Oscars 2015 : 'Birdman' wins Best Picture, Patricia Arquette wins, and a ratings dive.

     Well, the Oscars have come and gone. I would have written a review of the Oscars yesterday but you know how life can be.

     But anyway, onto films' biggest night....

     This is one of the year's where I thought that most of my early predictions (one of my missing posts from this blog) would be correct. I didn't get a chance to see many of the nominated films but I wasn't surprised by the winners.

Best Picture: Birdman - Alexandro G. Iñárritu
This movie was definitely a front runner in the Best Picture race so it was no surprise for winning the big award of the night. Birdman, the acclaimed film about an actor battling his own inner demons - which manifest in the form of the comic-book superhero that he once portrayed - also racked up awards for Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Cinematography. 

Best Actor: Eddie Redmayne - The Theory of Everything
This one was a surprise to me..but kind of wasn't. Considering the critical acclaim that Redmayne and Keaton both received for their roles in The Theory of Everything and Birdman, respectively, it was a toss-up between these two actors. Despite Micheal Keaton's best review performance in years (I'll be getting Birdman soon enough), when you are going up against a film about Stephen Hawking, that man will be hard to beat. 

Best Actress: Julieanne Moore - Still Alice
The long wait is over for Miss Moore. The well-established actress finally won the golden statue after four previous nominations. This award was deserved and long overdue for Julieanne Moore. Despite the fact that she has earned the European "best actress triple crown" for wins in the Berlin, Cannes, and Venice film festivals but the Academy Award has always eluded her. Her acting in Still Alice, a Columbia Linguistics professor with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, has been called stellar and gripping, praised by critics. 

     Other award winners consisted of J.K. Simmons winning Best Supporting Actor for Whiplash, Patricia Arquette for Best Supporting Actress in Boyhood. Patricia Arquette's acceptance speech was one of the strongest as she praised that it was time to fight for equality and equal rights for women in the United States of America. I'm along with Meryl Streep's reaction about that speech and thought it was the right time to have that voice heard. 

     Having the legendary NPH hosting should have helped but overall reactions are that the award show seemed dull. There was an 18% decrease from the previous year (that infamous selfie last year could have come in handy this time around). It was the lowest watched Oscar broadcast since 2009. While it wasn't stunning or terrible, it was sub-par compared to previous years...I will admit that the performance for The LEGO Movie "Everything Is Awesome" was just that: Awesome!