86th Annual Academy Awards Recap

Ellen DeGeneres returning to host for the 86th Annual Academy Awards hands-down showed how to effortlessly wrangle a younger, wider audience, something the academy has been desperately trying to do since their ill-fated host selection of James Franco and Anne Hathaway. Well, this year without even meaning to, it's happened. (Or at least I'm assuming that is what the result will be.) And it all starts with that A-list selfie, featuring the glowing faces of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Meryl Streep, Kevin Spacey, Lupita Nyong'o, Jennifer Lawrence, Jared Leto and more with Bradley Cooper holding out the phone in a moment of pure unadulterated fun. As was the goal, it has garnered the most retweets on Twitter of all time and, as Ellen later confirmed in the telecast, even momentarily crashed the social media site.

Ellen channeled the feel-good spirit of her daytime talk show, interacting with the audience, relating to celebrities -- who actually seem to really like her -- and strolling the seats with casual banter, even walking around with Pharrell's now-famous hat collecting money from the likes of Harvey Weinstein for the pizza she ordered. Yes, the pizza she ordered. The pizza that actually came, and which was eaten up by the likes of Harrison Ford and Martin Scorsese.

These two moments made her hosting gig actually memorable, and also proves that, really, no awards show nowadays is complete without the incorporation of social media. Cate Blanchett's acceptance speech even included the word "hashtag." Never in a million years, right? Ellen's opening monologue actually wasn't that strong but was totally compensated by her throughout-the-show bits. Most hosts do their monologue and then bow out for the rest of the telecast. Not Ellen.

Now to the awards. "Gravity" bordered on a sweep, nabbing all the awards it was nominated for except two, totaling in at seven. They were sound mixing and editing, cinematography, visual effects, score, editing (over "Captain Phillips") and then Alfonso Cuaron for best director, who delivered a heartfelt speech and a spout of Spanish. The only technical category it couldn't dominate was production design because Catherine Martin is an unstoppable force and flamboyancy never loses.

"The Great Gatsby" took home two awards for costume and production design. Also coming in at two was Disney's "Frozen" for best animated film and best original song, "Let It Go."

"12 Years a Slave" and "Dallas Buyers Club" tied for three wins each. "12 Years" topped the night with a best picture win; Brad Pitt introduced an exuberant Steve McQueen who ended his speech with a literal jump for joy in the air. Lupita Nyong'o beat out Jennifer Lawrence for "American Hustle," but even though she lost, J-Law still managed to steal the show. The girl tripped, yes, again, to the point where Ellen even made a crack about it in her opening. "I think we should bring you the Oscar" if she were to win.

John Ridley won best adapted screenplay for "12 Years," and then I was particularly elated when Spike Jonze won the sole award for "Her" in best original screenplay over "American Hustle."

"Dallas" took home two of the other acting awards for Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey, the former thanking his mom and calling out support to anyone who's ever felt segregated against while McConaughey went full McConaughey with a (lovable) rambling about goals and show business. Both speeches were great in their own ways, and Cate Blanchett also shined with her best actress speech for "Blue Jasmine," noting women empowerment in films. Nyong'o had the most gorgeous, tearful speech of them all. "No matter where you're from, your dreams are valid," she said.

The four nominated-song performances were all stand-outs and didn't slow down the show. The internet went into a frenzy when John Travolta absolutely butchered Idina Menzel's name. Adele Dazeem? Pharrell got Lupita Nyong'o, Amy Adams and Meryl Streep all to dance, an instantly GIF-able moment.

Eyeroll-inducing moments, though, were not absent. Instead of fading away to black and going to a commercial following the In Memorium segment, Bette Midler emerged and sang the bizarre and jarring song selection of "Wind Beneath My Wings." Also bizarre was the show's entire theme of heroes, a broad, sweeping theme that only existed to give us pointless, brainless montages. And while Pink's rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" was well-done in honor of the 75th anniversary of "The Wizard of Oz," it felt like its sole purpose was to bloat the show. Yet, amazingly enough, the show clocked in right at time at exactly three hours and 30 minutes.

