Don't fear the Streeper: 84th Annual Academy Awards reactions

After losing 12 consecutive times, Meryl Streep won her third Oscar, her first since 1983, at Sunday's 84th Annual Academy Awards. She played former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.
The silent masterpiece The Artist also had a good night taking away five awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius) and Best Actor (Jean Dujardin). Martin Scorsese's Hugo also nabbed five, including a surprise win in the Cinematography category.

Jim Rash, Adapted Screenplay winner, shows his
appreciation of presenter Angelina Jolie's leggy pose

The supporting awards went to Octavia Spencer from The Help and 82-year-old Christopher Plummer, in Beginners, who becomes the oldest Oscar winning actor ever. The screenplay awards went to Alexander Payne, Jim Rash and Nat Faxon (Adapted Screenplay for The Descendants) and Woody Allen (Original Screenplay for Midnight in Paris) who was the only winner of the night not present to accept his Oscar.
It was quite an international awards show as winners ranged from countries such as France, Iran, New Zealand, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.
Ninth-time host Billy Crystal was up to his old tricks. He inserted himself into scenes from 2011 movies including The Descendants (in which he shared a kiss with George Clooney), Midnight in Paris (in which Crystal played Sammy Davis Jr. and featured Justin Bieber, of all people) and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (featuring Tom Cruise). He also merged together two rather gross scenes from The Help and Bridesmaids in seamless fashion.
Then Crystal started to sing about the nine Best Picture nominees before saying, "You didn't think I wasn't going to do this did you?"
He also brought back his classic "What are they thinking?" segment in which he interprets what a famous audience member is thinking at that moment.
With the camera on Brad Pitt's face, Crystal informed us that Pitt was thinking the following.

Host Billy Crystal indicating the amount of
Best Picture nominees this year as well as the
amount of times he's hosted the Oscars

"This better not go too late, I have six parent-teacher conferences in the morning."
Throughout the night we saw a series of interviews in which movie stars reflected on early movie memories. Morgan Freeman remembers seeing the original King Kong when he was 6-and-a-half years old. Adam Sandler remembered seeing Diamonds are Forever and commented on Sean Connery's "performance and chest hair." Reese Witherspoon wasn't ashamed to admit her favorite film is Overboard, starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn.

Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis
presenting Best Original Song.

The funniest part of the night was when Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis marched to the stage with cymbals using them far too often. It was hilarious to watch them fumble and drop the cymbals when attempting to announce the Original Song winner and even funnier when Galifianakis announced himself as "Zadge Gabafivadaffus."
I personally enjoyed the inclusion of Christopher Guest and his crew, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara and Fred Willard, as a focus group from 1939 commenting on the new film The Wizard of Oz. Willard's critique of "I didn't like it until they got to the flying monkeys," was the best part. You can see the video here.
The show's producer Brian Grazer put a lot of effort into keeping the show running at a proper pace wisely choosing to have pairs of presenters announce two or three awards at a time as opposed to having fresh presenters for every award. The show still went over, but only by eight minutes.
Overall the show went smoothly with little controversy, but there will, of course, be much to talk about this week.


What people will be talking about on Monday
~The Streeper - Again, the big story is Meryl Streep winning her third statue in a record 17 tries. She joins Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan, Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson as the only actors who have won at least three acting Oscars. Hepburn is the only one with four, so Streep has that to shoot for though she humbly stated "I really understand that I won't be up here again."
~Cirque de Soleil - The company that blends circus arts and street entertainment put on a stunning performance complete with people balancing on people, trapeze artists, dressed like Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest, soaring over audience members  and sensational acrobatic maneuvers of all varieties.
"Wow, I pulled a hamstring just watching that," said impressed host Billy Crystal.
~F-bombs over Hollywood - Two winners, perhaps due to spontaneous excitement, followed in Melissa Leo's footsteps and said the no-no word. T.J. Martin, a winner for making a documentary about a Memphis high school football team in the film Undefeated, used the word while thanking his fellow nominees and was bleeped by the censors. Best Actor Jean Dujardin (The Artist), however, got his f-bomb by the censors because he swore in French during the closing part of his acceptance speech when he chose to allow his silent movie character George Valentin the chance to shout in excitement.
~J-Lo's wardrobe malfunction - I didn't notice it myself, but some say Jennifer Lopez's revealing dress was becoming too revealing at certain points during her red carpet entrance and her presentation of a couple of awards with Cameron Diaz. I, honestly, don't think anything was visible, but people are already talking about it.
~The Dictator causes a stir - Dressed in complete gear of his character for his upcoming film The Dictator, Sacha Baron Cohen spilled the supposed remains of Kim Jong-Il on red carpet reporter Ryan Seacrest. I don't think anybody was too upset about it, but it will be discussed in the next few days. Later on in the night, Cohen was part of the montage in which stars talked about their favorite movies.
"I always think that I want to make something that I, myself, would want to watch. And I just happen to want to watch some really sick stuff."


Memorable Quotes from the big night
"Nothing can take the sting out of the world's economic problems like watching millionaires presenting each other with golden statues."
Billy Crystal during the show's opening monologue

"I love animation because in the world of animation you can be anything you want to be. If you're a fat woman you can play a skinny princess. If you're a short, wimpy guy you can play a tall gladiator. If you're a white man you can play an Arabian prince. If you're a black man you can play a donkey or a zebra."
Chris Rock, presenter for best Animated Feature, referring to his role as a zebra in the Madagascar movies and Eddie Murphy's role as Donkey in the Shrek movies

"When they called my name I had this feeling I could hear half of America going 'Oh no, oh come on, why her again?' But whatever."
Best Actress winner Meryl Streep modestly admitting some folks might be sick of her


"You're only two years older than me, darling. Where have you been all my life?"
Christopher Plummer talking to his Oscar he earned for his supporting performance in Beginners becoming the oldest Oscar winning actor ever


"I just want to thank everybody who's here tonight and everybody who isn't. And everybody who's ever been born or may be born or born again or reborn. If I've forgotten anybody then you probably know who you are."
Eugene Gearty, winner for Sound Editing for Hugo along with Philip Stockton, providing us with one of the most poetic and funny moments of the night


"Once you get to know him, he's just a normal frog. And, like many stars tonight, he's a lot shorter in real life."
Bret McKenzie, winner of the Best Original Song "Man or Muppet" from The Muppets, talking about working with Kermit the Frog


List of winning films
The Artist - 5 Best Picture, Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius), Best Actor (Jean Dujardin), Costume Design and Original Score
Hugo - 5 Art Direction, Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects
The Iron Lady - 2 Best Actress (Meryl Streep) and Makeup
Beginners - 1 Best Supporting Actor (Christopher Plummer)
The Descendants - 1 Adapted Screenplay (Nat Faxon, Alexander Payne and Jim Rash)
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore - 1 Animated Short
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - 1 Film Editing
The Help - 1 Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer)
Midnight in Paris - 1 Original Screenplay (Woody Allen)
The Muppets - 1 Original Song ("Man or Muppet")
Rango - 1 Animated Feature
Saving Face - 1 Documentary Short Subject
A Separation - 1 Foreign Language Film
The Shore - 1 Live Action Short
Undefeated - 1 Documentary Feature


Maybe 2011 didn't have the strongest batch of Best Picture contenders, but with Billy Crystal on board and the decision to honor movie history throughout the night, I'd say the show was a success. And so concludes another awards season and at the same time beginning a new year in movies. Thanks for reading.