The Beautiful People
Monday, March 3, 2014 at 4:49AM The Class of 2013 via The 86th Academy Awards, March 2nd, 2014!
Damn, that's a good looking bunch. It occurs to me that there was more than just a little bit more of a consensus this year behind "shoulds" when it came to acting winners, hence the repeats from ceremony to ceremony. That was true even here at The Film Experience. Though McConaughey didn't win his reader's poll here (he came in 3rd in a tight race for 2nd with Chiwetel, both behind Leo), the rest were your preferred winners as you can see on their percentage totals on the individual charts. And Cate and Lupita were also my gold medalists in the The Film Experience's long running Film Bitch Awards, too.
Group Tidbits & Trivia
• Cate and Matthew are the exact same age (44) and I wonder when or if that's ever happened before with the lead winners? It probably doesn't happen often given Oscar's double gender standards when it comes to what age its appropriate to honor male and female actors; generally speaking, women win most often when they're in their late 20s to mid 30s wherease men have much better luck in their 40s.
• The lead winners are both married and both have three children. The supporting winners are both single and keep publicly joking about the rumors that they're dating
Jennifer and Lupita reenact the last month of the internet backstage!
• another cute Lead/Supporting divide. The leads brought their spouses to the Oscars and both Lupita and Jared brought a sibling!
• Interesting gender divide in terms of origins. The women are international (Australia and Kenyan/Mexican) while the men are both from the Southern US (Texas and Louisiana)
• All four went to college -- so since Ellen went there with a joke: stay in school, kids
Jared Leto photobombing Anne Hathaway
• Cate is the old pro (6 noms / 2 wins) but the other three are all 'first time's the charm' winners
• I interviewed 75% of this group, alas not a perfect fab four: ICYMI my chats with Matthew, Jared, & Lupita
• Four different zodiac signs but we have two waters (Matthew & Lupita) and two earths (Cate & Jared) and yes, I have insomnia, or else why else would I be looking this up?!
Reader Comments (27)
Probably the best show in a long time:
-Best Joke: “Possibility No. 1: ‘12 Years a Slave' wins best picture. Possibility No. 2: You're all racists.".
-Worst Joke: The one with Liza.
-The Music: Yes, more please! I'm in love with Pharrell and Karen O. and I publicly want to thank Idina Menzel for proving live that "Let It Go" is unbearable to the human ear.
-Awards: Happy for "La grande bellezza". I really feared that the Belgium tearjerker was going to screw things it up.
-Presenters: Ewan finally made it! 13 years after Moulin Rouge! Get in line Oscar Isaac!
-Speechs: Leto and his references to the victims of AIDS and the revolutionaries of Venezuela and Ukraine. Remember when the Oscars were political?
-The Crowd: So everyone got standing ovations except Cuarón? Not pretty!
That picture of JLaw and Lupita is adorable.
I'm so thrilled that Cate is now a two-time Oscar winner....who knows...one day she may just break Hepburn's 4 wins and Meryl's 18 noms:)
a journalist said "Cate, you are the first Australian actor to win 2 Oscars"
Cate Blanchett cuts him off with a razor sharp "And don't you fucking forget it"
the whole room explodes into laughter. :D
At the first moment, I thought 'The Beautiful People' was a jab at Kim Novak.
What? Too Soon?
(Yes, I did realize you were tactfully silent, while the rest of Twitter lashed out a torrent of nasty comments - but then again, sad as it is to see what plastic surgery made out of her, she did bring it upon herself.)
Not long ago, if you'd told me that Cate Blanchett wouldn't win a second Oscar until they started throwing awards at people like Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto - I would have thought you were trying to tell me she would never win a second Oscar.
My Queen! I am your Majesty's most humble servant
Im looking for the press room interview with Blanchett but only found the minute long one
Nat R does realize that probably 1.5 years ago when he was doing some sort of
"Who Has the Chance to Win a 2nd Oscar" post he said that probably Cate would at some point win another Supporting Oscar! :D
And he was proven wrong very quickly.
Not being a bitch, just reminding people of this and that :P
It was a waste of time of a show, unfortunately. Really happy for Cate though; fully deserved sweep and she looked fucking FIERCE last night (not that it has anything to do with her deserving, but it's an added bonus)
Overall, I think the winners are very strong this year. And Cate Blanchett gave what had to be one of the best acceptance speeches in recent history. Brava!
