The 007 festivities kicked off with former Bond
girl Halle Berry introducing a tribute to the James Bond franchise
as it marks
its fiftieth anniversary. What followed was a limp and uninspired
clip reel put together by the Oscar event organizers overlayed
with unnecessary animation.
It was a far cry from the sensational
montage curated for the 'Skyfall' royal world premiere held at
the Albert Hall in October, which had the hairs on the necks
of all 1,500 attendees standing on end. Dame Shirley Bassey appeared
from the floor to belt out "Goldfinger" in her inimitable
style, and her powerful performance earned the first standing
ovation of the night.
In the technical categories, "Skyfall" missed
out on Sound Mixing but won the Best Sound Edited category in
a rare
Oscar tie with "Zero Dark Thirty". Per Hallberg and
Karen Baker Landers collected the award. It was Hallberg's fourth
time nominated, and second time for Landers.
Inexplicably, Roger Deakins did not win for
Best Cinematography, with the award going instead to the green
screen and CGI-heavy "Life
of Pi". Many commentators noted that "Pi" did
not even belong as a nomination for cinematography, let alone
have a shot a winning. In one of the Academy's quirks, the voting
slips just contained the titles of the films, rather than the
cinematographers name, which no doubt led to the less attentive
Academy voters missing Deakins' contribution.
Adele took to the stage to sing her hit "Skyfall",
and although the usual Oscar orchestra was (somewhat strangely)
based across the street from the Dolby Theatre in the old Capitol
Records building, a small strings section joined with back-up
vocals for the live performance on stage. Unfortunately, the
sound mixing of the live production dipped Adele's microphone
each time she broke in to the chorus, denting the impact of her
vocals.
Richard Gere, with an air of inevitability,
announced that Adele and Paul Epworth had won the Oscar for Best
Original Song. "Thank
you so much. This is amazing!", she said accepting the award
on stage as the tears of joy started to flow. "I'd like
to thank Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson at EON Productions,
Sony Pictures, MGM... Paul Epworth for believing in me all the
time. And my man! I love you baby." Epworth took over and
said, "I can't really believe I'm up here to receive this!"
