‘The Artist’ Takes Home Best Picture at the Oscars; ‘Hugo’ Wins Big As Well
The 84th Academy Awards have come to a close, and as expected, The Artist was the big winner of the night, taking home the big trio of Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. The movie also tacked on Best Costume Design and Original Score, giving it five wins for the the night. While it didn’t win the main prize, Hugo rocked the show early and often. taking home five statues as well. That mark ties with two other films for 4th all-time for most wins by a non Best Picture winner in Oscar history. The telecast was presented in a way that had most people thinking that it might pull out an upset victory, but I don’t think there was ever any question about The Artist winning.
Meryl Streep took home the Best Actress award, a pretty big upset over Viola Davis that had Twitter exploding with anger. A pleasant surprise that shocked most was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo winning the Best Editing award, marking the first time since 2007 (The Bourne Ultimatum) that a movie that wasn’t nominated for Best Picture took the award. The only other big “surprise” was Hugo winning Best Special Effects over the likes of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Transformers, and Harry Potter‘s final saga. Overall, the telecast was a definite improvement over last year’s train wreck, although they did have a couple segments that had nothing to do with movies that simply wasted time. You have to think that the Academy will be bringing Billy Crystal back as well. Onto the winners:
Best Picture- The Artist
Best Director- Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actor- Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Supporting Actor- Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Actress- Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Best Supporting Actress- Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Adapted Screenplay- The Descendants
Best Original Screenplay- Midnight in Paris
Best Editing- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Cinematography- Hugo
Best Art Direction- Hugo
Best Costume Design- The Artist
Best Makeup- The Iron Lady
Best Music, Original Score- The Artist
Best Music, Original Song- “Man or Muppet” from The Muppets
Best Sound Editing- Hugo
Best Sound Mixing- Hugo
Best Visual Effects- Hugo
Best Animated Feature- Rango
Best Documentary Feature- Undefeated
Best Foreign Language Film- A Separation, Iran
How did your predictions go? Any awards that you were upset about? Any that were glad to see happen?
18 Comments
From Meryls acceptance speech it didn’t seem like she wanted the win…and if twitter is anything to go by no one else did either
Yeah, I got that impression from her as well. And what’s even worse, she’s aware that the entire country let out a emphatic “ugh” when her name was announced. Poor woman, it’s not her fault that they gave her the award.
I feel like she should just tell the Academy “stop giving me Oscars, i have enough already. I’m good”
Meryl’s Oscar this year is kind of like Ingrid Bergman’s Oscar for “Murder on the Orient Express.” Did she really deserve it for THAT? Eh, no. But it’s a nudge-nudge wink-wink ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ masquerading as a Best Actress Award. Kate Winslet’s going to get one of these 25-30 years from now. I just hope I’m still around to see it.
Anyway, now Viola can win in a few years for a GOOD movie!
Let’s face it. How likely is it that Viola is going to get this kind of lead role like… ever again? As you know, it’s not just about giving a great performance but a combination of mainstream appeal of the movie, box office success, it being the right role and just plain luck.
I liked Meryl’s speech. For someone so talented and so revered. She is the last person you would expect to have a big ego. Instead, she knew she was going to be hated once again but took it in style. I also liked Christopher Plummer’s speech as well. I was kind of hoping he would sing something from The Sound of Music for those geeks of that film.
Absolutely loved Plummer’s speech. Definitely one of the highlights of the night.
So The Artist is the victor? Over Hugo? this makes me happy!!
Me too!
I liked both, but I would’ve given it to a number of other films instead. I am by no means upset that The Artist won though.
The Oscars love a good biopic, sadly there were none last year, so it fell to just a strong, key performance. Which Streep seemed to have nailed.
None of the awards were surprises to me. Glad that Rango and Bret McKenzie both walked away with some golden trophies.
McKenzie getting an Oscar brought me nothing buy joy. Not sure how anybody can hate the Flight of the Conchords.
Congratulation to The Artist…will see it when the DVD is out
Yaaiii good to know A Separation won the Oscar because I am planning to see that for my World Cinema series
Was happy to see A Separation win, considering how many times the foreign branch has screwed the pooch the past decade.
So happy for The Artist. And Jean Dujardin. And Meryl Streep. Good for her–first Oscar win in the past 30 years! Most of my favorites won.
No surprise on The Artist winning. It’s a film that affirms the dominance of the studio over the performer/filmmaker in the filmmaking process; in a ceremony that’s all about egos and brown-nosing, such a picture is basically guaranteed victory. That’s not really a strike against it– George’s fall from grace in making a movie outside of the studio system actually adds a lot of substance worth discussing, I think– but there really shouldn’t have been any question as to the film’s chances. There could have been worse choices. I do not for a second agree that The Artist is any stronger than Hugo or The Descendants– or especially that Dujardin’s performance is better than George Clooney’s, which is just a completely bonkers assertion– but I also recognize that pushing that point is futile since the ceremony’s over.
It’s interesting to me that Hugo and The Artist together mirror last year’s two big winners, Inception and The King’s Speech in terms of awards won. The former film in both pairings took home the technical stuff that has more meaning to cineastes and film lovers (Hugo took home Art Direction on top of the Sound awards, the Cinematography award, and the Visual Effects award, though). The latter film in both pairings took home the top prizes of the ceremony.
The whole Meryl Streep thing…yawn. Honestly, her win should have been revoked the minute she took the stage and gave that phony baloney speech on America groaning. Surely the Best Actress can do better than that. Still, much as I’m not thrilled to see a two-time winner beat young and hungry new talent, she is Meryl Streep and her performance sounds like it’s amazing. Again, not too fussed.
I’m just happy we can get back to talking about 2012′s release slate.
Nah really? I thought Meryl Streep did a great job with her speech. I know it’s all phony but she is always so good at saying the right things. Definitely wanted Viola Davis to win though. That might have been the only shot of her career.
Maybe I’m being a bit harsh. I guess to a point I appreciate her saying something, because she’s probably right. I know I fought to refrain from rolling my eyes at her win– though if her performance is as spectacular as critical response suggests then I’m not all that fussed. But I wonder if the more dignified thing to do would have been to just accept the award, say nothing to hint at her previous wins, and go on. If you win, you win, and that’s no one’s choice but the Academy voters (strictly speaking).
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