It's interesting we have a year where the film that won best picture didn't win either editing or directing, which are otherwise precursors to what takes the top honor. Yet "12 Years" coming out on top was more than fitting, and "Gravity" reaped what it needed to. And this left "American Hustle" perfectly left out and empty-handed. Isn't that justice, after all, for a movie that seduced critics for seemingly no reason? Sweet justice indeed.

20th Annual SAG Award Winners

Tonight's 20th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards confirmed the four acting category winners we'll see repeat March 2nd for the Oscars. They are:

Cate Blanchett, best actress for "Blue Jasmine," Matthew McConaughey, best actor for "Dallas Buyers Club," Lupita Nyong'o, best supporting actress for "12 Years a Slave" and Jared Leto, best supporting actor for "Dallas Buyers Club."

And while David O. Russell's "American Hustle" took home best ensemble, the Oscar best picture equivalent, that doesn't really come as a surprise considering it's such an actors film, and this award show is actors awarding actors. It would appear "12 Years a Slave" is still the one to beat come Oscar night.

Check here for a full list of tonight's winners. It's just a short 43 days away until the big night. Until then! We also have the PGA and DGA winners to look forward, which could steer things one way or the other.

71st Annual Golden Globe Award Winners

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are, once again, undoubtedly the best hosts around and nailed their second annual gig with an opening monologue that, while not quite as on-point as last year, was nevertheless smart, funny, and every joke landed with perfect panache. Hats off to them. The 71st Annual Golden Globes telecast clipped along at a fine pace with even Diane Keaton's Cecil B. DeMille tribute to Woody Allen -- the biggest potential for a slowed-down slog -- staying upbeat and fast. The entire thing clocked it at one minute under three hours.

As for the winners, the love was spread around with "American Hustle" topping the night with three wins for best comedy/musical and wins for both Amy Adams in best actress comedy/musical and, surprise, Jennifer Lawrence once again for best supporting actress. David O. Russell is just directing that J-Law to awards gold, and she remains never not charmingly flustered and real. The girl on fire, folks.

"12 Years a Slave" and "Gravity" saw a split with Alfonso Cuaron taking best director while Steve McQueen's slavery picture topped off the night with a best drama win. It's likely we could see this same split happen Oscar night, unless "American Hustle" sneaks in.

Following "Hustle" for most awards was "Dallas Buyers Club" with two wins, each for its leading men. Matthew McConaughey took best actor drama while Jared Leto won best supporting actor. While Leto is full steam ahead for his Oscar win, it's more and more looking like McConaughey could be, as well, provided we see what happens at the SAG awards.

While it was widely assumed Lupita Nyong'o would take home best supporting for her turn in "12 Years," Jennifer Lawrence swooped out from below and snatched it, putting Oscar chances for Nyong'o in jeopardy.

Amy Adams rounded out the "Hustle" wins, a triumph allowed through the categorical split putting her out of contention with front-runner Cate Blanchett for "Blue Jasmine" who took home best actress drama and will repeat Oscar night.

Also reaping the benefits of the categorical split was Leonardo DiCaprio who won best actor comedy/musical for "The Wolf of Wall Street." While he's likely looking at a nomination come Thursday morning's announcement, he'll probably be bested by his competition for the win.

"Her" won itself a best screenplay award for Spike Jonze against the likes of "12 Years" and "Hustle," a welcomed surprise win for the film. "Hustle" and "Her" will have to battle it out for the best original screenplay award at the Oscars.

In the world of television, a few notes: big congratulations to Amy Poehler on finally winning for "Parks and Recreation," and who saw "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" winning best TV comedy? HFPA sure does like to award shiny, new things. And thank goodness "Breaking Bad" took best drama. No riots necessary.

Plenty of GIFable moments from the night, as well, from double-nominated Julia Louis-Dreyfus smoking an e-cigarette and eating a hotdog to Emma Thompson carrying her Louboutins in one hand and a martini in the other. What a party! Check here for a full list of winners.

