84th Academy Awards Reactions

Yet again, the awards season has come and gone, and the Oscars are already long over. In a year of remarkably few 'great' films, the Academy was able to determine perhaps the best in each category, making this year seem much better than it actually was. The show itself went on with relatively few shocks, a nice easygoing atmosphere, and the usual sense of dragging on (especially in the last half hour). The shocks that did occur, though, were significant enough that they threw even MoJo off guard. If you hapened to have used our predictions for your awards games, congratulations, as you probably won. MoJo was correctly able to predict 20 out of the 24 final winners, with misses only due to major upsets or wins we simply did not see coming.

The show was off to a dangerous start, sidestepping the usual supporting acting Oscar to instead present Best Cinematography. The entire year, everyone knew one thing: The Tree of Life was guaranteed to win this award. It was one of the only sure things of the night. Apparently not, as a surprised Tom Hanks read off Rob Richardson for Hugo. Immediately, the night was off to an uncertain start, as Hugo began to rake in more and more technical awards. It seemed like the film could even be on track to win Best Picture by the night's end.

But, just like our precursor awards, The Artist began to pick up steam, with wins in Costume Design and Original Score (though Editing was won completely out of the blue by Girl With The Dragon Tattoo). Wasn't Rise of the Planet of the Apes supposed to win Best Visual Effects? Nope, as MoJo pointed out, this award has ALWAYS been won by the Best Picture nominee of the group, in this case, Hugo. Coupled with that fact that Hugo had already won the Guild award for the same category? Sealed.

The second most surprising and completely thrilling upset was, of course, Meryl Streep winning her long-awaited third Oscar for her brilliant turn in The Iron Lady. Beating out a clearly thrown-off Viola Davis, Streep accepted her award with humility and her ever-present sense of humor. At long last (and 29 long years later), Streep has broken her losing streak to become tied as the second most awarded actor in the Academy's history.

Of course, the Artist concluded the night with 5 wins (tied with Hugo), and all else went according to plan. Will The Artist be remembered in years to come as one of the great Best Picture winners? Most likely not. Here was a film with a simple plot that was pure entertainment. The Academy rewarded a feel-good movie (and the first movie NOT rated R since Million Dollar Baby in 2004) and in the end, it feels like the right choice. We thank everyone for staying with us this Awards season, and will continue to keep updates in the hopes that 2012 will be even better!