The 87th Academy Awards took place
last Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. If we had to describe it in a
few words, we could say that it was musical, touching and full of protest. The
host of the ceremony was Patrick Neil Harris, a very well-known actor by most
of us thanks to his role of Barney Stinson in the acclaimed sitcom How I met your mother. Being the host of
the Oscars is usually a risky business: being funny and keeping a captive
audience for over four hours is not an easy task for the actor or actors who
dare to take up the challenge. The expectations were high and even if Neil
Harris did his best, his work hasn´t been notably recognised.
Music is always part of the show in this kind
of event but everybody agrees that one of the most touching moments of the show
was Lady Gaga´s performance: a medley of The
Sound of Music songs was beautifully sung by the eccentric singer to mark
the 50thanniversary of the film.
Julie Andrews appeared on the stage and hugged
Lady Gaga after her wonderful performance, a tribute to the veteran actress and
a film which is a classic.
The protest overtones came in the form of
Patricia Arquette´s acceptance speech: she denounced pay disparity between men
and women and the singers of Glory,
the song from the film Selma paid
tribute to civil rights campaigners.
Patricia Arquette won the Oscar for best supporting
actress in Boyhood.
JK. Simmons – winner of the Oscar for
supporting actor in Whiplash – also
made a speech full of emotion.
It is also noticing that all the winners of
some of the most important categories were also BAFTA winners: Julianne Moore,
Eddie Redmayne, Patricia Arquette and J.K. Simmons were presented with the
sought-after statuette.
Boyhood and Birdman were competing for the Oscar in the same categories but the
winner was Birdman: it got four Oscars
for best picture, director – Alejando González Inárritu – cinematography and
original screenplay. Michael Keaton plays the main role in the film and he was
also a nominee for the Oscar as best leading actor but the British actor Eddie
Redmayne deprived him of that honour.
Julianne Moore plays the role of a linguistics
professor who is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer´s disease in Still Alice and she referred to the disease
in her acceptance speech. This was Moore´s fifth nomination as she had been
previously nominated for Boogie Nights,
The End of the Affair, Far from Heaven and The Hours.
Eddie Redmayne was elated at receiving the
Academy Award. He won the Oscar for his performance of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, a film based
on a book written by his ex-wife Jane Wilde. E. Redmayne dedicated the award to
"all of those people around the world battling ALS" – a form of motor
neurone disease – the illness that left Professor Hawking in a wheelchair.
What´s
so special about the Oscars? Why are the winners so thrilled with the Academy
Award? What´s the difference between winning an Oscar and winning a different
award?
