Monday, March 3, 2014

The Best and Worst of the 2014 Academy Awards

I love the Academy Awards. For any bitching and moaning that I do, I do it because I love this award show so much. The winners of each Oscar category gets their name etched in stone forever, and I just want that etching to be correct. Oh yeah, and the award ceremony itself can be fun as well. Here are my brief thoughts:

WINNER: Gravity

Gravity walked away with 7 total Oscars, the most out of any movie of the night, including Best Picture, Best Visual Effects, and Best Score. Plus, Alfonso Cuaron's acceptance speech was just fabulous, funny, and heartfelt. Oh, and bringing in a bajillion dollars in box office sales doesn't hurt either. 






LOSER: John Travolta

Say it with me Johnny, "Eye-Dee-Na Man-Zell". You had one job! If Jennifer Lawrence could learn to properly pronounce "Chiwetel Ejiofor" along with four other names, then you can learn to pronounce the wonderful singer you're introducing. 



WINNER: Twitter

Speaking of John Travolta, you can now follow @AdeleDazim on Twitter. This account is only about 3 hours old has has about 4,000 followers and 22 hysterical tweets.

Oh, not to mention Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) literally broke Twitter with this picture above. She asked all the Academy watchers to make this the most re-tweeted photo ever. It by far and away destroyed the current record holder for the most thing ever re-tweeted, and because so many people (like me) attempted to re-tweet the photo, it destroyed the internet.

LOSER: American Hustle

The David O. Russell film was tied with Gravity for the most Oscar nominations. Guess how many it walked away with? Zero, zilch, bupkis, nada. While it had a chance to win Best Picture, it really was a 2 way race between Gravity and 12 Years A Slave. It also didn't have a chance in Best Actor, Best Actress, or Best Director. However, Jennifer Lawrence could have won if she just campaigned, and it seemed it should have at least won Best Costume Design or Best Way To Tease You That Amy Adams Boobs Will Fall Out or something! 



WINNER: Oscar Winners

Obviously if you've won an Academy Award you are a winner, in more ways than one, but 2014 was a great year to win an Oscar. For starters, there was no music to escort you off the stage, The night's first winner, Jared Leto, just kept babbling on and on expecting music to interrupt him. When it never happened, he just kept right on taking. Luckily for all the winners tonight, nobody got played off stage. 

Tonight was also a great night for those expected to win. Unlike at the Golden Globes, nobody could claim tonight that they didn't expect this win coming. All of the favorites in all of the categories (except the 3 short film categories, but nobody counts those anyways) won. The only upset was probably Gravity beating out 12 Years A Slave for Best Editing. 

LOSER: Kim Novak

I don't know whose decision it was that allowed acting legend Kim Novak to speak, or to speak throughout several award presentations, but boy was it a disaster. The only difference between Kim Novak and Jacqueline Bisset is that somebody actually WANTED Kim Novak to speak! Whether it was some alcohol she drank earlier or Early Onset Alzheimer's was kicking in, she was just a mess on stage. 

WINNER: 12 Years A Slave

At the beginning of the ceremony, Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres stated that if 12 Years A Slave didn't win Best Picture, we were all racists. It turns out, Hollywood and The Academy are NOT racist. Whodathunk it. It's difficult to win Best Picture and be considered a loser, and director Steve McQueen still got his award for producing the film even though he didn't win Best Director. Lupita Nyong'o (Best Supporting Actress) and John Ridley (Best Adapted Screenplay) also took home Oscars for their work on the film. 


LOSER: Brad Pitt

Sure, Pitt earned his first Oscar win for being a producer on Best Picture winner 12 Years A Slave, but did you see how much money he had to give to Ellen DeGeneres for that stupid pizza gag?! Ellen took Pharrell's dumb ranger hat (a LOSER because the hat is stupid as shit and it's worn out its welcome, a WINNER because I guess we're still talking about it) and started panhandling in the audience. Brad Pitt (because he's Brad Pitt) had an aisle seat and just so happened to be right next to Ellen during this dumb gag, so he throws in some money into the hat. Then, Ellen berates him for being cheap, so he throws some MORE money into the hat. I wish The Internet would create a gif of Brad Pitt angrily throwing money into the hat. I'd do it, but I don't know how to properly pronounce "gif", nevertheless know how to create one of my own. Seriously, Ellen fleeced stars out of like $400 bucks for this dumb joke. 

WINNER AND LOSER: Ellen DeGeneres

I thought the Oscar host did a splendid job, and I consider this hosting job a huge success. Her monologue wasn't the greatest, but I still laughed many times during it. She also showed why an award show like this one even needs a host. She was present throughout, made jokes throughout, she was not offensive, yet funny, and overall I think this was a success. 

However, she does deserve some blame. The gag of actually bringing pizzas to the celebrities was just exhausting and went on for what seemed like 5 minutes during a show already running long. Then she killed it even more by panhandling for the damn pizza! (See: above). That being said, she really does get a "winner" in my book. 

 LOSER: Leonardo DiCaprio

Because really, when it comes to the Academy Awards, Leo always loses. 







What did you think of the 2014 Academy Award telecast? Did you enjoy the show, or thought it ran too long? Let us know on our Facebook page!
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