2015 Oscars Recap: or(The Unexpected Victory of Iñárritu)

"The only thing predictable about life is its unpredictability."

My main rat "Remy"(voiced by Patton Oswalt) states this line after all the wacky occurrences at the end of one of my favorite movies of All-Time, Ratatouille. If you substitute "life" with "the Oscars" in that quote you can get a pretty good idea as to how my predictions went last night. My official predictions went kaput as soon as The Grand Budapest Hotel won for Best Hair & Makeup, and they only got worse from there. At least I feel good about the fact that I presented the most likely alternative scenarios to my predictions in my viewer's guide, and those were the ones that mostly played out last night.

"... a high chance that Budapest wins for Best Hair & Makeup, but loses Original Screenplay to Birdman ...", I said. Do I get half a point at least for those two mentions? You say no? Ok, how about this one: "... a chance that American Sniper or Whiplash also end up with three wins if they can pull off upsets for Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, or Best Actor." Maybe I can get a third of a point there, seeing as Whiplash wound up with three Oscars after upsetting Boyhood for Best Editing, and also winning for Best Sound Mixing and Best Supporting Actor for J.K. Simmons(Don't worry J.K, I'll make sure to call my parents today).

Still no? How about this one: "There's also a chance that Birdman or Boyhood fever takes over the Academy and one of those movies sweeps the main categories of Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay." At least I know I get one point there for correctly predicting Alejandro G. Iñárritu's win for Best Director, making it two straight years with a Mexican-born filmmaker winning the prize, after Alfonso Cuarón won for directing Gravity in 2013.

Although I could see that one coming, I honestly thought that Birdman would prove to be too divisive among Academy voters to be able to sweep the three main categories. I'm actually glad I got that one wrong, as Birdman was my favorite movie of the year, making two straight years where my favorite movie has won Best Picture(12 Years a Slave last year), and in my list of "Who I Would've Nominated" I had it as my #1 in those categories as well. Iñárritu actually became the first person to sweep those three categories since Joel & Ethan Coen in 2007 for No Country for Old Men(Adapted Screenplay in their case). That's genius territory right there. Speaking of genius, Birdman's fourth Oscar came in one of the easiest categories to predict last night, Best Cinematography for Emanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, who becomes the first repeat winner in the category since 1994-1995.

There was one other prediction for Birdman that I, sadly, got wrong. I thought the Academy would honor Michael Keaton for Best Actor as a career achievement award, but instead they went with Eddie Redmayne for his physical transformation as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything(that film's only win for the night). At least Redmayne's genuinely happy reaction and speech made for a nice moment.

Speaking of great moments from the sole winners of their respective films, Graham Moore's (#stayweird) Best Adapted Screenplay acceptance speech for The Imitation Game, and Common & John Legend's Best Original Song performance and acceptance speech of "Glory" from Selma were my co-favorites for Moment of the Night! That is maybe in part because I correctly predicted those two wins, but it's really because of how emotionally powerful both of those moments were. That visual of the people crossing the bridge even had Captain Kirk crying. Patricia Arquette had another of the most emotional moments of the night(man, everyone had something to get off their chest last night) talking about equal pay for women during her Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech for Boyhood(that film's only win of the night).

Maybe she should've also demanded equal recognition from the Academy for Boyhood's writer/director/producer Richard Linklater, who went 0 for 3 last night and remains unrecognized by the Academy even though he's been one of the greatest American directors of the past 20 years(his Before Trilogy is one of my favorite(s) movies of All-Time). Another of the greatest American directors of the past 20 years, Wes Anderson, also went 0 for 3 due to the Birdman sweep, but his fingerprints were all over each and every one of The Grand Budapest Hotel's four wins, for Best Production Design, Best Costume Design (two I correctly predicted), Best Hair & Makeup, and Best Original Score (two I got wrong as I thought Foxcatcher would get recognized for Hair & Makeup and The Theory of Everything would get recognized for its Score).

Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel tied for the most wins of the night with four each, something that was not entirely surprising for me as I had predicted three wins for both, and I also mentioned that if everything broke right for Budapest it could wind up as the movie with the most Oscars at the end of the night. It had to share that honor with another film, but I'm guessing its filmmakers walked away happy at the end of the night. Speaking of which, every film nominated for Best Picture has a reason to be happy today, to varying degrees, as all eight nominees took home at least one Oscar (4 each for Birdman and Budapest, 3 for Whiplash, and 1 each for American Sniper, The Imitation Game, Selma, The Theory of Everything, and Boyhood).

And now, to other winners and moments that made me, the viewer, happy ...

- Julianne Moore, Oscar Winner. Long overdue honor. Great Speech too.

- Walt Disney Animation Studios swept the animation categories with Big Hero 6 (out on Blu-Ray/DVD tomorrow) winning Best Animated Feature, and the short film that preceded it in theaters, Feast, winning Best Animated Short. That's back to back Best Animated Feature wins for Disney(Frozen last year) after not having won in the first 12 years of the category's existence.

