Culture -- 25 days ago
Words: Gentleman's Journal
Now 85 years on from when Louis B. Mayer established the Academy Awards and the unique night still continues with the Hollywood Elite congregating to honor the achievements in cinema from the past year. However back in 1929, Mayer commented on his creation of the awards saying “I found that the best way to handle filmmakers was to hang medals all over them… If I got them cups and awards they’d kill them to produce what I wanted. That’s why the Academy Award was created”!
This year the 3 hour ceremony was presented by Seth MacFarlane, the comical genius and creator of ‘Family Guy’, ‘American Dad’ and ‘Ted’…. Seth got the evening underway by saying “Its an honor that everybody else said no to presenting tonight”! The academy put on a real show for those privileged enough to be at the Dolby Theatre in LA and was watched live on TV and web across the world by over a billion people.
The comic theme for the opening 20minutes was that host Seth MacFarlane was the worst host in Oscar history and was going to ruin the night until Captain Kirk then returned from the 23rd century to help Seth make amends by showing the mistakes and errors he was going to make during the evening. This included newspaper headlines from the following morning about his performance… so Seth then commenced to bring a medley of stars on stage to sing songs and dances to redeem himself becoming an ‘acceptable’ host. This included some impeccable ballroom dancing from Channing Tatum and Charlize Theron.
Who Wore What?
It’s official ladies and gents… the beard is back. Once again the trend for men was the beards. George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck and Tommy Lee Jones, just some who were donning ‘the 2013 beard’.
Representing home team GB was Eddie Redmayne, (luckily not down with another bout of food poisoning) wearing a very stylish Alexander McQueen black tuxedo rather than his usual Burberry attire. Chris Pine wore a very ‘classic Hollywood’ double-breasted Ermenegildo Zegna suit and Tom Ford was worn by two of the ‘best Actor’ nominations Bradley Cooper and Hugh Jackman. Mr Justin Theroux ditched his usual leather biker gear for a classic tuxedo to walk the red carpet with Jennifer Aniston, providing a tender moment as Jennifer straightened his bow tie. Gucci chose two strong candidates Seth Macfarlane and Channing Tatum to wear their fresh and slick dinner jackets; they looked quite the pair.
Who Won What?
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz
Supporting Actress: Anne Hathway
Documentary Feature: “Searching for Sugar Man”
Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio for “Argo”
Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantion for “Django Unchained”
Directing: Ang Lee
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis
Best Picture: “Argo”
From all the 9 incredible films nominated for Best Picture, the one that outshone the rest yet again was Ben Affleck’s, Argo. With 7 nominations and 3 wins at last nights ceremony the bearded men (George Clooney, Ben Affleck and Grant Heslov) took to the stage to accept the award… The modest and oh so grounded Affleck congratulated first the talented directors, the amazing acting and wonderful films they were up against before going on to say “You have to work harder than you think you can, it doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life because that’s going to happen… its how you get back up again….”
Who Said What?
The cast of blockbuster ‘Avengers’ came together to present the award for Cinematography, joking together as Jeremy Renner commented about Samuel L. Jackson “The true abilities of a cinematographer are often tested most when an ageing star, who’s years, make that decades of want and self abuse leaves his face looking like a Luna landing surface.”
Jamie Foxx and Kerry Washington presented the award for best short film saying “all the filmmakers nominated are the A listers of the next generation as people like ‘Spielberg and Scorsese both started making…. short films’.
Channing Tatum and Jennifer Aniston presented 2 awards and joked that “Everyone owes something to the hair and makeup teams, apart from George Clooney who is the only person to roll out of bed camera ready”!
Seth MacFarlane joked that Jessica Chastain portrayed in Zero Dark Thirty “A woman’s innate ability to never ever let anything go!”
The ‘best supporting actress’ award was introduced by Christopher Plummer saying “As I know only too well, ‘Perseverance pays’ and these richly talented nominees; none of them are overnight success’s”. Anne Hathaway took the award for a “brave performance” in the British film Les Mis.
A profound yet amusing introduction to the best film-editing award from Sandra Bullock provided yet another award to the Argo score sheet, for William Goldenberg with his 4th nomination but first Oscar win.
Chris Terrio won ‘Best adapted Screenplay’ for, yes, of course, Argo! In his speech he thanked man of the moment Ben Affleck, but then went on to dedicated the award to “those all over the world who use creativity and inelegance to solve problems non violently.”
Daniel Day-Lewis, well what can one say, the one and only man to win 3 Oscars in the ‘Best Leading Actor’ category. He provided one of the best acceptance speeches of the evening in true Day-Lewis style, filled with clever wit and British humor, he started his speech by confessing “I don’t know how all this happened!”. Then went on to joke with Meryl Streep who presented the award that he had originally been “cast to play Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady and Meryl to play Lincoln”… He went on to sincerely thank his wife “as she is the versatile one! She has put up with living with some strange people” (his many characters). He concluded with a resounding, “for my mother”.
Who Did What?
William Ross conducted the live orchestra, providing accompaniment for the night from just down the road at the Capitol Studios. Additionally he and his orchestra provided the famous “get off the stage, your speech has been too long” music.
On the night that the Oscars celebrated musicals, we saw an incredible moment bringing Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried, Samantha Barks, Aaron Tveit, Russell Crowe, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen to the stage singing a song from Les Mis. The spine chilling moment showed how truly incredible their live singing voices actually are… receiving a standing ovation from everyone in the theatre.
All I need to say on this topic is ‘The Ben Affleck and George Clooney Bro-mance’ certainly continues, the bearded buddies!
Where Did They Go?
There’s only one place to go after the Oscars, after the Governor’s ball (which this year provided instant Oscar plaque engraving for the winners), everyone who’s anyone heads to the Vanity Fair party hosted by Graydon Carter, editor of the VF magazine… This party is where behind closed doors the stars relax, unwind and have a god dam good time! The behind the scenes official photos of the party released in next months Vanity Fair are not to be missed!
Bond:
We saw the homage to bond proudly celebrating 50 years of the British movie franchise… With Halle Berry introducing a montage of bond classic clips from all the films depicting Bond’s cars, fights and stunts, martini’s and womanising… Followed by none other than Dame Shirley Bassey donning the stage to sing her glorious version of Goldfinger… Later on in the evening Adele wowed the star-studded audience with her incredible performance of Skyfall.
