Best and Worst of the 2014 Oscars

“Tonight, there are so many different possibilities, possibility number one, 12 Years a Slave wins Best Picture; possibility number two, you’re all racists. Now, for our first white presenter, Anne Hathaway!” — Ellen DeGeneres

Covering the awards race has the ability to turn you jaded and cynical on the entire movie industry. You know, or at least think you know, the ins and outs and the shady backdoor dealings. Or, at least you know they exist even if you don’t have physical evidence. I’ve seen many write about the 2014 Oscars calling it one of the closest races in years, citing the possibility for 12 Years a Slave, Gravity or American Hustle to win Best Picture and supporting the claim by Gravity‘s seven Oscars compared to only three for Best Picture winner, 12 Years a Slave.

Such evidence and an immense amount of punditry can only tell us it was a really close race… right? But what about the fact Hustle was completely shut out? Can we really assume it had much of a shot at winning? Did it play #2 and #3 in most races? We’ll never know…

Certainly, we can look at Hustle‘s ten nominations and presume the Academy loved it, but when was the last time a film entered the night with the highest number of nominations (tied with Gravity) and went home empty-handed?

Moving on…

In the comments of my winners piece last night one commenter looked at the seven wins for Gravity and writes, “Clearly, Gravity was the best looking, the best sounding, the most engaging and the most well-crafted film of the year according to the Academy. So it makes complete sense that at the end of the night, the Best Picture award ends up going to… 12 Years a Slave.”

This is sure to be an argument for years to come and one should never look for logic in the Oscars, but if a counter was to be made (outside of the reply to that comment pointing out the same thing happened between Cabaret and The Godfather) you could look at the fact 12 Years won for acting and screenplay, but which you could infer it included a superior performance and narrative to Gravity, which makes for a better film? Technical achievements or storytelling? Not to forget, 12 Years was nominated for editing and cinematography as well as director and two more acting nominations.

But enough about all that, let’s take a closer look at the show itself…

Ellen DeGeneres

At this point I almost want to suggest the Academy begin a host rotation. Next year give the duties to Jimmy Fallon, the following back to Ellen, and just rotate them until they collapse year after year.

I was a fan of Ellen’s first go ’round and she killed it again last night. She has an amazing ability of being able to go just over the line, such as the quote leading this piece and essentially calling Liza Minelli a drag queen, to breaking Twitter with her star-studded selfie (we’ll get to that) and small jokes such as introducing Michael B. Jordan and Kristen B. Ell.

Not all of her jokes landed, but what comic ever has a perfect night? The pizza gag worked surprisingly well. Watching Harrison Ford second guess his decision for a piece of pizza once he saw what kind it was and then tap Ellen for a napkin was great. Her focus on Jennifer Lawrence falling the year before and then falling out of her limo upon arrival this year showed she knew how to pick her targets. For a show that goes on for about four hours, plus red carpet nonsense, she made it more than tolerable.

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Lupita and Peter

Last year Jennifer Lawrence stole the show this year I’d say that honor goes to Lupita Nyong’o and her brother Peter. Not only did he find his way into Ellen’s selfie, but I think his reaction to her nomination will forever be remembered.