by HALEY MILLAN Editor-in-chief
The 86th Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, aired on March 2, hosted by Ellen Degeneres, who previously hosted the Oscars in 2007. The big winners of the night were “Gravity”, “12 Years a Slave”, and “Dallas Buyers Club”.
The Oscars had some great musical performances from the winning movies’ soundtracks. Pharrell Williams performed “Happy” from the movie “Despicable Me 2”, Karen O and Ezra Koenig performed “The Moon Song” from the movie “Her”, U2 performed “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”, Bette Midler performed “Wind Beneath My Wings” from “Beaches”, and Pink performed “Over the Rainbow” from “The Wizard of Oz”.
But the greatest and most anticipated performance of the night was Idina Menzel who performed “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen”. Actor John Travolta stirred up some talk after he mispronounced Menzel’s name while introducing her performance.
Another talked-about moment of the night was when DeGeneres decided to take a selfie to post on Twitter in order to break the record number of retweets. She went down to the audience and pulled together a group of A-list stars including the famous faces of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, half of Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, Lupita Nyong’o and her brother, Kevin Spacey, Channing Tatum, and Julia Roberts.
After the picture was posted, Twitter was shut down for 20 minutes due to all of the activity online, and DeGeneres achieved her goal of setting a new record of retweets (over 3.3 million).
DeGeneres always makes sure to be unpredictable, and the Oscars was no exception. She entered the stage with a pizza delivery guy and brought him into the audience. The two of them passed out pizza to the stars. As it turns out, the pizza guy was told he was going backstage and had no idea he would be serving celebrities.
“I really think Ellen made the award show. I don’t think anyone else could have made such a sophisticated event so funny. Without her, the Oscars would have been really boring,” says senior Danielle Paxton.
“Gravity” won seven awards, including Best Director, Best Original Score, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Special Effects.
“12 Years a Slave” won three awards: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Nyong’o), and Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay.
“Dallas Buyers Club” also won three awards: Best Actor (Matthew McConaughy), Best Supporting Actor (Leto), and Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
“Frozen” won Best Animated Feature Film and Best Original Song (“Let It Go”).
“The Great Gatsby” won Best Costume Design and Best Production Design.
Senior Alexandra Palmer says, “I’m glad ‘Dallas Buyers Club’ won for Best Hair and Makeup because Jared Leto was unrecognizable. ‘The Great Gatsby’ also deserved to win for costume design.”
It was clear that Nyong’o was the woman of the night, and she made an inspiring speech urging children to follow their dreams.
Did you watch the Academy Awards? What were you most impressed with?
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