Stay tuned for the next step in awards season, the nominations announcement for the 86th Annual Academy Awards on Thursday, Jan. 16.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Review

Martin Scorsese's whoopin' and hollerin' "The Wolf of Wall Street" has a lot in common with David O. Russell's zany and freewheeling "American Hustle." They both deserved more time in the editing room, two overlong sagas that have been hotly anticipated by critics and will both be lauded by the Academy. Maybe I missed the boat. With Scorsese's "Wolf," we have a two-hour-and-fifty-nine-minute film chock full of scenes that could've been trimmed by minutes. Add those minutes up, and it's the running time audiences should've been spared. Adapted by screenwriter Terence Winter ("Boardwalk Empire," "The Sopranos,"), the story of Wall Street master swindler and money laundering expert who started his own firm at age 22 and went on to screw over millions is no sprawling epic. It's filmed as an unrelenting barrage of excess, hopped up on the cocaine and quaaludes Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) takes for breakfast and the rest of these guys put into their system to stay numb to their sins -- didn't I make a similar drug reference to "American Hustle"'s style? I digress.

It's a parade of debauchery. Cocaine, the outlawed prescription pill quaaludes, booze, parties, more booze, bikini-clad strippers, more quaaludes, topless hookers, bottomless hookers, Leonardo DiCaprio's sinfully gleeful Jordan Belfort banging his hot wife (Margot Robbie) on a literal bed of money. OK, OK, we get it. This guy's rich, has no regard for any of the victims piling up in the wake of his success and is choosing to completely ignore his inevitable capture and downfall, and instead he soldiers on with reckless abandon. Ninety minutes later, we're still looking at the same guy. Smart move to have the film narrated by Belfort and make it from his perspective, which turns the film into a (very dark) comedy. Otherwise we'd blow our brains out.

There's no denying that DiCaprio's performance here is the craziest he's done and arguably his going-all-out, over-the-top barbaric best. Belfort, obsessed with a reality of himself that could only possibly remain temporary, is cut from the same cloth of DiCaprio's Gatsby earlier this year. Just hopped up on coke. He drives a white Lamborghini, lives in a beautiful mansion, fuels his mind on a cocktail of drugs, commands his office like the leader of a clan and carelessly drunk-pilots his helicopter which otherwise rests perched atop his extravagant yacht.

There are a number of great scenes. The film's best is actually its quietest moment when Belfort sits face-to-face meeting the very FBI agent (Kyle Chandler) trying to take him down. Watch the conversation weave against Belfort's favor and his expression morph when he realizes it's not going his way. The polar opposite is a scene where Jonah Hill's Donnie Azoff, in a performance that's like a whacked-out version of his Oscar-nominated turn in "Moneyball," takes aged lemmon quaaludes with his co-conspirator Belfort. They slam a fistful of pills, rendering them rolling on the ground useless, slurring their speech and hardly in control of their motor skills. It's slapstick absurdity, and it's an unsettling riot.

Matthew McConaughey (still thin from "Dallas Buyers Club") drops by in two early scenes and steals the show, showing a young, eager, not yet tainted Belfort the ropes of brokering, mandating he masturbate two times a day in order to stay sharp. Later, when the seasoned Belfort shouts in a microphone to his crowded, rowdy room of sleazy brokers eager like a room full of horny frat boys, the movie is firing on all cylinders.

It's pop-pop, bang-bang, non-stop all the time in "Wolf." Keeping that momentum up drains an audience who's awaiting an outcome other than the bitterly predictable. Go out with something for us to gnaw on, mull over about the depravity and dark underbelly of the American dream, of the get rich quick mentality. The live-wire energy is there and never not boring, and it's a grandiose display of sensationalism and crass capitalism, but in the end, what's it all for?

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB Review

In 1985, freewheeling electrician Ron Woodruff (Matthew McConaughey) was diagnosed as HIV-positive at a time when AIDS was a still unfamiliar virus, untreatable and associated with queers and lowlifes. Also a drug-using sex fiend, the diagnosis should've came as no surprise to the rodeo-loving Dallas cowboy. He goes from denying his condemnation of only 30 days left to live, claiming there's no way he has the same disease as "faggots," to eventual panic, and then newfound resilience to stay alive and outlast his expiration date. "Dallas Buyers Club" encapsulates the true spirit of independent film and taking a grim subject matter head on is perhaps even more fun than one would imagine.

