And the Oscar goes to...

A fulfilling conclusion to the 85th Academy Awards! 'No one loses' could well have been the tagline for this year's Oscars, as no movie managed to dominate the proceedings, and yet hardly any one would have felt left out. So while Life of Pi lead the show with 4 Oscars, Argo and Les Miserables were not far behind with 3 Oscars apiece. Then there were three movies grabbing 2 Oscars each, Lincoln, Django Unchained and Skyfall. And an Oscar was awarded to Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook and Anna Karenina. Phew, that's a lot of movies winning the Oscars! And that is after not including the animated film category, foreign film category and the documentaries and short films too. 

Well, I got a fairly good 13 award winners right of the 20 categories that I had predicted (applause). The one that I did not see coming was Ang Lee winning Best Director. With Ben Affleck mysteriously forgotten, I could see Spielberg taking home his fourth Oscar... but alas, that wasn't to be. Jennifer Lawrence also sprung a surprise, and this could just be the beginning for this talented young actress. The rest of the top categories saw winners that stood out by miles. Christoph Waltz has been a delight ever since he has stepped into Hollywood and Anne Hathaway is another young actress getting her just rewards. Daniel Day-Lewis would stand out like a bright moon in the darkest of nights, and Argo took home with vengeance the Oscar that a movie of such calibre deserved. All in all, there could be few complains!

Interestingly, winners of the top six categories - Motion Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor & Supporting Actress - this year all came from different movies. That seems like a rare feat! You usually get at least the Best Picture winning movie having an award for its director or some acting accolades along with it. So I put my analyst cap on once again and dug into the past of the Academy Awards to figure out if such a feat has ever occurred in recent times. I looked at the Award list for 25 years, till the Oscars hosted in 1989. And guess what, unlike what I initially expected, there was yet another year, in the not so recent past, when such a feat occurred. Six movies sharing the top six category of awards. This was the Academy Awards held in 2006. Then too it was Ang Lee who held the Best Director Award (if you find such coincidences intriguing!). The entire winners list looked something like this back then.

Best Motion Picture: Crash

Best Director: Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain

Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: George Clooney, Syriana

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardner  

The entire list of winners for this year can be checked here: http://www.imdb.com/event/ev0000003/2013

So the Oscars done for another year. Now come on Hollywood, put on a good show... there is a tough 2012 to follow!