Jason Wiese | Legacy Staff Reporter
Published March 7, 2014; 9:51 a.m.
Of the nine nominees for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards, only three had a lucky night with a guy named Oscar.
The race in cinematic achievement in art and science came to end Sunday night with the most coveted award, Best Picture, given to the pre-civil war era biopic “12 Years a Slave,” which also took home Best Adapted Screenplay, given to John Ridley, and Best Supporting Actress, given to newcomer Lupita N’yongo. Fellow Best Picture nominee “Gravity” gave “12 Years” a run for its money. The science fiction epic sweeped most of the technical categories, including Visual Effects and Original Score, and also earned Alfonso Cuaron the Best Director statuette.
Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto received their first Oscar nominations and wins in the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories for “Dallas Buyers Club,” which also earned Best Makeup. Cate Blanchett landed her second date with Oscar, since winning Best Supporting Actress for “The Aviator” in 2005, after winning Best Actress for “Blue Jasmine.”
The futuristic romantic drama “Her” took home just one Oscar (Best Original Screenplay, given to Spike Jonze) leaving “American Hustle,” “Captain Phillips,” “Nebraska,” “Philomena” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” empty handed.
On her second hosting gig in seven years, Ellen DeGeneres opened the show traditionally by poking fun at the nominees. “I think you should think of yourselves as winners,” she addressed the audience in her monologue. “Not all of you, but the people who have won before.”
DeGeneres later rebelled against tradition by ordering pizza for the audience and later made history by tweeting a photo taken live during the ceremony of her and many celebrities. She announced later in the show that the photo broke the record for most retweets and, as a result, crashed Twitter’s server. As well as breaking records on Twitter, this year’s telecast was the most watched since 2005 with at 27.9 household ratings score, according to the “Los Angeles Times.” DeGeneres and the intense race for Best Picture helped achieve a successful Academy Awards this year.