A good ceremony overall. As usual, the tributes were silly, and I always walk away thinking that if the Academy really wants to give tributes, they should take a cue from Grammy and have intermittent specials. Who wouldn't want to watch an hour(or two)-long 75th anniversary tribute to The Wizard of Oz?
Pro Anne Hathaway was the only one not to fub her lines during her award presentation .
Kathy Bates and Jeremy Irons both were 42 when accepting their Oscars for Misery and Reversal Of Fortune.
For the first time in a long while the same actress won the Oscar and the Film BiTCH gold medal
Yavor: "not being a bitch... ", but your post certainly reflects otherwise considering you've been vocal against Nat (borderlining in insult) for a longtime whenever Cate Blanchett comes into discussion. Whatever beef you have with him, I would say Let it Go, Let it Gooo! ;)
For reals, let's for once have peace here, and not throw snide remarks. I'm a huge Cate fan, and Nat has shown this year his support for her tremendous performance. I would say he may be even surprised at how taken he was with Blanchett this season, but I would not take it against him if this was the only performance he ever /loves/ from Cate. Though, thanks Nat, for recognizing greatness! I know you always do!
And yes, her speech was fierce. I thought a revolution was going to start right there.
In other news, how beautiful did Anne Hathaway look yesterday? The moment she stepped into the stage with that amazing dress and nice hair, I think I fell in love with her again. She looked like millions of dollars, and she was quite pleasant.
Oh, and depending on which birth year we take as a basis, Ray Milland and Joan Crawford also had the same age when winning their lead actor awards. Most biographers these days agree that Crawford must have been born in 1906 whereas Milland was almost certainly born in 1907 (and not as IMDb claims in 1905). So, if we go with the most likely dates, this means that they both were 39 when collecting Oscars for Mildred Pierce and The Lost Weekend.
That was the most cheerful looking Oscar audience I've seen in a long time. They stood up and cheered for all kinds of things. Maybe when there's little suspense and a consensus is kind of reached beforehand, everyone can just relax and enjoy the show.
My surprise was how much fun it was without any suspense. It's different watching people get an award than reading about it. It seemed fast to me, and Ellen did a good job of being a genial host.
I think the show was great this year. Great performers, great host and great winners. Nice job oscars. My only little problem was with matt and jared winning. They were good though but their categories had much more deserving less self-absorbed winners. But they will do for now. Don t expect them to repeat. Lupita should build on the promise of this year. It s nice to have a young beautiful talented actress to see grow into a major movie star. Cate Blanchett has established herself throughout the year as the most important international actress working today. Love her or hate her, actresses everywhere can't hope for anyone better to look up to. Good for her and for us. Great awards season. Let s all go on with our routines.
@ Jones, I really said that in a semi-playful semi-you-never-know-what's-gonna-happen way
I truly appreciate Nat and his work.
Has anyone ever been as happy to lose as Jennifer Lawrence last night?
TB - meryl standing up when she lost to cher is pretty good!
You all must have been at parties where people actually listened to the television. I didn't even know about the John Travolta blooper until this morning, thanks to a VERY VERY LOUD PARTY.
Thank you, Nathaniel, for all the hard work this season! I would have preferred other winners too, but there's always next year!
On a side note, i think what I like most about Blanchett's speech is that it allows me to afford the same type of foolish presumption that People who are accusing her of being a child molester sympathiZer are allowing themselves. If you choose to focus on her disregarding Dylan Farrow's story, I will choose to think you're a goddamn sexist. Brilliant.
Greatly appreciate your insight this awards season, Nathaniel!
A few more pieces of trivia: Cate and Matthew both lost their fathers to heart attacks. Like Jared and Matthew, Cate has Southern U.S. roots, her late father being a Texas native.
I thought they all gave pretty damn impressive and sweetly honest speeches as well, which I found myself surprised by. Even if Leto and McConaughey weren't my number one picks like Princess Lupita and Queen Cate.
That first pic is all kinds of hot tho.
There is a telling note to the first pic. Cate, Lupita and Leto are standing with arms around each other, MM is both hands on the prize. Love the other two pics.
MM is insufferable.
While I thought the show itself was good, the awards went exactly according to script. Not one surprise, not one! For me, that was a disappointment.