John Shearer/Invision/APThe Oscars are finally here, and your host Ellen DeGeneres was ready to deliver an Academy Awards telecast celebrating stars such as Jared Leto, Cate Blanchett, Matthew McConaughey, Jennifer Lawrence and Lupita Nyong'o and a host of films such as Gravity (which won the most awards), 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club, Frozen and Her.
And, of course, there was that epic selfie. And the pizza delivery.
So, while we debate all the winners and losers and most memorable bits, there is one thing we can all agree on: It's time to get started. So read on for our Best and Worst of the 2014 Oscars….
Best Introduction: Ellen DeGeneres killed the opening monologue. Funny, honest, serious and irreverent, she tackled everything from Hollywood's obsession with youth, Jennifer Lawrence falling down, the Hunger Games-like quality of the awards season, sex at the rodeo, Liza Minnelli impersonators, possible Oscar racism and that thing you do...if you're Jonah Hill in The Wolf of Wall Street, which is disgusting.
Best Recycling: We were impressed by all those empty Oscar bottles that made up the stage decoration. We hear if you bring back 10 of those to the Academy, you get a free Technical Oscar!
Worst Surprise: Jared Leto, who totally earned that Supporting Actor award, doubly earned it by saluting his mother, his brother and the people of troubled places like Ukraine and Venezuela, as well as paying tribute to people who had lost the battle to AIDS. Oh, and he plugged his band 30 Seconds to Mars, too. Not too shabby.
Best Capper: Pharrell Williams' hat was awesome, and the singer underneath the lid got a trio of amazing dancing performances out of Lyong'o, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. Damn, give that performance an Emmy and a Grammy or two, people.
Worst Cutaway Shot: Jim Carrey introduced a tribute to animation, and during his wacky monologue, which included a disturbing (and funny!) Bruce Dern impersonation, he then made a joke about LSD. So, who did the telecast director cut to? The guys in U2. Yeah, we get it. Drug jokes because they are the least drama-filled four guys in the room who are avid humanitarians and promoters of positive change in the world and up for an Oscar for writing a song about the late Nelson Mandela. So, yes, the guys in the rock band get the drug joke reaction shot. But yeah, that was funny.
Most Strangely Intimate and Strange Moment: Matthew McConaughey and Kim Novak were introducing animated shorts like Get a Horse, but, hey-yo!, it was more like "Get a (screening) room!" with their breathy, close-talking sexytime introduction. Rambling? Yes. Odd? Totally. Hot? ...Yes.
Best Comeback: We loved when Ellen came back onstage in the wrong spot (on purpose!), for a joke about the importance of hitting your mark.
Best Mooning of the Audience: Karen O's rendition of the "The Moon Song" from Her was just absolutely beautiful.
Biggest Tease: Not sure what took them so long to figure it out, but only giving out one major acting award—and the least surprising one, to boot!—in the first hour really made the show seem less boring. (Though it also contributed to the show being three and a half hours.)
Cutest Reaction: Kate Hudson's folks, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, were beaming when the star came out just to present the Live Action Short Film award. Beaming!
Worst Coincidence: Two awards in a row mentioned that people involved in the films (The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life and 20 Feet From Stardom) had passed away in the last few weeks. Terribly sad news for them and their loved ones, but we're glad that they knew they'd been recognized.
Top 20 Moment: Darlene Love, one of the subjects of 20 Feet From Stardom, brought the house to its feet with a joyous, a capella song during director Morgan Neville's speech.
Best Kiss: Brad Pitt kissed Angelina Jolie after a clip of the Unbroken director accepting her Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Nicest Shout-Out: U2 may be a huge, iconic rock band up for an Oscar, but they offered up a sweet shout-out to singer Darlene Love at the end of their performance of "Ordinary Love."
Best and Least Surprising Surprise: Lupita Nyong'o won, as expected. She gave a sweet, thoughtful and moving speech, as expected. And she totally won our hearts with her endearing spirit. As expected.
Best. Pizza. Ever. Sure, you thought, Ellen ordering a pizza for the assembled stars would be funny, and it was. But then the pizza delivery guy showed up, and Brad Pitt helped pass out plates and even Harrison Ford got a slice. The whole thing was funny and normal and capped off by Jennifer Lawrence enjoying her slice while the academy president addressed the house. Truth: There is no bad pizza.
The Worst Bill Murray... Is, like pizza, still way better than just about anything else. And Bill Murray was so great tonight. He jumped up first for Darlene Love. He just appeared over June Squibb's shoulder like a puckish guardian angel. And then he slipped in a Harold Ramis tribute while presenting an award with Amy Adams. (OK, we will ding Murray for repeatedly calling Adams "baby," which is inappropriate outside of a Mad Men episode.)
Sad Songs Say So Much: Pink and Bette Midler were brought out to croon "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "Wind Beneath My Wings" and not only brought down the house, but Midler even made herself cry. And some people in our office.
Best Picture: Whoever did the montages, mixing together everything from Jaws to Braveheart and a zillion movies in between, really needs to direct some feature films. A movie with cowboys, aliens, Scottish warriors and killer sharks sounds like a hit to us.
Most Creative Pronunciation: We're not sure who "Adele Nazeem" is, but John Travolta mentioned her right before Idina Menzel came out to sing "Let It Go." Oh, and she killed that song. Take note, Adele Nazeem.
Type Casting: Now we know where all the old typewriters went: They got dragged onstage as set dressing when the writing awards were handed out. (Notably, they all seemed to be filled with mostly blank sheets of paper, which seemed kind of appropriate.)
Best Actresses: Cate Blanchett praised all the other actresses nominated in her category (and a sweet "#suckit" to Julia Roberts), but it was noticeable that her joyous, gracious speech suddenly got a muted response when she thanked Blue Jasmine director Woody Allen.
Best Speech: Matthew McConaughey gave the Most McConaughey Speech Ever that was part religious revival, part TED talk, part existential New Yorker short story about being your own hero and part just a chance to say, "Alright, alright, alright" one last time during awards season. And that was all right.
Best Ending: Well, after three and a half hours, any ending is a great ending, but having Brad Pitt introduce director Steve McQueen and the cast of 12 Years a Slave was pretty inspiring, as was McQueen's speech which included a shout-out to the historian who had kept Solomon Northup's story from being forgotten and ended with McQueen joyously jumping around and hugging the cast.
So we liked the show. How about you?