OSCAR RECAP: 'Argo' Wins Best Picture While Ang Lee and 'Life of Pi' Come Up Big (Now with Video!)

For Oscar fans, this is the day after Christmas. The awards have all been handed out. Oscar pools have been won (or, in most cases, lost). Months and months of build up and anticipation have faded away. After all that excitement and preparation, were the 2013 Academy Awards worth it? 

Well, if you love films and love celebrating them, of course the Oscars were worth it. Even if your Oscar pool ballot was shredded within the opening moments of the show (thanks, Christoph Waltz and Brave), the show was still entertaining and even had a few historic moments.

To no one's surprise, Argo took home Best Picture, completing a journey from an excellent film to being deemed worthy of the Oscar's biggest honor, all thanks to the Academy's snub of Ben Affleck for Best Director. How will history remember Argo's win? Will we always keep in mind that the film was propelled by Hollywood's desire to teach the directors' wing of the Academy a lesson for failing to nominate Affleck?

Life of Pi took home the most awards during the 85th Academy Awards, with Ang Lee upsetting Steven Spielberg for Best Director to top of the film's night. Life of Pi also won for Best Original Score, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects.

As expected, Daniel Day-Lewis claimed a historic third Best Actor statuette, becoming the first man to do so. The actor proceeded to give a warm and humorous speech, joking that presenter Meryl Streep was actually Spielberg's original choice to play Abraham Lincoln, but she swapped Day-Lewis for his role as Margaret Thatcher.

Jennifer Lawrence held off Jessica Chastain and Emmanuelle Riva to win Best Actress, but stumbled while walking up the stage steps. Hugh Jackman dashed to her rescue, but by then, the actress had already collected herself. Lawrence brushed the incident off during her speech, probably endearing herself to people even more than she already had during award season.

Seth MacFarlane really didn't shock as Oscar host, only falling flat with a joke about Lincoln's assassination and one about Hollywood actresses having eating disorders. Shockingly, MacFarlane didn't break out any Family Guy impressions.

The show had a few surprises. Lee beating Spielberg was one of them. Tommy Lee Jones was favored to win Best Supporting Actor, but the Academy showed that they had no problem giving Christoph Waltz a second Best Supporting Actor statuette in four years. When it came to Best Animated Feature, Wreck-It Ralph had become the favorite over the last few months of the campaign, but Pixar's Brave finished awards season with the biggest prize. Monsters, Inc. remains the only Pixar movie not dumb enough to include Larry the Cable Guy to not win Best Animated Feature since the category was introduced in 2001.



If you like Oscar trivia, you can update your stat books on a few categories. Argo became only the fourth film to win Best Picture without having its director nominated. We saw Day-Lewis win an unprecedented third Best Actor award thanks to his Lincoln performance. And the Oscars got their first tie since 1969 when Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall shared the Best Sound Editing prize.

Overall, it was a harmless Oscar ceremony, with MacFarlane bringing something new to the show. After last year's lukewarm Billy Crystal rehash, MacFarlane's attempts to liven the proceedings up were welcomed. Will he be back for another Oscar show someday? Well, much of that depends on the show's ratings, but with MacFarlane already declaring that he would be a one-time host, I don't think we'll see him hosting again.

WINNERS
Best Picture: Argo
Best Director: Ang Lee (Life of Pi)
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln)
Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook)
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz (Django Unchained)
Best Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway (Les Miserables)
Best Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio (Argo)
Best Animated Feature: Brave
Best Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man
Best Documentary Short: Inocente
Best Live Action Short: Curfew
Best Best Animated Short: Paperman
Best Original Score: Mychael Danna (Life of Pi)
Best Original Song: Skyfall by Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth (Skyfall)
Best Foreign Language Film: Amour
Best Production Design: Lincoln
Best Cinematography: Life of Pi
Best Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall (Tie)
Best Sound Mixing: Les Miserables
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Les Miserables
Best Costume Design: Anna Karenina
Best Film Editing: Argo
Best Visual Effects: Life of Pi