'12 Years a Slave' wins best picture; 'Gravity' gets 7 Oscars; McConaughey, Blanchett take acting honors

Sandy B wuz robbed !

"12 Years a Slave" wins Best Picture...and it still hasn't hit theaters in Japan.

Please note that the film opens on March 7 and the Oscar win will generate a much bigger box office in Japan than it would have done if the film had opened earlier this year.

12 Years did not make $50 million worldwide. It made $50+ million in the US, and an additional $89+ million overseas. Thus, bringing its total worldwide cume to $140 million. Yes, that's still a far cry from Gravity's worldwide total, but given it's subject matter, 12 Years isn't exactly a popcorn flick. But with a budget of just $15-20 million, it more than made it's money back.

Yeah, my bet was on 12 years. any other choice wouldn't have been PC.

Gravity awesome work. That was a mind blowingly good movie.

The big "spoiler" is that this is a big budget Hollywood move with a preposterous plot and lots of special effects. The problem here is that nobody could possible survive through any of this, and the special effects become a substitute for any meaningful plot. Even taken on its own terms, the movie makes no sense. Sandra Bullock has become an astronaut but lacks even the basic skills for that occupation. She tells us she always crash landed the flight simulator, and we find her thumbing through an instruction manual about the size of the instructions for a DVD player to figure out how to safely pilot a space craft back to earth. She even picks the buttons eeny, meany, miney, mo style. Add to this the contrived scenario that she has not only lost a child but also is "revived" and given a reason to live by the now dead George Clooney appearing in a dream sequence. And how great a movie can it really be where there is only one character (and almost no dialog) on camera for most of the film. The special effects are impressive, but what they've obviously done is use computer graphics to create all the weightless effects. As such, things remain weightless even when they shouldn't be, and you eventually become more interested in looking for the screw-ups than watching the movie. Please, please, please. Will someone make a movie with a clever plot that keeps you guessing to the end and with interesting and passably believable characters.

DeGeneres presided over a smooth if safe ceremony, punctuated by politics, pizza and photo-bombing. Freely circulating in the crowd, she had pizza delivered, appealing to Harvey Weinstein to pitch in, and gathered stars to snap a selfie she hoped would be a record-setter on Twitter (It was: Long before midnight, the photo had been retweeted more than 2 million times). One participant, Meryl Streep, giddily exclaimed: “I’ve never tweeted before!”

This is the reason why Oscar ceremonies are the ultimate cringe-inducing spectacle. Watching stomach-churning, self-congratulatory celebs in ridiculous garb put me off Hollywood movies for life.

I'm happy that 12 years a slave won the best picture.. better than gravity, i haven't seen either movie but I have a bone to pick with Alfonso Cuarón, because even though he won best director Oscar, i will never forgive him for ruining my favorite book of the Harry Potter series...

I do think the competition was tough, even though I was cheering for Leo in Wolf of wall street, I realized that McCounaghey might have done beautifully, so I'm interested in these movies: Wolf of wall street, American Hustle and Dallas Buyers Club... I will see Gravity of course, but only if my brother gets me a copy of the film, I'm not going to spend money going to the theater

Ellen was Great !

following years of whiter tales like 1940 best-picture winner “Gone With the Wind.”

That's some writin'!

Is anyone really surprised 12 Years of White Guilt won?

I'm happy that 12 years a slave won the best picture.. better than gravity, i haven't seen either movie but I have a bone to pick with Alfonso Cuarón, because even though he won best director Oscar, i will never forgive him for ruining my favorite book of the Harry Potter series...

So, it's better than Gravity, but you haven't seen either of them? So how do you know?????

Gravity was awful though....

Gravity was all about visuals... But not surprised it raked in the awards.

So, it's better than Gravity, but you haven't seen either of them? So how do you know???? Gravity was awful though....

I meant that I preferred 12 years a slave better than gravity, I wasn't referring to the quality of the film ;)

But, you said you haven't seen either! So, how can you prefer one over the other if you haven't seen them?????

Please note that the film opens on March 7 and the Oscar win will generate a much bigger box office in Japan than it would have done if the film had opened earlier this year.

So the film distributors had ESP then?

Let's face it, unless the movies are big blockbusters like Harry Potter, they will not come to Japan until months after their release in the west. I don't believe it's because of subtitle preparation time - if they can do it for HP, they can do it for any movie. Plus other countries can manage on time. I was thinking of seeing Philomena starring Judi Dench next week, but then I realized the DVD would be out the following week in the UK. Why bother?

Didn't see the awards but I'm a big fan of DeGeneres.

I really enjoyed The Wind Rises the last nominated classic from master Hayao Miyazaki. There was no chance it was going to get Best Animated anything... but that is not of importance for a work like this that will one day be a defining film in a legacy of great works that have set standards for not just animation but story telling that has heart, soul and spirit unique to Japanese filmmaking art and culture.

In case anyone wonders the United States is currently undergoing a massive effort to push "minority" issues on every front. It is beyond silly, as the negro population of the USA is barely 19% of the total population yet because of clever marketing and political power building, everywhere in media and the news you see the coloured issue pushed in every conceivable form including movies. Time to move on and get back to reality where things re in realistic proportion. Slavery has been a part of human history for thousands of years. Gladly it is mostly gone now. It is hardly a subject that is edifying to focus on and I am very tired of the attempt at excessive entitlement that it is being used to justify massive focus on a small group of people who like everyone have to earn respect and carry the daily load of work and contribution that we all do. No one is promised a extra hand up in life, we all have to earn what we desire. Time to stop this parade of favoritism.

But, you said you haven't seen either! So, how can you prefer one over the other if you haven't seen them?????

I took the bother to watch both this last weekend... mind you, I was around 1 hour of gravity I got so bored I fell asleep, on the other hand 12 years a slave was "interesting" if not because I was lots in the timeline, I didn't like that much, but my opinion hasn't changed.. better "12 years a slave" than "gravity" at least, the former had a reminiscence of "Schindler´s list"