- Speaking of animation, The LEGO Movie getting its moment in the Oscars spotlight(after getting snubbed for Best Animated Feature) with the wacky and fun performance of its nominated song, "Everything is Awesome", was one of the highlights of the night for me. The performance included Teagan & Sara, the Lonely Island boys, Questlove, a cameo from Will Arnett as Lego Batman, plus Lego Oscar statuettes for Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Oprah. That woman has everything, yet she looked absolutely thrilled to get one of those.

- Citizenfour winning for Best Documentary Feature. In a night full of politics, it had to win.

- I enjoyed the orchestra playing classic movie theme songs in the background, especially some of my favorites from: Back to the Future, Moulin Rouge!, Once, Caddyshack, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and many others.

- Jared Leto introducing the Best Supporting Actress nominees: "They are four women, plus, in accordance with California state law, Meryl Streep." 

- Speaking of The Great One, she did a great job introducing the In Memoriam segment. This woman is perfect in anything. I also enjoyed the animation used to present each of the stars we lost.

- Michael Keaton getting a chance to speak when Birdman won Best Picture, perfectly closing the show with this line: "Look, it's just great to be here. Who am I kidding? It's great fun."

A Best/Worst Moment:

The Sound of Music 50th Anniversary tribute featuring Lady Gaga. Yes, Gaga was awesome, and Julie Andrews coming out to present the Oscar for Best Original Score ties in nicely with The Sound of Music's classic songs, but this moment halts the show for a full 10 minutes, taking away from the time each winner gets to give thanks. More importantly for me, it takes the place of the honorary Oscars awarded yearly to some of the greatest legends in the film industry, which only get a quick one minute mention in the first hour of the show. There's also the fact that choosing one random movie to celebrate each year is totally unfair. 2015 also marks the 75th anniversary of John Ford's The Grapes of Wrath, and the 40th anniversary of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon, Robert Altman's Nashville, Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lindon, and Milos Forman's Best Picture winner, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest(what a year right?). I hope this tradition isn't continued next year.

And now to some moments that made me, the viewer, unhappy ...

- Sean Penn going "Sean Penn" with his "green card" joke before announcing the Best Picture winner. This guy should be permanently banned from the Oscars stage unless he wins an award. #Penndejo indeed.

- John Travolta, once again, going "John Travolta" ruining his chance at redemption by awkwardly touching Idina Menzel's face. Lucky for us, she handled it like a pro.

- Terrence Howard, what was that?!? He takes home the "John Travolta Award" for most awkward presenter of the night.

- Another year with a song after the In Memoriam segment that misfired. After Bette Midler last year, Jennifer Hudson's performance seemed to have some sound issues for me. And can't we all agree that after the In Memoriam segment the only thing we should see is a fade to black, not some singer hogging the spotlight from the lost stars.

- Linklater being shut out. I was actually hoping Sean Penn would say "Boyhood", even though I liked Birdman more.

- Dawn of the Planet of the Apes losing for Best Visual Effects to Interstellar. Apes was the 5th best movie I saw last year(one spot ahead of Boyhood), and this was its only chance at an Oscar win. The thing is, it absolutely deserved to win this award for its groundbreaking Visual Effects placing motion capture actors in real world settings ahead of Interstellar's outer space effects, which were good, but had just been done in a more impressive fashion by last year's winner in the category, Gravity.

Neil Patrick Harris's Best Moments:

- The opening number paying tribute to "Moving Pictures", with an assist from Anna Kendrick and Jack Black. Once I saw classic silhouettes of Singin' in the Rain and North by Northwest I was hooked, culminating with NPH as an Oscar statue.

- The Birdman bit. It literally took a lot of balls to pull that off.

- Speaking of which, NPH's best joke for me came in reference to the dress worn by Dana Perry, producer of the Best Documentary Short winner Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1, after she had just shared a very tragic personal story with the world. His line was: "I love that dress. It takes a lot of balls to wear that dress." It took a lot of balls to make that joke right there on the spot.

Other funny jokes ...

- "We are here to honor the best and the whitest - I mean brightest."

- "Benedict Cumberbatch. It's not only the most awesome name in show business, it's also the sound you get when you ask John Travolta to pronounce Ben Affleck."

- "Acting is a noble profession" - while he's standing in his underwear on stage

Neil Patrick Harris's Worst Moments:

- The prediction box. Just awful. Who thought this would work? Poor Octavia Spencer.

- Making David Oyelowo read in his British accent. This joke has never been funny.

- "Reese Witherspoon" With - a - spoon, get it? Maybe a 10 year old would laugh at that.

- And one joke that may have crossed the line, right after Citizenfour had won for Best Documentary Feature: "Edward Snowden couldn't be here for some treason."