Afternoon prep
At noon on Sunday there was a special day of IDFA@TheOscars, showing two nominees in the documentary category. So my day started by waking up early and going to Amsterdam for 20 Feet From Stardom and The Act of Killing. While the first movie was insightful, funny and interesting, the second movie was sometimes even uncomfortable. I didn't really have time to dwell, as right after the movie me and my colleagues of PINK! had organised a pancake party. After which we would walk the streets of Utrecht and admire the works of Trajectum Lumen. We finished the route around half past ten and we all went our way. For me this meant going to Brabant, to visit my parents.
A long road ahead
As my television provider wouldn't show the Oscars, I decided I would take two days of work to go to my parents so I could watch it there. Either live, or the next day. Just in case I got tired. While I just made the train, I missed the bus by a minute. After 59 minutes of waiting and another 55 minutes on the bus I finally arrived home a little over 1AM. While I believe the Oscars start at 8pm in the US, the real fun begins at 2.30AM in the Netherlands. I gathered my things while watching the Red Carpet on E! until the start... But for some reason the Oscars weren't shown on the usual channel. Therefor I asked around (thank God for twitter!) and first I received a link so I could stream it online. Not much later someone else followed giving me the correct television channel. While I missed the opening monologue from Ellen Degeneres, I did see the final bit of Jared Leto receiving his Award.
What a pizzaparty
Around the beginning of the show, Ellen asked if anyone wanted pizza. This soon became a running gag, as she actually ordered three of them and pictures kept being shared on Twitter of the celebrates who managed to get a slice and eating it like there was no tomorrow. A little bit later she would go around again with a hat asking the celebs for money, while also critisizing them when they didn't give enough (side note: Ellen only made one remark to Finding Nemo/Dory the entire time!). Other memorable moments were the group photo which Ellen took with many movie stars as she wanted to break the record. By the end of the show this picture had been retweeted over 3 million times and they indeed broke the record. The cutest thing might have been Meryl Streep saying "I've never tweeted before"!
The crazyness was all over the place. Jamie Foxx started humming/singing while presenting an award, the couple from Frozen gave the funniest acceptence speech in rhyme, it became very clear that David O'Russel rhymed with American Hustle (if you didn't know already, now you'll never forget). As The Wizard of Oz celebrated it's 75th year, Whoopi Goldberg showed up in ruby slippers to present Alicia Moore, aka P!nk. She sang a beautiful version of Somewhere over the Rainbow. Even funnier was perhaps Ellen showing up after the break in the witch costume of Glenda the Good Witch. While Jennifer Lawrence tumbled on the red carpet she stayed upright through the rest of the show and many beautiful introductions were giving as well as some amazing performances. All of the nominated songs for Best Song came by, so you got to hear them live. On a lesser note: There seemed to be quite a few problems with the telepromter. Many presenters misspoke a little or had trouble reading it. But none messed up so badly as John Travolta who introduced Idina Menzel as Adele Dazeem. Curious to see what he would do to other names? They started a trend called 'Travoltify' on Slate.com where you can try it with any name! It sure is something...
The winners
I did my best to prepare for this years Oscars and watched a whole lot of movies. While the Oscar for Best Picture could have gone to a top three in my book (Her, Gravity, The Wolf of Wall Street), 12 Years a Slave ended up taking it home. Also an amazing film!
One of the movies I regret not seeing is Dallas Buyers Club (still on my list), especially after the speeches by Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey (Best Supporting and Best Actor, they also won Make-Up and Hairstyling). While Matthew gave a lovely impersionation of his father he also told everyone that he's his own hero. Nice, but not my favorite speech. Leto was quoted as one of the best, also remembering people of the effects of AIDS.
I can't disagree with the winner for Best Supporting Actress: Lupita won that one by a landslide. Her performance gives you goosebumps. Not to say that those others (Sally, Julia, June and Jennifer) weren't good, but Lupita definitely deserved this one and she gave an amazing speech. The other Award 12 Years a Slave won was Best Adapted Screenplay, which I can fully imagine. Though the other nominees were very impressive as well. Best Original Screenplay went to Her and no, that award couldn't have gone to any other movie. Her is the only one that truly deserves this one! Honestly, I feel this movie deserved more, but with Frozen and Gravity it did have some tough competition.
The biggest winner of the night of course was: Gravity with 7 Oscars. With ten nominations (they didn't win Best Actress, poor Sandra, Best Picture and Best Production Design) they did great. And with a movie like that, how can you expect anything else? This also made American Hustle, also ten nominations, the biggest loser of the night as it didn't win any. Two other lovely winners were Cate Blanchett (for Blue Jasmine) with an amazing speech ("The world is round people!") about females being able to be the lead in a movie and 20 Feet From Stardom, where we got a little singing thank you from Darlene Love herself. All in all, it was an amazing show, where I can't disagree too much about the winners and I went to bed around 6.30AM... When my mom just woke up.
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