The 85th Oscars are in the books and there were a few surprises

There were a few surprises at the 85^th Oscars (we aren’t supposed to call them the Academy Awards anymore, that’s apparently too ‘stuffy’) but one was Life of Pi which garnered four awards, including a Best Director Oscar for Ang Lee.  Argo won Best Picture and two other awards.  Its Best Picture win might have been helped by the snubbing of director Ben Affleck in the Best Director category.

Seth MacFarlane did a good job in his first stint as Oscar hope, although some will object to the closing musical number he performed with Kristin Chenowith.  He did come near “the redline” on the ‘raunch meter’ but most of his humor was on-point and acceptable.

As expected, Daniel Day-Lewis won his third Best Actor award for Lincoln.  He is the first to ever win three Best Actor awards in a career.  Jennifer Lawrence had a little trouble getting to the stage to accept her Best Actress award for Silver Linings Playbook.  Christoph Waltz won his second Best Supporting Oscar, this time for Django Unchained.  Both of his wins were in movies written and directed by Quentin Tarrantino, who took home a Best Original Screenplay Oscar of his own.  Anne Hathaway earned her Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but the best thing about her win is that she won’t be making any more acceptance speeches this awards season.  Anyone even peripherally involved in her career who wasn’t thanked probably feels slighted.  Here is a list of the major awards:

Best Picture – Argo

Best Director – Ang Lee for Life of Pi

Best Actor – Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln

Best Actress – Jennifer Lawrence for Silver Linings Playbook

Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained

Best Supporting Actress – Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables

Best Animated Feature – Brave

Best Documentary Feature – Searching for Sugarman

Best Foreign Language Film – Amour

Best Music (Original Score) – Mychael Danna for Life of Pi

Best Original Song – Adele and Paul Epworth Skyfall

Best Adapted Screenplay – Chris Terrio for Argo

Best Original Screenplay – Quentin Tarrantino for Django Unchained