Director Jean-Marc Vallee ("Young Victoria") and his screenwriters Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack have taken a complicated true life story and have finessed it into a supremely entertaining film, infusing humor without ever undermining key moments of drama. It moves along briskly and intelligently, educating while never condescending as we learn of the blockades and loopholes of pharmaceutical companies and the FDA. Woodruff, against all odds, pioneers this uphill battle against them after well-meaning doctor, Eve (Jennifer Garner), tells him about AZT, the only drug case study restrictively available to the public.

After landing himself in a Mexican hospital where drugs combating AIDS are the norm, Woodruff gets the business idea to smuggle the drugs north and start selling to those in need. What starts off as a selfish idea for his own gain turns into a completely selfless act as Woodruff grows his Dallas Buyers Club business, offering $400 for a monthly membership which supplies unlimited access to alternative medications. The transformation from ignorant bigot to a man who experienced the frustration of being ostracized and honestly wanted to do something right is handled with such nuance and comes as no small feat from Matthew McConaughey.

McConaughey shed not only more than 40 pounds for the performance, but he also shed his past persona of rom-com go-to guy, quickly becoming the new indie master with last year's "Bernie" and "Magic Mike" and this year's "Mud" and now this. He disappears in the role behind a physicality that is shocking. Likewise, 30 Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto lost 28 pounds for his first screen performance in four years (since 2009's little-seen "Mr. Nobody"), and he's a powerhouse. As the slinky transvestite Rayon who becomes Woodruff's partner in crime, Leto steals the show.

"Dallas Buyers Club" peters off by the end of its nearly two-hour running time instead of going out with a dramatic wallop. But the entire film is buoyed by completely transformative performances from McConaughey and Leto that entertain, enlighten and will be rightfully recognized come awards time.

THE PAPERBOY Review

Coming off the success of his Oscar-winning "Precious," writer-director Lee Daniels decided to get down and dirty for his next picture. This weird, reverse sexploitation, faux 70s-styled comedy-thriller, period piece, detective drama is exactly the schizophrenic jumble of words I just described. If "The Paperboy" has one thing going for it, it's that it's nearly impossible to properly describe. And it, most certainly, will be unlike anything you've seen recently. One could also say, however, that the movie is quite literally a hot mess.

I mentioned reverse sexploitation. Notice the way Lee Daniels doesn't shy away from letting the camera lovingly caress Zac Efron who for the most part is unclothed. Efron plays the peculiarly aloof Jack who becomes smitten with the lover, named Charlotte (Nicole Kidman), of a convicted man, Hillary Van Wetter (John Cusack). With campy cinematography full of jerky camera zooms, jumpy editing and smoldering lighting that blares the frame, this throwback style would ordinarily admire the female figure. And Kidman plays up for it, too, savoring her carnal energy in every lip bite and suppressed, suggestive moan -- but no. Though she's the focal point for Jack's desires, the camera always points to him. It's daring, and there's no denying the passion. These A-list actors give their all and lay themselves bare (most notably Matthew McConaughey in a scene of raw defeat and vulnerability), but the B-movie aesthetic and D-movie tone lay all efforts to waste.

Wild-haired and crazy-eyed, John Cusack plays Hillary with perverted conviction. Charged for the murder of a local officer in deep south Florida, circa 1969, the dripping humidity and clinging sweat is almost palpable. In the way he captured grimy naturalism in "Precious," there's no knock against Daniels for creating heaps of atmosphere here. A Miami Times reporter, Ward Jansen (McConaughey), comes to town to investigate the crime along with his black partner, Yardley (David Oyelowo). The case is narrated by Macy Gray playing Jack's family maid, Anita, to create a twisted version of "The Help." Mix that with a dash of Craig Brewer's artful trash "Black Snake Moan," and you get "The Paperboy." It loses all hope for artistic integrity, however, once the plot takes a dive bomb in its final act, which sends characters into a swampy conclusion that defies all logic.

It's lurid, sexually charged yet flaccid, disturbing and, worst of all, really dull considering its pulpy premise. Kudos to Daniels, however, by making the movie which will always (and only) be remembered for it getting booed at this year's Cannes and a scene where Nicole Kidman urinates on Zac Efron's face. Intrigued? Go see it, I dare you.