Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesWake us when it's over...
Oh, it's over! After about three hours of leisurely pacing following by 35 minutes of rapid-fire presenting, the 85th Academy Awards ultimately came to an end with the expected crowning of Argo as Best Picture.
But, before that, these five things-that-made-you-go-hmmm happened:
1. When Seth MacFarlane Was Bad, He Was Very Bad: The whole show was hit and miss—and mainly miss when it came to any time when an award was not being handed out, which was way too much of the time. MacFarlane opened strong, with his calling out the Academy for the Ben Affleck snub and putting his classically trained singing voice to good use on "We Saw Your Boobs." But the crack about Rex Reed, who notoriously bashed Melissa McCarthy's weight in his Identity Thief review, planning to critique Adele's performance of "Skyfall"? And, sorry, Never called and wants its tired joke about the Jews running Hollywood back. First of all, it's been done, and it's been done better (and probably by MacFarlane himself on Family Guy).
2. Don't Stop Till You Get Enough: Legend has it, the Quentin Tarantino emerges once a generation to rabidly accept an Oscar before retreating back into his den to write. And when the Tarantino is in the spotlight, he never wastes the opportunity. Upon winning Best Original Screenplay for Django Unchained, he talked and talked for a while about forming his characters and picking good actors. Then the exit music swelled. Then he gave a shout-out to the snubbed Leonardo DiCaprio. But the Tarantino didn't budge and, magically, the music stopped playing and he kept feeding. "OK, I know, I'm getting off, I'm getting off," he assured the crowd that his retreat was imminent. "Once last thing: I would like to say that it's such an honor to get it this year because I have to say, in both the original and the adapted categories, the writing is just fantastic. This will be the writer's year, man. Thank you very much, I love the competition, you guys are all wonderful. Peace out!" Cue the Gone With the Wind theme, because apparently the Tarantino caused time to reverse.
3. Well, At Least She Was Winning an Oscar: Jennifer Lawrence managed to top that blink-and-you-missed-it lining snafu with her dress at the SAG Awards by actually falling down on her way to accept the Academy Award for Best Actress, after which she breathlessly joked about it onstage and remembered to wish 86-year-old fellow nominee Emmanuelle Riva a happy birthday. And that is why Lawrence has been a joy to obsess over this awards season. At the tender age of 22, she doesn't need to be poised and she doesn't need to be perfect—she just needs to be herself.
4. Lincoln's Folly: Daniel Day-Lewis winning Best Actor was the least surprising thing that happened all night. And, really, Lincoln only winning two out the leading 12 Oscars it was nominated for isn't particularly shocking. Happens all the time. In fact, we're a little surprised it beat out Life of Pi and Les Misérables for production design. We're just wondering, at this point, why it's still assumed that being nominated for a lot of awards all at once means anything.
5. The Oscars Get Clinton Envy: Jack Nicholson has been the last guy standing at the end of many a celebratory night, sometimes even when an award is being handed out. And there was absolutely nothing strange about the 12-time Oscar nominee and three-time winner getting the nod to hand out the Best Picture prize Sunday—until first lady Michelle Obama, looking ready for the red carpet in Naeem Khan formalwear, showed up via satellite to actually give Argo the good news. So, were the Oscars trying to compensate for being upstaged by the Golden Globes' big get, Bill Clinton, who introduced the clip of Lincoln that night? Forgive us, but with the ceremony nearing the 30-minutes-over mark, the first lady's shout-out to arts education—not to mention Nicholson's abrupt demotion to sidekick—was a bit jarring.