14 DAY TRIAL // The most fabulous, star-studded and important awards gala of the year ended just minutes ago: the Academy Awards 2014, also known as the Oscars. As it happens every year, outstanding achievements in all branches of the film industry have been recognized and awarded the much-coveted statuette.
Again, as it happens every year, bets were made before the awards show in a bid to cash in on favorites’ luck. Speaking of favorites, there were few surprises as to the winners.
Industry insiders believe that the first indications of who will win Oscars come with the Golden Globes, which were held this year in January. If we’re to go by the winners at this ceremony, there were, indeed, very few surprises last night at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, Los Angeles.
Steve McQueen’s epic drama “12 Years a Slave,” which Brad Pitt produced through his Plan B and in which he invested a lot of time and effort to see to the big screen, won Best Picture. Competition was particularly tough this year in this ever-so-important category, with this drama going up against “American Hustle,” “Captain Phillips,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Gravity,” “Nebraska,” “Her,” “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Philomena.”
However, McQueen didn’t win Best Director, even though he was considered favorite. That award went to Alfonso Cuaron for his “Gravity,” a story of two astronauts stranded in space, played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.
Considering that it took Cuaron years to make the film because the technology he needed to shoot certain scenes wasn’t available to him when he first set out to make it, an Oscars is the perfect reward for all this hard work.
In the Best Actor and Actress categories, the winners were Matthew McConaughey and Cate Blanchett, respectively. McConaughey was nominated for his role in “Dallas Buyers Club,” for which he lost an unhealthy amount of weight to play a man dying of AIDS. By winning his very first Oscar, McConaughey has officially made the transition from rom-com star to reputable actor, even more than with his brilliant performance.
Blanchett was nominated for “Blue Jasmine,” the latest Woody Allen film, in which she plays a formerly wealthy woman who has come upon very hard times and is going through a major life crisis.
Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong’o won Best Supporting Actor and Actress respectively, while Spike Jonze won Best Original Screenplay for “Her.” John Ridley won Best Adapted Screenplay for “12 Years a Slave,” thus bringing the number of trophies for the film up to 3.
Quantitatively speaking, the biggest winner of the night was “Gravity,” which scooped up 7 awards, including for Best Director and Best Visual Effects. To paraphrase a very popular joke online right now, that is whatever confirmation you still needed that it wasn’t really shot in space.
Below is the list of the winners in all the major categories. The complete list is available at the official Oscars website.
Best Picture: “12 Years a Slave” Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey, “Dallas Buyers Club” Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, “Blue Jasmine” Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto, “Dallas Buyers Club” Best Supporting Actress: Lupita Nyong’o, “12 Years a Slave” Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron, “Gravity” Best Adapted Screenplay: John Ridley, “12 Years a Slave” Best Original Screenplay: Spike Jonze, “Her” Best Foreign Film: Italy, “The Great Beauty” Best Documentary Feature: “20 Feet from Stardom” Best Animated Feature: “Frozen” Best Film Editing: “Gravity” Best Original Song: “Let It Go” (“Frozen”) Best Original Score: Steven Price (“Gravity”) Best Cinematography: Emmanuel Lubezki (“Gravity”) Best Costume Design: “The Great Gatsby” Best Makeup and Hairstyling: “Dallas Buyers Club” Best Production Design: “The Great Gatsby” Best Sound Editing: “Gravity” Best Sound Mixing: “Gravity” Best Visual Effects: “Gravity” Best Short Film, Live Action: “Helium” Best Short Film, Animated: “Mr. Hublot” Best Documentary Short Subject: “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life”