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AWARDS

Watch: Highlights from the 84th Annual Academy Awards Last Night!

by Ethan Anderton
February 26, 2012

Another year, another long ceremony of honoring cinema with Oscar gold. Thankfully, the ceremony barely ran overtime for the 84th Annual Academy Awards, however, host Billy Crystal wasn't exactly putting his best foot forward with some pretty lame jokes, a hokey song and dance number and a generally boring ceremony. It's not clear who is to blame in this case, as Crystal is certainly a very talented comedian, but the ceremony left something to be desired. However, there were still some choice highlights from the show, especially from the presenters themselves, and some truly great acceptance speeches. Recap them below!

Before the show even started, it seems like Sacha Baron Cohen made the biggest splash on the red carpet. After the publicity led up to his appearance, Cohen showed up as General Aladeen from The Dictator and spoke with Ryan Seacrest. The conversation was funny to start, but once Cohen brought out the ashes of his deceased comrade Kim Jong Il, well, you'll have to see what happened, embedded below from Yahoo:

Inside the Kodak Theatre (or the "Your Name Here" theater as Crystal dubbed it in the wake of Kodak's filing for Chapter 11) in Hollywood, there was plenty of emotion to go around, especially when Octavia Spencer won Best Supporting Actress for The Help and gave this heartfelt speech:

Meanwhile, another supporting start received a great honor as Christopher Plummer was named Best Supporting Actor for his work in Beginners and thus became the oldest recipient of an Academy Award. Here's his touching acceptance speech right here:

On the presenting side of things Emma Stone and Ben Stiller had fun introducing the Visual Effects award, even if Hugo winning the Oscar wasn't nearly as enjoyable as a Rise of the Planet of the Apes victory would have and should have been:

And Chris Rock proved that he should've hosted with a bit before presenting Best Animated Film:

Getting back to the awards, Jean Dujardin showed his love for America after winning Best Actor:

And while Viola Davis also deserved to be Best Actress, Meryl Streep finally got herself another Oscar:

Finally, at the end of the night Thomas Langmann accepted for The Artist winning Best Picture:

And that's a wrap on this year's Academy Awards. Honestly, the ceremony itself was pretty lackluster, and one of the better parts of the show, the opening movie mash-up with host Billy Crystal in some of the biggest movies of 2011, doesn't seem to be online just yet. Either way, I don't know what can be done, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences needs to be a little less stuffy and a lot more lively if they're going to hit their core audience. A bigger problem seems to be the complete lack of showing love for movies that seem to be more deserving and progressive as bold breakthrough films as opposed to a film that is undoubtedly charming, but also just gives the film industry a self-serving pat on the back. I guess there's always next year for the ceremony to shine and more great films to be honored. What do you think?

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Reader Feedback - 21 Comments

well shit. I'm canadian

bat0u on Feb 26, 2012

Ditto. I'm assuming a large portion of their readers are not from the US. Why post videos that are only available in the US. lame.

Stuffrocks on Feb 26, 2012

It's not a choice on our part as ABC is the only place the videos are officially and legally available. And I'm sorry to say the Canadian readership certainly does not outweight the United States readership at all.

Ethan Anderton on Feb 26, 2012

lol, don't worry about it. my patience is strong.

bat0u on Feb 26, 2012

Bring back Hugh Jackman! He was excellent. Overall a 7/10...much to be desired indeed.

Xerxexx on Feb 26, 2012

"Only available in the U.S.". I dont understand why the producers of such shows dont understand that they have viewers outside the US. Maybe they suck at geography? In any case, i will watch it when its on torrent or other sources, 10 minutes after the show is done. The Oscars again underline that piracy is a service issue. But hey, from organizations backing up SOPA, ACTA, PIPA et alii, expecting them to understand what "global audience" means is probably a little bit too optimistic.

Mike on Feb 27, 2012

whats with the rest of the world you dork? we are more than you us citizens^^

pissedeurope1980 on Feb 27, 2012

Would you be kind enough to post the internationally available version, if such a thing gets released? 😀

Deepak T on Feb 27, 2012

Never liked Billy and in my opinion he relied way too much on okes about the past and it was clear that he would have wanted an oscar for hosting them 9 times. But anything is better then Franco and Hathaway (that was just awkward!).

coswell on Feb 27, 2012

Wow! No Robert "The Presenter" Downey Jr., Will Ferrell or Zach Galifianakis. IMO they were the most enjoyable ones to look at.

X-tian on Feb 27, 2012

The best thing about the show was the pace and the music by Hans Zimmer. I think they got through it quite well, but I would love to see a three hour version without the awkward humor. Laughed once, but already forgot about what. 6/10

Felix Naumann on Feb 27, 2012

I keep getting this message, did you see the second line? I'm offended.

Crapola on Feb 27, 2012

If the Academy wants a cheesey lounge act kind of show, they should hire Bill Murray and let him host the show as the lounge lizard character from his Saturday Night Live days. At least then we'll know if its supposed to be funny.

Hattori Hanzo on Feb 27, 2012

watch highlights of oscars....only if your in america...nice! 🙂

tetsuo on Feb 27, 2012

Emma Stone's "bit" was weird and I did not like it at all. The whole time I kept think, "No. No. No. Please stop. Your ruining yourself..."

DAVIDPD on Feb 27, 2012

it was kinda like anne hathaway and james franco deal from last year. How Anne was real into it and James for like mehhh

S. Bhakta on Feb 27, 2012

Thank you ABC for cutting off your previews of this event way too early. Sheesh.

Johnny Neat on Feb 27, 2012

Ok, so if Eddie Murphy hosted and was as Funny as Crystal (who was given so-so remarks) he would have gotten eviscerated.

Solo_Calrissian on Feb 27, 2012

Honestly, I liked it. I'm a big Crystal fan though...

GregDinskisk on Feb 27, 2012

check out a great blog about the oscars at filmcycle dot wordpress dot com

Raymond Woods on Feb 27, 2012

No wonder aliens in movies only land in American cities. It's apparently the only country on planet Earth.

Max Renn on Feb 27, 2012

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