84th Academy Award Winners

The Oscars have come and gone for another year, and Billy Crystal hosted a very quick and to the point show that had the running them of embracing the art, memory and celebrating film. I actually quite liked the montages of people talking about film and considering the 2 lead nominee films (Hugo & The Artists) are films that celebrate film I can understand why they went with the memory focus. As it turns out, folks seemed to fully embrace those films and both Hugo and The Artist took home 5 awards each and The Artist won both Best Picture and Best Director. The only other multiple winner was The Iron Lady which actually won 2/2 with Make Up and Best Actress (Meryl Streep) giving it a 100% success rate from nominations to winners. All other winning films took home 1 award each.

That's the wrap up and number crunching and all the winners are below, but first here are some memorable moments and thoughts that chronological popped up in my head while watching the show....

• Cinematography first ? Wha? What happened to supporting actor/actress? ...that's usually first! Just when I think I've got the patterns down they switch them up!
• Awesome moment: Octavia Spencer getting a standing ovation when accepting her award for Actress in a Supporting Role for The Help
• I loved how editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall kept their speech short and sweet noted "Yep, we're editors" and left the stage post-thanks for their win for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
• Sad moment of realizing Drive didn't win it's 1 possible award.
• Cirque du Soliel interpretation of what it's like to go to the movies 1 time only performance, which I literally couldn't take my eyes off the screen although I'm sure it read better live.
• Pretty funny intro with Gwyneth Paltrow and Robert Downey Jr. present the Oscar for documentary all genuine and 'real like' with RDJ saying they were doing a film or role of "The Presentor"
• The Documentary (Feature) team of TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas who won for Undefeated got a bleep, a music swell and their audio cut out! WOW. And they were the only ones that did.
• Emma Stone being ridiculously cute presenting for the first time.
• Jason Isaacs talking about Harry Potter and the creation of the world in the intros for both Make Up and Visual Effects, he spoke with such passion it literally brought tears to my eyes.
• Christopher Plummer and his delight acceptance speech for "Beginners"
• "Thank you to my parents for never telling me to get a real job" - Bret McKenzie, during his acceptance speech for Best Original Song for Man or Muppet, from The Muppets (and the OMG moment of realizing he's Bret from Flight of the Conchords)
• I loved father/daughter team acceptance speech for The Shore for Short Film (Live Action) Terry George and Oorlagh George, where the father says he doesn't have to wait for a wedding to tell the world how wonderful his daughter is.
• Woody Allen was the only winner not in attendance (won Best Original Screenplay for Midnight in Paris).
• I had a moment of panic when we were a healthy ways in but still no shorts awarded, but they finally did present live action, animated and documentary one after another after another, awarded by the cast of Bridesmaids.
• "You understand something that you didn't understand before, about life" - Edward Norton
• I really thought Demián Bichir from A Better Life was going to cry from Natalie Portman's introduction of him for Best Actor.
• And wow again and complete GRRR moment for the end-reveal of The Artist (in at least 2 ways) with the Best Actor lead in speech. Sigh. Why do they do that?
• "You are unreasonable good" Colin Firth describing Meryl Streep.
• Standing Ovation for Meryl Streep.
• Sad realization that The Tree of Life goes home with no awards.
• And it ends with in an unusual yet even split of 5 awards for both Hugo & The Artist.
  

84th Academy Awards Winners
In the order in which they were presented

Cinematography
"Hugo" Robert Richardson

Art Direction
"Hugo" Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo

Costume Design
"The Artist" Mark Bridges

Makeup
"The Iron Lady" Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Foreign Language Film
"A Separation" Iran

Actress in a Supporting Role
Octavia Spencer in "The Help"

Film Editing
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall

Sound Editing
"Hugo" Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty

Sound Mixing
"Hugo" Tom Fleischman and John Midgley

Documentary (Feature)
"Undefeated" TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas

Animated Feature Film
"Rango" Gore Verbinski

Visual Effects
"Hugo" Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning

Actor in a Supporting Role
Christopher Plummer in "Beginners"

Music (Original Score)
"The Artist" Ludovic Bource

Music (Original Song)
"Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
"The Descendants" Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash

Writing (Original Screenplay)
"Midnight in Paris" Written by Woody Allen

Short Film (Live Action)
"The Shore" Terry George and Oorlagh George

Documentary (Short Subject)
"Saving Face" Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

Short Film (Animated)
"The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg

Directing
"The Artist" Michel Hazanavicius

Actor in a Leading Role
Jean Dujardin in "The Artist"

Actress in a Leading Role
Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady"

Best Picture
"The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer

The 84th Academy Awards were presented on Sunday February 26, 2012 .