ABOVE: ET Canada host Cheryl Hickey reports on highlights from the 87th Academy Awards.
LOS ANGELES — In an Academy Awards largely populated by smaller, independent films, Hollywood spread its awards around at a stormy Oscars heavy on song-and-dance, occasionally lacking in clothes and punctuated by passionate stands for equality.
Six of the eight best-picture nominees took awards at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday: Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel for its hand-made craft; Whiplash for its pulsating pacing and J.K. Simmons’ drill-sergeant jazz instructor; Birdman for its elegant cinematography and original screenplay; Boyhood for Patricia Arquette’s moving mother; and American Sniper for its war film sound editing; and Selma for Common and John Legend’s best song.
But the night’s big winner was Birdman, which was named Best Picture and earned Alejandro G. Iñárritu the best director award.
WATCH: Trailers for the eight Best Picture nominees
The Mexican-born director has been hailed for his craftsmanship in Birdman, which gives the sensation of having been filmed in one continuous shot (thanks in part to visual effects by Montreal’s Rodeo FX).
The film stars Michael Keaton as an aging blockbuster movie star seeking to restore his reputation – and bolster his ego – by mounting a serious Broadway play.
Julianne Moore won the Academy Award for best actress for Still Alice.
Moore gives a nuanced and heart-rending portrayal of a vibrant, ambitious Columbia University professor diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in the film by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.
It was the first Oscar for Moore, 54, in five acting nominations. She also won the Golden Globe in January and the Spirit Award on Saturday.
Eddie Redmayne won best actor for The Theory of Everything.
Redmayne plays the real-life role of physicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease at the age of 21. The actor has been praised for his skillful depiction of Hawking’s gradual physical decline.
It was the first Oscar for Redmayne, 33, who also won the Golden Globe in January.
Tony Awards veteran Neil Patrick Harris gave the 87th Academy Awards a chipper tone that sought to celebrate Hollywood, while also slyly parodying it. “Tonight we honour Hollywood’s best and whitest – I mean brightest,” he began the night, alluding to the much-discussed lack of diversity in this year’s all-white acting nominees.
It was the first salvo in a night that often reverberated with heartfelt pleas for change.
“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation,” said Arquette. “We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
READ MORE: Winners and losers on the red carpet
Cheers erupted throughout the Dolby, perhaps the loudest coming from a fellow supporting-actress nominee who Arquette bested: Meryl Streep. “Made my night,” Streep told Arquette backstage.
Tears streamed down the face of David Oyelowo, who played the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma and was famously left out of the best actor nominees, during the rousing performance of the song “Glory” from the film. Immediately afterward, Common and Legend accepted the best song Oscar with a speech that drew a standing ovation.
“We say that Selma is now because the struggle for justice is right now,” said Legend. He noted that the Voting Rights Act, whose passage is chronicled in Selma, has been drastically scaled down in recent years.
The Grand Budapest Hotel, a European caper released back around last year’s Academy Awards, appeared headed to becoming the night’s unlikely leader in trophies. It won for production design, score, costume design and makeup and styling.
“Wes, you genius,” said score winner Alexandre Desplat. “This is good.”
The night’s first Oscar went to Simmons, a career character actor widely acclaimed for one of his biggest parts: a drill sergeant of a jazz instructor in the indie Whiplash. Simmons fittingly accepted his supporting acting Oscar with some straightforward advice, urging: “Call your mom. Call your dad.”
Backstage, Simmons, known to many from various bit parts or his insurance commercials, recalled a long road as a professional actor that began decades ago in regional theater in Montana.
“Maybe more people saw me tonight than see me in the commercials,” said Simmons.
Most of Sunday’s early awards went as expected, though Disney’s Big Hero 6 pulled off something of an upset in the best animated feature category, besting DreamWorks’ favoured How to Train Your Dragon 2.
READ MORE: Canadians Chris Williams, Craig Mann win Oscars
The Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki became the first to win best cinematography twice in a row. After last year winning for the lengthy shots of the space adventure Gravity, he won for the stretched out takes of Birdman.
“It sounds like a nightmare,” Lubezki said backstage, recalling on his first impression of Inarritu’s plans to shoot it as if in one shot. “There was no book on it. It was like an experiment.”
The black-and-white Polish film Ida took best foreign language film, marking the first such win for Poland despite a rich cinema history. Director Pawel Pawlikowski charmed the audience with a bemused acceptance speech that ran drastically over his allotted time.
Pawlikowski remarked on having made a quiet film of contemplation about withdrawing from the world, “and here we are at the epicenter of noise and attention. It’s fantastic. Life is full of surprises.”
Several of this year’s biggest box-office hit nominees – Clint Eastwood’s Iraq war drama American Sniper and Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi epic Interstellar – had to settle for single wins in technical categories. Interstellar won for visual effects, while American Sniper – far and away the most widely seen of the best-picture nominee – took the best sound editing award.
The Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, in which Laura Poitras captured Snowden in the midst of leaking National Security Agency documents, won best documentary.
“The disclosures that Edward Snowden reveals don’t only expose a threat to our privacy but to our democracy itself,” said Poitras, accepting the Oscar. “When the most important decisions being made affecting all of us are made in secret, we lose our ability to check the powers that control.”
Harris’ opening quickly segued into a song-and-dance routine that celebrated a love for movies, complete with a villain to his sunny outlook in Jack Black. The comedian jumped on stage to counter that Hollywood movies weren’t so fabulous: “Opening with lots of zeroes, all we get is superheroes.”
“After Fifty Shades of Grey,” Black added, referring to the weekend’s top box office draw, “they’ll all have leather whips.”
Harris, a frequent Tony Awards host, struck a chipper tone, while slyly mocking the Oscars or parodying Michael Keaton’s half-naked scene in Birdman.
The gift bags for nominees, Harris said, came with “an armoured car ride to safety when the revolution comes.”
The performance by Andy Samberg’s Lonely Island of the Oscar-nominated song “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie, let some live out their Oscar dreams, handing out golden Lego statuettes to Oprah Winfrey and Steve Carell.
Hard showers fell on the red carpet as guests arrived at the ceremony, as workers dispensed pink towels for soggy celebrities. One former Oscar nominee, Viola Davis, said on her way into the ceremony that Hollywood’s diversity problems run deeper than the Oscars.
“You have to greenlight more stories that include people of colour,” said Davis, asked about how to improve diversity in Hollywood. “You can’t get nominated for anything you’re not in.”
– with files by Beth Harris, Sandy Cohen, Lindsey Bahr and Anthony McCartney of The Associated Press
Here is the complete list of winners:
Best picture: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Actor: Eddie Redmayne, The Theory of Everything
Actress: Julianne Moore, Still Alice
Supporting actor: J.K. Simmons, Whiplash
Supporting actress: Patricia Arquette, Boyhood
Directing: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Foreign language film: Ida
Adapted screenplay: Graham Moore, The Imitation Game
Original screenplay: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolas Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Armando Bo, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Animated feature film: Big Hero 6
Production design: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Cinematography: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Sound mixing: Whiplash
Sound editing: American Sniper
Original score: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Original song: “Glory” from Selma
Costume design: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Documentary feature: “CitizenFour.”
Documentary (short subject): Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Film editing: Whiplash
Makeup and hairstyling: The Grand Budapest Hotel
Animated short film: Feast
Live action short film: The Phone Call
Visual effects: Interstellar
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