: The Great Gatsby