‘Birdman’ soars to Oscar heights

Everything may not have been awesome at the 87th annual Academy Awards, broadcast from Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre on Sunday night, but it sure was (mostly) predictable as the love was spread around to several films.

In the battle between Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) and Boyhood, Birdman was the big winner, taking home the awards for Best Picture, Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu), Original Screenplay and Cinematographer.

Tying it in number of statues taken home was The Grand Budapest Hotel, which won for costume design, makeup and hair, production design, and original score.

Boyhood, Richard Linklater’s chronicle of a Texas adolescence, only scored one Oscar, for Patricia Arquette as Best Supporting Actress.

Iñárritu’s win for director marks the second year that a director from Mexico has gotten the nod. Alfonso Cuarón won it last year for Gravity.

Eddie Redmayne won Best Actor for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. While he had won the acting award at the Golden Globes, there was some buzz that Michael Keaton would get the Oscar as the struggling actor in Birdman — especially if it turned out to be a big Birdman night. But Keaton went home empty-handed.

As expected, Julianne Moore won Best Actress for playing a woman with early-onset Alzheimer’s in Still Alice, and J. K. Simmons nabbed the supporting actor statue as the abusive band leader in Whiplash.

There were occasional moments of genuine emotion, such as Common and John Legend’s impassioned acceptance speech in the Original Song category for Glory from Selma that linked Martin Luther King’s dream with those of protesters in France and Hong Kong.

Similarly, writer Graham Moore sent a shout-out to all those who’ve felt like outcasts while growing up. He won for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Imitation Game, a film that tells the story of Alan Turing, a closeted gay man who helped break German code during WWII.

“I tried to commit suicide at 16 and now I’m standing here,” he said. “I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere. You do. Stay weird. Stay different, and then when it’s your turn and you are standing on this stage, please pass the same message along.”

Then there was Arquette’s clarion call for wage equality (which had Meryl Streep whooping).

Simmons extolled his family — he urged everyone to call their parents — and didn’t even bother to mention his movie (Whiplash) during his acceptance speech. Good one, J. K.

The colorful musical number Everything Is Awesome, featuring the singers Tegan & Sara, was fun but dispiriting. It was just a sad reminder that the movie it’s featured in — The Lego Movie — should have been a Best Animated Film nominee.

The embrace between Julie Andrews and Lady Gaga, who had just performed an Andrews tribute, was nice, somewhat justifying the time spent on Gaga’s take on Andrews’ music.

Usually reliable awards-show host Neil Patrick Harris, in his first time as the Oscar main man, gamely did his best to make the always overly long broadcast not seem like such a chore. Even if it meant, in a takeoff on Michael Keaton in Birdman, stripping down to his underwear.

The opening number, also featuring Anna Kendrick and Jack Black, deftly showed his energetic, Broadway style. His tweaking Hollywood’s nose about its racial issues made its point humorously. In the opening minutes, he said the night was to “honor Hollywood’s best and whitest” and, while remarking on the applause for non-nominated Selma star David Oyelowo, said, “Oh, sure, now you like him.”

But many of his jokes — like the running gag of having Octavia Spencer watch his box of Oscar votes — fell flat. Maybe it was like what he said about The Smurfs 2 early in the evening: “The script read funny.”

This story was originally published February 22, 2015 at 11:42 PM with the headline "‘Birdman’ soars to Oscar heights."