And the Oscar Goes to...

It is that time of the year again !! With last night's Oscar, this is time to officially wrap-up 2012 and look forward to everything else. Starting with this post and with few more to come in early March, I am ready to do just that. For various reasons, I chose to be absent from all the predictions and other games prior to the Oscars. All I did was few tweets on some of the categories below but I loved the certain uncertainly about many categories. I think it made the actual ceremony a little more interesting. But after skipping on so called mandatory post on these predictions, I am not skipping the second mandatory post. As always, I am only concentrating on the categories that I have some knowledge of. So, only Film, Writing, Directing and Acting and here is the list the winners and my brief thoughts on these categories.

Results: I am not exactly saying that ManFarlane's opening sequence wasn't funny but I am also not saying it was. One, it was offensive, even though he tried to make it up for it afterwards. I mean who wants to listen to 'I have seen your Boobs' on Oscar stage? Really? And more important than that, it went on forever. I might have had little different opinion of it, itf it was half its length. 17 Minutes? and then they cut off Visual Effects Winners. Not Cool, Academy !!

Best Picture: Argo
Argo did built a strong momentum in its favour winning almost every single major award in last month or two. Going into the ceremony, it was pretty much sure that it's Argo's to lose. I am not any kind of Oscar pundit and I am not going into any stats, but it was staggering to see people dive onto them and literally finding reasons for it not to win. I loved this movie when I first saw it, I love it even now and I do not have any problem with it taking the big one. Of the 9 nominees, it wouldn't be my first choice but I will choose it over any one of the rest of the nominees.
 
Best Director: Ang Lee for Life of Pi
Lack of nomination to Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow made this category a little lackluster but to put it mildly, intriguing. Predictions were all over the place, from Spielberg to Ang Lee to Russell and even to some rare, bold, dreamer minds, even Haneke. Eventually, it looked like it will be a pick between Spielberg and Lee. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of either of the movie but I would have picked Spielberg. Academy went the other way and picked Lee, who did a good job of adapting what was considered unfilmable novel.

Best Actress in Lead Role: Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook
Riva would have been my choice in this category but initially I had no hope for her. Well, until few days back when out of nowhere, I saw almost everyone standing behind her. I mean, I had no problem with it. After all, she's the one I wanted to win but what happened to Chastain? Or Lawrence? Didn't they win almost every single award there was to win? I was surprised to see that. In the end, Lawrence took the momentum with her and went till the end.

Best Actor In Lead Role: Daniel Day-Lewis for Lincoln
I don't have anything against DDL but I wasn't much keen on Lincoln or even him in it. It is a good performance but it just didn't feel anything special to me. In my opinion, Joaquin Phoenix and Denzel Washington were better. But that doesn't matter since I would be fool not to believe DDL was going to win this. Probably only Meryl Streep would've beat him this year.

Best Actress in Supporting Role: Anne Hathaway for Les Miserables.
Again, Nothing agains Anne Hathaway or Les Miserables. She was excellent in that role and obviously was going to win this Oscar and she did. Good for her. However, I was getting rather tired of her over-dramatic, over-ecstatic acceptance speeches. I like Hathaway as an actress and I want to keep liking her but it just was a little too much. I am glad that she didn't act too surprised and gave much more composed and heartfelt speech. Not Bad.

Best Actor In Supporting Role: Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained
I don't know if it makes it more interesting or frustrating but If ever there was a race more uncertain than this, I have not known it. I have seen people predicting practically every nominee in this race and it wasn't for nothing. Jones, Waltz and De Niro all had something going in there favour. I probably wouldn't have any problem with any of them winning though my favourite of 5 was Hoffman. But you have to choose one and I went with Waltz. And I was right. Waltz was awesome in Django, actually he was my favourite part of the movie. So, I am happy for his second Oscar.

Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino for Django Unchained
WOW!! QUENTIN TARANTINO !! It wasn't what I expected. I thought that Academy will go with the WGA and give it to Mark Boal for ZDT. But Tarantino took it home. Why am I even trying to justify my excitement? It's Tarantino and I am happy he won, despite having few problems with Django. I am ecstatic for proving my guess wrong Academy! If only, you would give us few more of such awesome surprises.

Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio for Argo

I know I sound like a brooked record when I say I ain't complaining and go on to do just that but Argo can not win the big prize and not win anything else, right? It didn't have any chance in any of the other categories. So, this award automatically belonged to Argo. The reason I say I am not complaining is, even though it would have been nominate in every damn category, I would have chosen this category for it to win. Argo's screenplay was the strongest aspect of the movie in my opinion. So, I am happy that it won.

Animated Feature: Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman for Brave
I haven't seen all the nominated movies but from what I have seen Brave was the best. Wasn't big fan of ParaNoramn and I haven't seen anything else yet. So I am probably not the right person to judge this but still I can be happy for Brave right?  

Foreign Language: Michael Haneke for Amour (Austria)
Well, that wasn't a surprise at all. I am yet to see two of the other four nominees

but Amour is my favourite movie of the year. So, I basically want it to win everything it can. But in reality, this was the only one award I was almost sure it will win. So, Team Haneke !! For once, I have seen the Best Foreign Film winner before it won the Oscar.

And we are Done with Life of Pi leading with 4, including Best Director, Les Miserables takes home 3, and today's big winner Argo taking home 3 as well. There were few surprises to keep it interesting for all of us - Ang Lee, Waltz, Tarantino and should I also say, Jennifer Lawrence? Not the best Oscars I have seen - I wasn't a big fan of Seth MacFarlane and his jokes, many of which seemed inappropriate to me but not to shabby either. I guess we will have to settle for that. Night hosted a lot of musical performances, most of which were quite decent actually. However, the highlight for me was Shirley Bassey. She was awesome. Michelle Obama introducing best picture nominee was a cool idea too. See you next year, Oscars !! I, for one, can not wait to officially close off 2012 and look forward to getting into all the other movies I have been stalling for past few months.