The Oscars 2015: Everything You Missed and More

Author: Sydney Reade

This past Sunday, the 87th Academy Awards delivered a highly entertaining, surprising, and heartwarming host of events.

The Red Carpet’s most poignant interview has to go to Julianne Moore for her gracious use of the spotlight to highlight the need for Alzheimer’s research, which was the subject of Still Alice. Moore took home a Best Actress win for her stunning performance in a movie otherwise lacking a concrete plot and a realistic timeline of events. More importantly, the focus on Moore’s cause rather than her clothes proved to be a step up from the Golden Globes, which saw actresses shunning the full body camera pans and the controversial Manicam left and right.

Some actors were totally comfortable attending the festivities without a significant other, opting to bring their parents instead. Laura Dern, nominated for her performance in Wild, had her father in tow to boast about their family’s combined Oscar nominations. But the award for proudest parent goes to Melanie Griffiths, who accompanied her daughter, Dakota Johnson, the recent star of 50 Shades of Grey. After a cutesy-awkward back-and-forth over why Griffiths has yet to see the film, she said, “[My daughter] is a great actress. I don’t need to see it to know that.” Johnson was in good company inside the Dolby Theater, as the awards ceremony proved.

Host Neil Patrick Harris set the tone for the night with an opening number that involved a multimedia musical act featuring some of the top films of the last few decades, followed by Anna Kendrick reprising her role as Cinderella in Into the Woods, and a strangely misplaced (but surprisingly entertaining) performance by Jack Black. Harris’ jokes throughout the ceremony were appropriately self-deprecating and to the point, which is always appreciated at an awards show that tends to run half an hour longer than it should. The winning actors seemed to follow his lead -I can’t recall a single speech that was overly ostentatious or mawkish. The actors were grateful, poignant, brief, and funny, which moves a ceremony with only six categories of supreme interest along at a nice clip. Bonus points go to Harris’ running gag of the night, the Briefcase Cam, which kept a live feed trained on a briefcase holding Harris’ Oscar predictions from earlier in the week. Harris also appointed Octavia Spencer to watch over the lucite box cordoned off with velvet ropes on stage left, just in case anyone tampered with his envelope. He opened it at the end of the show, but predicted the wins with eerie accuracy, so the jury’s out on how that all worked.

Moving on to the awards J. K. Simmons won Best Supporting Actor for Whiplash, which was really no surprise after his Golden Globe win. Patricia Arquette picked up on the feminist wave in her speech for her Best Supporting Actress win for Boyhood, calling for pay equality in Hollywood. She earned a few standing O’s from fellow actresses Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez. John Legend and Common, accepting their award for Best Original Song “Glory” from Selma, touched on the racial inequalities still being fought today.

But the awards were not all political. Some celebrities took a moment to get revenge on their fellow actors–like when Idina Menzel righted John Travolta’s cringeworthy “Adele Dazeem” flub at last year’s show by introducing the actor as “Glom Gazingo” before the two made amends and presented an award together. Neil Patrick Harris appeared on stage in nothing but his tighty-whities, reenacting the now-iconic scene from Birdman. Alejandro Iñárritu, accepting his award for Best Director for Birdman, referenced those same tighty-whities, claiming he was wearing the same pair Michael Keaton did in the film and that they were his good luck charm. Birdman took home three other Oscars, including Best Cinematography, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture, creating perhaps the biggest surprise of the night. Critics, myself included, were sure that Boyhood would at least take home either Best Picture or Best Director.

Inarguably the most talked-about film this season, American Sniper, fared less well, only snagging a golden statue for Best Sound Editing. Other celebrities took home golden statues made out of yellow Lego Bricks, following Teagan and Sarah’s performance of their The Lego Movie song, “Everything is Awesome.” The performance featured The Lonely Island, Will Arnett in a Batman costume, a dazzling array of colors, Lego characters, and yes, scaled-down versions of the iconic Oscar statue recreated with Lego bricks.

The glamor moment of the night belongs to Lady Gaga. Gaga first stunned on stage with her unusually staid outfit–but when she opened her mouth to sing a tribute medley for The Sound of Music, America’s collective jaw dropped. Gaga’s voice bore an uncanny resemblance to the incomparable Julie Andrews, the original Maria in The Sound of Music, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. We’ve always known how talented Lady Gaga is, but she tends to mask her brilliance with a lot of bizarre lyrics, costumes, and makeup that ultimately detract attention from her voice. At the Oscars, her voice was the true star, and Julie Andrews’ surprise appearance made it all the more sweet. Gaga was speechless, and so were viewers.

Other top-scoring movies included The Grand Budapest Hotel, which brought home 4 coveted awards. Eddie Redmayne could barely contain his surprise and shock at winning Best Actor for The Theory of Everything. The award proved well-deserved, as he went on to share the honor with those battling ALS and the Hawking family.

All in all, it was a great night for movies and film. I would just like my devoted fans to know that your resident columnist filled out a ballot prior to the festivities, predicted the winners with 50% accuracy, and went 5 for 6 in the top categories. Just some motivation to keep reading The Cutting Room Floor. Until next year, Oscar.

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