The crème de la crème of Hollywood attended the Oscars 2015 last night, ascending the stairway of the stars at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles along 500 feet of red carpet only the select get to tread.
Neil Patrick Harris mocks the #Oscars2015 for being so white http://t.co/GzaD5w7Lwc pic.twitter.com/wSoZncZwn9
— The Independent (@Independent) February 23, 2015
The 87th Annual Academy Awards, hosted by Neil Patrick Harris with a mix of comedy and politicism, saw a plethora of top-notch talent take a seat to discover who would walk away with the Oscars 2015 coveted golden statues (while those left out got to play with Lego versions instead). The official Oscars website reports that Harris did try and predict the winners for 2015, with some humorous names included, but the official and well-deserving winners of the true Oscars this year turned out to be those that previous awards ceremonies, such as The Baftas, SAG Awards and Golden Globes, had honored also this year.
Eddie Redmayne took the 2015 Academy Award for Best Actor for his leading role as Stephen Hawking in The Theory Of Everything , directed by James Marsh. Redmayne devoted his Oscars acceptance speech to all those who suffer from ALS, or Motor Neuron Disease – the disease which has left Professor Hawking in a wheelchair.
Eddie Redmayne gave this dedication during his #Oscars2015 best actor speech http://t.co/cOaz5M6jjz #AcademyAwards pic.twitter.com/NspcWxbhJv
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 23, 2015
Julianne Moore was the winner of the Oscars 2015 award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her character in Still Alice , directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland. In the film, Moore plays a linguistics professor who receives the awful diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s. The actress’ Oscars acceptance speech, as reported by Pop Sugar , was down-to-earth and classy to the end.
“I read an article that said that winning an Oscar can lead to living five years longer. If that’s true, I’d really like to thank The Academy because my husband is younger than me.”
See the full list of winners from last night’s #Oscars2015 : http://t.co/B9i7xiiqoy pic.twitter.com/HSuqrAroyW
— Grazia_Live (@Grazia_Live) February 23, 2015
J. K. Simmons received the 2015 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Fletcher in Whiplash , directed by Damien Chazelle. In the movie, Simmons plays a demanding music teacher at a top conservatory who gets the best from his students through fear and intimidation. Simmons’ Oscars acceptance speech was all about family.
JK Simmons who won Best Supporting Actor for Whiplash dedicated his Oscar to his family #Oscars2015 pic.twitter.com/OnG2VtbtXX
— BBC Newsbeat (@BBCNewsbeat) February 23, 2015
Speaking of family, Patricia Arquette – who arrived on the red carpet with “Team Arquette”, i.e. pretty much her whole family – won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the groundbreaking movie Boyhood , directed by Richard Linklater. Shot over a period of 12 years, Arquette plays the mother within the near-biopic study of a boy from the ages of five to eighteen. As Contact Music reports, the actress chose to dedicate her Oscars speech to demanding equal wages for women .
“To every woman who gave birth, to every tax payer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights, it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America!”
The Oscars 2015 award for Best Director went to Alejandro G. Inarritu for Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue Of Ignorance) , starring Michael Keaton. It was a good night for the director, as his film also going went on to win Best Picture 2015, pipping American Sniper and Boyhood to the post.
Teen suicide, race, women’s rights: #Oscars2015 gets political. @C4KylieM has the highlights: http://t.co/v9QXWN9ZGs pic.twitter.com/mi9WRQjWRj
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) February 23, 2015
As BBC News reports , Birdman also took the 2015 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, while the award for Best Adapted Screenplay went to an emotional Graham Moore for The Imitation Game , in which Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, who killed himself in 1954 after being prosecuted for being gay. As US Magazine reports, Moore mentioned his own past depression and directed his Oscars acceptance speech to all those suffering also.
“When I was 16 years old, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt like I did not belong […] Stay weird, stay different, and then, when it’s your turn, and you are standing on this stage, please pass the same message to the next person who comes along.”
Besides Patricia Arquette’s momentary political stand at the Oscars, not all viewers were pleased with how the show turned out in 2015. Although, as Yahoo! Celebrity reports, most were delighted with Lady Gaga’s Sound of Music tribute – ending the Oscars performance with an unexpectedly emotional hug with Julie Andrews – many viewers were outraged when the annual memoriam video, introduced by Meryl Streep, came to an end with a couple of expected names for 2015 missing.
As The Inquisitr reported, among the illustrated images of industry names now departed , obvious omissions included Joan Rivers and Elain Stritch. The discontent over this mistake at the Oscars 2015 was well-voiced on Twitter, but despite the minor uproar, the 87th Annual Academy Awards was a very successful – and progressive – night indeed.
Just in case you didn’t stay up all night to watch #Oscars2015 here’s the full list of winners http://t.co/Z9LCt6Jmk5 pic.twitter.com/me2YCg8qOX
— Sky News (@SkyNews) February 23, 2015
Congratulations to the winners.
[Image courtesy of Jason Merritt/Getty Images]
