On Feb. 24, the 85th Annual Academy Awards were held in the Dolby Theater and hosted by Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy, American Dad!, and most recently, Ted. The show’s themes were celebrating music in film and also the 50 year anniversary of James Bond.
The award for Best Picture went to Argo, Ben Affleck’s film about the daring rescue enacted by CIA agent Tony Mendez in 1970’s mid-revolution Iran. The award was presented by First Lady Michelle Obama through live feed to the White House, and Argo also won awards for Best Adapted Screenplay and Film Editing.
The only film to eclipse Argo in number of awards was Ang Lee’s Life of Pi, the filmic adaptation of Yann Martel’s 2001 best-selling novel of the same name. Life of Pi won Best Cinematography, Best Directing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Music. On a slightly related note, the visual effects company responsible for producing Life of Pi went out of business and received no mention or payment as a result of their Oscar, and they protested the event as it happened.
Tom Hooper’s reimagining of Victor Hugo’s novel-turned-play Les Misérables tied Argo at 3 awards. Anne Hathaway won Best Supporting Actress for her role as Fantine, and the film was awarded for Sound Mixing and Makeup and Hairstyling.
Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s homage to Westerns and exploitation films, earned him an award for Best Original Screenplay and Christoph Waltz, who played Doctor King Schultz, won Best Supporting Actor.
Best Leading Actor went to Daniel Day-Lewis for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg’s Lincoln. The film also won an award for Production Design.
Skyfall, the most recent Bond film directed by Sam Mendes, won awards for Best Original Song for the film’s main theme by Adele (which she performed earlier in the show) and tied for an award in Sound Editing with Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty (how a tie happened is still unclear).
Best Leading Actress went to Jennifer Lawrence for her part in Silver-Linings Playbook, Brave won Best Animated Feature, Paper Man, the short before Wreck-It Ralph, won best Animated Short, Amour won Best Foreign Film, Anna Karenina was awarded for Costume Design, Searching for Sugar Man won Best Documentary Feature, Inocente won Best Documentary Short, and Curfew won for Best Live-Action Short Film.
