The Golden Globes are the booze-fueled party. The SAG Awards are the back-patting peer review. The Grammys are the multigenerational artists' fest with an emphasis on freaky fashion.
And the Oscars are...glamorous. Prestigious. Hollywood's Super Bowl. They're so high-brow they even have a reputation for being staid! (Not to mention long...)
So thank goodness Ellen DeGeneres is so great and stars like Jennifer Lawrence have come along to proverbially knock us on our butts by literally falling on hers. Because on a night when nearly everything goes according to plan, it's important to have a few moments of refreshing candor to go along with the carefully orchestrated homage to film.
Here are the five moments that had jaws parting at their hinges during the 86th Annual Academy Awards:
1. American Hustle Goes 0-for-10: The David O. Russell-directed inspired-by-a-true-story 1970s-era dramedy tied Gravity with a leading 10 nominations heading into the night and was considered a real contender for Best Picture, even after Lupita Nyong'o won the two-woman race between herself and Jennifer Lawrence for Best Supporting Actress and Spike Jonze pulled off the Best Original Screenplay upset with Her. (Too bad Joaquin Phoenix wasn't there to see the visionary filmmaker win his first Oscar.) Instead, American Hustle joins Gangs of New York (10), The Color Purple (11) and 1978's The Turning Point among films that have earned the year's most nominations without getting a single win.
2. Ellen Breaks Twitter!: And that wasn't the only feat of strength pulled off by second-time host Ellen DeGeneres, who stopped the Internet in its tracks with the selfie loved 'round the world featuring her and none other than Bradley "Short Arms" Cooper, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Kevin Spacey, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and Lupita Nyong'o and her brother Peter. During the course of the 18-hour ceremony, Ellen also called in pizza, poked fun at Liza Minnelli, tweaked Hollywood's obsession with youth, noted Los Angeles' fear of rain and made Julia Roberts laugh hysterically.
3. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock...: Did we mention the three-and-a-half-plus-hour show was ever so long? It was supposed to last for three hours (at least that's what the DVR at home said), but we knew, as Jared Leto was going on for a bit during his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor and the orchestra did not play him off (nor did it play off anybody this year, which was actually quite nice), that this show was going to be long. So hats off to Ellen for making it go by as quickly as it did, actually. We were even still semi-lucid by the time 12 Years a Slave picked up its history-making Best Picture win, marking the first time the Academy has honored the work of a black director with the top prize.
4. Jennifer Lawrence Just Can't Help It: Last year's Best Actress winner came full circle by falling before she even got inside the Dolby Theatre tonight. Gosh, she's just so...herself! So are we sick of her yet? Surprisingly...no.
5. John Travolta Busts Out a New Language: We don't know whom we were expecting to sing the now Oscar-winning "Let It Go" from Frozen, because we sure weren't expecting Idina Menzel after Travolta's introduction. Seriously, what did he say? He was going along just fine, calling her "wickedly talented" and whatnot—and then he just called her a completely different name!
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