Oscars: better than expected

The 87th Academy Awards ceremony gets most of the winners correct

When I decided to cover this year’s Academy Awards, I was ready to rip the ceremony to shreds. Having watched 70 of the 86 movies that had won the famed Best Picture award, I had grown somewhat weary of the way the Oscar game is played.

Too many times a picture is awarded for being important and politically relevant for the time rather than actually being a fantastic movie. Other times awards are given to an actor or director out of obligation to make up for the fact that they have been in the industry for a while and should have won an award sooner. Worst of all is the entire concept of Oscar campaigning.

The usual strategy is for studios to release a prestigious film late in the year — usually between November and Dec. 31 — to keep it fresh in the minds of the Academy voters, while putting as much money as they can into campaigns designed to convince voters that they are doing the right thing by recognizing their film.

As a viewer, this is frustrating because the Best Picture award rarely goes to a movie worthy of the title. There are exceptions, of course. But while movies like “The Godfather,” “Schindler’s List” and “Gone With the Wind” are as highly regarded today as they were when they were released, others like “How Green Was My Valley,” “Kramer vs. Kramer” and almost every winning film from the 1980s have largely been forgotten by the sands of time.

In the end, it is apparent that the Academy Awards say far more about the state of Hollywood politics than they do about the enduring appeal of movies to the public. The self-glorifying, tedious and overlong ceremonies that are thrown each year to celebrate the Oscars do little to try to disprove that belief.

So with all of that being said, something genuinely surprised me about the 87th Academy Awards ceremony — it managed to not be terrible.

Sure, I could rant about several of the snubs that were made in the nominations a month ago. It is a crime that critical and commercial favorites like “The Lego Movie” and “Gone Girl” were mostly ignored. And the less that is said about the lack of racial diversity in the actors nominated, the better. It was almost embarrassing how often the camera would cut to a person of color every time the movie “Selma” was mentioned in an attempt to create the illusion that the Academy is more diverse than it actually is.

Still, despite the usual treacherous tactics used to get nominations, the winners of Sunday night’s awards were mostly on point.

In a twist from the precursor awards, “Birdman” took the Best Picture over the anticipated frontrunner “Boyhood.” And as much as I admire the ambition of “Boyhood,” which was filmed over the course of 12 years in order to accurately capture the aging process of its protagonist, I think its entire premise is based on testing out a gimmick. The movie was always going to be more of an impressive project than a storytelling masterpiece. While “Birdman” can also be seen as a bit gimmicky in that it tries to create the illusion that the entire movie was filmed in one take, it delves deeper into the minds of its characters and does a great job of capturing the despair actors feel when they begin to lose their relevance.

The winners of the acting awards were predictable, but very well deserved.

Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor for his performance as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” while Julianne Moore won Best Actress for her portrayal of a woman coping with the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease in “Still Alice.” In the Supporting Actor categories, J.K. Simmons won for his mesmerizing depiction of a demanding conductor in “Whiplash,” and Patricia Arquette won for playing a struggling mother in “Boyhood.”

Most of the acceptance speeches tried to address various social issues relevant to the winner’s movie, which at first glance could seem like a blatant attempt to make their movies seem more important and culturally relevant.

Yet, I found these speeches very emotionally moving, as most of them were spoken with genuine conviction. Arquette spoke on the importance of women’s equality and the sacrifices mothers make in an empowering speech that earned a cheer from Meryl Streep. Julianne Moore tried to raise awareness of Alzheimer’s when accepting her award, while John Legend spoke of racial prejudices still being overcome today when accepting an award for his song “Glory.”

The most powerful moment probably came when scriptwriter Graham Moore revealed he had attempted to commit suicide as a teenager for feeling different. He won an Adapted Screenplay award for “The Imitation Game” and delivered a message about outcasts embracing their uniqueness and the promise that life gets better.

While most of the winners were worthy, the performances of the night were very hit-or-miss. This year’s host Neil Patrick Harris did the best he could to bring energy to the show, but was still not able to finish the ceremony unscathed by some terrible, scripted jokes. Fortunately, none of Harris’ skits were nearly as lowbrow as Seth McFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs” song from 2013’s ceremony.

The real surprise of the night, however, was Lady Gaga’s magnificent tribute to the 50th anniversary of “The Sound of Music,” which was met with a loud applause from the audience and a hug from Julie Andrews.

People can criticize Lady Gaga’s outfits and bizarre artistic choices all they want, but they cannot deny the range and power of her voice.

In the end, this ceremony was better than average. I may constantly try to convince myself that the Oscars are meaningless and that I am never going to watch them again, but deep down, I know that I am always going to somehow get dragged into tuning into seeing what movies the Academy decides to recognize.

And for that reason, I am glad I did not have to suffer too much this time around.

JANNEY is the asst. news editor.