Oscars 2015: Zoomer’s 5 Favourite Moments

Our top five moments (and one honorable mention) from the 87th Academy Awards:

NPH as Oscar MC Had his Moments

Neil Patrick Harris won an Emmy for his work hosting the Tonys and then went on to successfully host the Emmys – achievements that make the fact that he was the Academy’s fourth choice to host the Oscars even more unbelievable.

That said, the last few years haven’t produced a truly great Oscar host – Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hold the titles of best recent award show hosts for their Golden Globes duties – but NPH had his moments and kept the festivities moving as best one can when hosting a plodding, near-four hour show in a social media age where even a brilliant film feels long at the three-hour mark. The length of the show is one of the reasons we’ve come to expect less of an Oscar host. Very few can keep people interested for that long, though some still do it better than others. NPH didn’t hit a home run, as a show of this length and “gravitas” isn’t his forte. Still, he had a few memorable moments, falling somewhere between Ellen Degeneres on the high end and Seth MacFarlane on the low side of recent Academy Award MCs.

Poland and Paweł Pawlikowski Prevail
Director Paweł Pawlikowski accomplished two major feats at the 87^th Oscars: first, his black and white drama Ida won Poland its first Oscar, for Best Foreign Language film. That, however, was just the beginning. He hurried through his acceptance speech, keenly aware that the orchestra was primed to play him off. At the 45-second mark the conductor struck up the band and began playing the cut-off music. And Pawlikowski kept … on … talking.

In a rare Oscar occurrence, Pawlikowski cut off the cut-off music. As the director went on to make mention of his crew, friends, late wife and parents, and his children, the music eventually stopped playing, allowing him to finish.

The Speeches that Stole the Show
J.K. Simmons completed his award season run with the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. But when he hit the stage, the Whiplash star used his speech to pay tribute to his wife and children before tossing in this heartwarming piece of advice:

“And if I may, call your mom. Everybody – I’m told there’s like a billion people or so. Call your mom, call your dad. If you are lucky enough to have a parent or two alive on this planet, call them. Don’t text, don’t e-mail. Call them on the phone. Tell them you love them and thank them and will be for as long as they want to talk to you. Thank you. Thank you, Mom and Dad.”

Patricia Arquette, meanwhile, hit the stage like a hurricane when she won for Best Supporting Actress for her turn in Boyhood, rushing through her speech to ensure she had time to offer a rousing message about wage equality that brought the likes of Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez to their feet.

“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer 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!”

Common and John Legend delivered impassioned speeches after winning for Best Original Song for Selma’s “Glory,” touching on everything from inequality to change:

Rocking the Oscars
Oscar-nominated Lego Movie earworm “Everything Is Awesome” thrilled early on when Canadian duo Tegan & Sara and comedy group The Lonely Island performed live, accompanied by an army of characters that included Canuck actor Will Arnett decked out in Val Kilmer’s Batman costume, The Roots’ Questlove and ‎Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO.

Later, Common, John Legend and a cast of marchers literally brought the audience to tears with their stirring performance of “Glory” from Selma, which went on to win the statuette for Best Original Song.

The Winners
It really was a feel-good night as far as the winners went. Some were predictable and others a bit of a surprise, but it was great to finally see Julianne Moore win an Oscar on her fourth nomination. On top of it all, she spoke up for people struggling with Alzheimer’s when she noted, “People with Alzheimer’s deserve to be seen, so that we can find a cure.” And when you take into account the above-mentioned speeches, there was a lot to applaud in the winner’s circle this year. Seeing Michael Keaton on stage as Birdman won Best Picture was great. I only hope it’s not too long before we see him accepting a gold statuette of his own.

Honourable Mention
John Travolta made up for flubbing Oscar-winning singer Idina Menzel’s name during last year’s show by introducing the Best Original Song category with her this year. He joined her onstage and pronounced her name correctly.

“You did it! That’s so good,” Menzel congratulated him.