I don't really have anything to say about the quality of Seth MacFarlane's hosting performance or the televised program in general, because I don't really care about those aspects of it, and nobody ever really likes the host anyway; at best, people try to justify it. The show is about Hollywood indulging in their own infamous vanity, so why assign any undue value to it? I would like to specify though, that Hollywood's vanity is frequently overblown, just as an addition to the industry's/community's traditional American role as a scapegoat. I'm not saying that Hollywood isn't as vain as we say it is, just that they don't truly stand out when we're honest about the vanity of everyone.
Returning from that tangent, this is in regards to the results of the show, the winners vs. the losers.
Although there were a couple of big winners, last night's awards were unusually spread out. Six movies received multiple awards, and three of the six were multiple award winners with only two (DJANGO UNCHAINED, LINCOLN and SKYFALL), and the most awards of the night for one movie was LIFE OF PI with four.
The two big winners of the night were Best Picture frontrunner, ARGO, with three wins, and in a bit of a surprise, my personal favorite, LIFE OF PI. As expected, ARGO became only the third film ever to win Best Picture in the absence of a Best Director nomination, the most recent being 23 years ago for DRIVING MISS DAISY. In addition to the night's biggest award, ARGO also won Best Film Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay, both of which I believed were more deserved by ZERO DARK THIRTY, but it seems the so-called "torture controversy" prevailed, leaving the critically-acclaimed epic with a single technical award for Best Sound Editing, having to share even that in a tie with SKYFALL.
As always, we're left to query whether history will vindicate the Best Picture award; whether or not ARGO will be remembered in future years as the great classic of 2012. It's kind of unlikely, although its legacy gets an automatic boost by its Oscar, for instance, other than the musical score, I doubt 1981 Best Picture CHARIOTS OF FIRE would be worth remembering by most without its award. It's incredibly rare that the Academy gets the Best Picture correct by history's reckoning, the few examples that come to mind where they did get it right on are CASABLANCA in 1941, and THE GODFATHER and THE GODFATHER PT. II in 1972 and 1974, respectively, but even with those, you do have to go by a generalized perspective, because there will always be unpopular opinions. If I had to venture a guess at what 2012 films will be most beloved by future generations, I'd probably guess MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS (un-nominated), THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (no nominations in any category), ZERO DARK THIRTY and maybe DJANGO UNCHAINED and LINCOLN. I'd like to hope for LIFE OF PI's legacy, but I feel a bit doubtful. Even then though, just because a movie will be great to the future generations doesn't mean it's great right now. I doubt last year's winner, THE ARTIST, will be especially enduring, but it was my definite favorite last year. And then you have "too much, too soon" movies that are unappreciated in their time, and I don't usually agree with the romanticization of such phenomenons. Just because something is lucky enough to be relevant in later years doesn't mean it deserved appreciation when it was bad in its own time. ARGO is a fine film though, and if it doesn't endure as long as its fellows, future generations may find labeled as a Best Picture winner and be encouraged to watch it, while the greater films will be viewed without such additional encouragement.
My personal favorite of 2012 (specifically, in a tie with MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS), LIFE OF PI, surprised everyone by winning the most awards of the night, and Ang Lee winning the Best Director award that most, including myself, predicted was going to Steven Spielberg for LINCOLN, but more specifically for his legacy. The award is Lee's third Oscar and his second for Best Director, having previously won for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN and winning Best Foreign Film for CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, but he's yet to win a Best Picture. LIFE OF PI is the first film in 27 years to win an award for Best Director with a PG rating, the last being OUT OF AFRICA, which would probably be a mild PG-13 today. In addition to Best Director, LIFE OF PI also received awards for it Best Special Effects, Best Original Score (by Mychael Danna) and Best Cinematography (by Claudio Miranda), the last of which was probably the most debated of its awards as it beat SKYFALL's oft-nominated but never winning favorite, Roger Deakins.
Best Actor predictably went to the overwhelmingly deserving Daniel Day-Lewis for LINCOLN, and making him the first ever to win three awards for Best Actor, while eight other actors have won twice. LINCOLN, which was an early frontrunner and the most nominated of the year, with 12, only managed one other award, that being for Best Production Design. Surprisingly, the super controversial DJANGO UNCHAINED, the other film to deal with the American history of slavery, won two awards as well; the first to Christoph Waltz for Best Supporting Actor, his second, the previous win also for a Tarantino film (INGLORIOUS BASTERDS), and Quentin Tarantino won his second Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
Academy Awards hunter extraordinaire Harvey Weinstein's prize horse, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, won a single award for Best Actress, going to Jennifer Lawrence, the youngest two-time Best Actress nominee at only 22, who tripped on her way to the stage and flipped the bird to cameras on the red carpet. Now, I know that many will call her out on a lack of class, but at a ceremony as phony as the Oscars, I love to see a touch of blatant egotism to counter the headache-inducing false grace. She's a got a real personality, and I was also a fan of James Cameron's infamous "I'm king of the world!" speech, so there.
Though most brush off that category, I'd also like to add that the award for Best Animated Feature was quite misplaced, even while, who'd have thought it, going to a Pixar film. BRAVE was one of my most highly-anticipated films last year, but for all its visual beauty, it was a real letdown. My favorite to win was PARANORMAN, which was one of the best films of last year, but I acknowledged its possibly too bold style and assumed my second favorite, WRECK-IT RALPH would win, and would have been significantly more deserving than the lackluster BRAVE. If Brenda Chapman had been able to follow through with her director's duties until completion, I suspect BRAVE would have been more deserving, but as it was, no.
In regards to my predictions, my batting average was quite poor, with only 12 out of 22 correct, not including my 2nd guesses, but in fairness, there were a fair few surprises, not least of which was a tie (only the sixth ever, most recently in 1994) for Best Sound Editing that was split between ZERO DARK THIRTY and SKYFALL. My prediction had been SKYFALL, so I tallied that one in my favor.
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