Photographs: Jason Merritt/Getty Images Raja Sen in Mumbai
While a lot of it was mired in predictability, there were quite a few surprises at the 85th Annual Academy Awards that completely bowled us over. We take a look:
Best Director for Ang Lee
This was looking like Spielberg's year.
Everyone said he owned most of Hollywood, and finally he'd made a film nobody could complain about: a long, self-serious study of a great act coming from the greatest of American heroes.
It was his Oscar to lose, and this he did -- but not to Michael Haneke, whose Amour had enough buzz to upset the Lincolncart.
Ang Lee's visually sumptuous Life Of Pi was hailed for its effects and its spectacle, but reviews were lukewarm and even the biggest fans of the film wouldn't have expected Lee to take the trophy.
But when he did, he showed the kind of wonderful humility that made us love him again -- even if this wasn't his best film.
Zero awards for Zero Dark Thirty
The ultimate America-congratulatory movie, Kathryn Bigelow's riveting actioner about the team that took out Osama Bin Laden was lauded to the skies, with most pundits predicting it would take every major award.
Then -- following the controversy about the film glorifying torture -- the buzz started slowing.
But even if ZDT was out of the Best Picture race, surely it would win something?
A screenplay award? Best Actress, for Jessica Chastain?
But nope, it was shunted out of everything, the Oscars preferring to skip over any sort of political trouble. Even if it did glorify Barack Obama's greatest hour.
Tie for Sound Editing
Oops, let me rephrase that. It didn't get an Oscar, it got half an Oscar, sharing its trophy for Best Sound Editing with James Bond film Skyfall.
Seriously, Oscars?
The sixth ever tie in the history of the Academy Awards -- the most memorable being a Best Actor split between Frederic March and Wallace Beery in 1932, and a Best Actress award shared by Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand in 1969 -- this one seemed insignificant.
Even presenter Mark Wahlberg had to emphasise that it wasn't some poorly written joke.
The Charmless Avengers
Photographs: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
One of these men is Robert Downey Jr, an effortless charmer who can even make a creepy joke sound good.
Except this time around. Introduced on stage as "all the Avengers together", the group of Downey Jr, Samuel Jackson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner -- with fellow avengers Chris Hemsworth and Scarlett Johannson conspicuously absent -- were surprisingly unfunny and seemed disinterested.
It was a flat enough performance to prove that the most-missed Avenger on stage was the film's writer and director, Joss Whedon.
Jack Nicholson's co-hostess
Photographs: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Joking that he wasn't allowed a female companion because of his notorious track record with the ladies, the Chinatown star had a partner via video this year.
First Lady Michelle Obama, who sounded like she was speaking at a fundraiser. Either way, it was a definite first -- no matter how odd.
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