Academy Awards Article No: 236243614893

Beards, bow ties, Bond songs,  Ben Affleck... I'm out of Bs. Here's some pictures from the 85th edition of the Oscars

So. The Academy Awards, as they were (and will no longer be) known, were shown last night. I didn't watch them but of course I know what happened - as though it were pre-ordained, Daniel Day-Lewis won Oscar number three - a stupendous achievement, sarcasm aside - and Ben Affleck was bedecked with the unfortunate 'Comeback Kid' moniker until someone else equally famous really goes off the rails.

Ang Lee surprised a few people, and well done Jennifer Lawrence - I thought you were great in Silver Linings. But really, the reason I like these awards is the opportunity it presents to reacquaint reality with tabloid gossip throughout the year. Underneath the exquisite gowns, the miles of sequins and diamonds, and tuxedos I'll never be able to afford, there's a chance to see real human beings sort of acting like themselves - not their roles.

Mia Farrow amusingly - and not a little spitefully? - tweeted on the drug use amongst audience members and it's great when you suddenly recall that most of these guys and girls are actually made up of real, bodily parts. Incredible, I know. Here's a few photos of them behaving like themselves, whatever that is. That's surely the most interesting role of an actor, right? Avant!

Here's Mr Justin Theroux and Ms Jennifer Aniston, shortly to wed. This picture encapsulates both Aniston-camps - her legions of fans shedding a little tear for that touching intimacy as she straightens her fiancé's bow tie, her legions of detractors seeing the crazed spinster Aniston maintaining her clasp on fuzzy-wuzzy Justin through straightening his bow tie. 'She'll say she's doing him a favour here,' will write one blogger/ journo, 'but this is classic controlling behaviour. No wonder Brad left.'

To the left we have undoubtedly the most commercially successful singer in the world today looking quite distinctly like a grieving vampire (I prefer the long form over 'vampish'). Adele my dear, this dress is most unbecoming. I believe my maternal grandmother wore something similar to a hotel ballroom in Llanddudno for her husband's (and my grandfather's) 70th birthday. Spending time with other young multimillionaires must be a bizarre climate for even the most grounded of individuals, and Adele's rise to something approaching national institution amid adoration from vessels as diverse as Pitchfork and The Daily Telegraph is good going. She performed the Skyfall theme on Sunday evening to an apparently rapturous reception. How do you keep going when you've hit the front at her age? I'd love to see her disappear off the map a la Scott Walker, but something about that dress and much-fussed hair tells me that might not be at the forefront of her mind. Where will she be in five years?

Daniel Day Lewis. He deserves a sentence all to himself as he pushed himself into uncharted territory with his third Oscar win for his portrayal of a man only received through historical testimony. It's worth bearing in mind that Lincoln died a decade before Edison invented the phonograph, and therefore all the critique of Day Lewis's performance is based on found knowledge, not first-hand experience or recordings. There's an argument that says that makes the job easier, and it's a stupid one. Conceiving a Lincoln that captured the preconception of an audience of tens of millions is a huge challenge and it's no surprise to hear Day Lewis stayed in Kentucky character for months, including the entire duration of the shoot, to ensure an exact replica was created. The performance is typical of the man and makes him so interesting; his consummate ability to disappear completely beneath the emotions of his character is, to me, unparalleled in cinema, and he deserves all the plaudits he receives.

Jessica Chastain looks infinitely better as the model for classic Hollywood woman than aviator-totin' ball-buster Maya in Zero Dark Thirty (inc., aviators in the military - West Point needs an eyewear rethink) I strongly suspect this beautiful lady, along with January Jones and Christina Hendrix, have all come from some sort of internal lab within those famous hills that sculpts Golden Age actresses, then animates them one particularly stormy eve. I'm baffled.

Three guys, three different beards. The Oscars 2013 was most definitely the year where not shaving - for weeks - was the done thing. Viscount Bradley Cooper seems to be playing a millionaire playboy with combed back fringe and vulpine features, whereas President Affleck is looking veeeeerrrry stoic and perspicacious with that supremely well-trimmed effort. Professor Clooney meanwhile appears to have grown - literally - into his role as the godfather of serious American cinema. He was here on behalf of Affleck's Argo. Good work gents.

OK fine, here's new and improved Joseph Gordon Levitt in a charcoal grey tux with patent leather shoes and a narrow bowtie. Swoon all you want - but then look at the picture below! That's the JGL I know and love, the giant goof. And who's that mugging with him? Why, it's the only other beardless guy in Los Angeles, Daniel Radcliffe (ironic because he looks way better with one)! What a pair of silly faces - and metaphorical hats off to you both for not losing your gurnability in the face of critical and commercial success. Clooney, take some lessons from these two. You can take the  man out of Third Rock, but etc etc.

What I learnt from the Oscars 2013: Jennifer Aniston is still a really nice person and all those people who like to patronise her should just go suck a lemon or something.  Daniel Day Lewis deserves to enter acting lexicon in the same way Lawrence was permitted the adverb 'Olivieresque'. Jessica Chastain might be the human version of Jessica Rabbit. Adele should wear jeans and a t-shirt if someone advised her on that dress. And beards, when done well, instil hitherto unknown depths to all manner of gentlemen. Grow it back, Daniel. You just look better.

Pictures courtesy of The BBC, guardian.co.uk, E! Online, mirror.co.uk, Yahoo! Movies Australia, ABC News

Being Dysfunctional Is Great (And You Can Look Okay In A Binbag Too)

David O. Russell has a really satisfying name. Less peppery than David O. Selznick, whose surname makes me think of savoury pretzels, he's also one of those directors, like Alexander Payne and Wes Anderson, who gets photographed a lot wearing a shirt and tie.

This is an informal piece about the film Silver Linings Playbook because I am wearing a cashmere sweater, jeans and it's a Sunday evening. I really enjoyed I Heart Huckabees when it came out, even after seeing that bust up between Russell and Lily Tomlin (spectacular!) and decided on the basis of a trailer I watched alone in bed on Saturday morning once that this was a film I wanted to check out to see if I felt the same way about the guy.

Obsessive compulsive behaviours are a thing close to my heart, because I have been obsessive compulsive for almost half my life. It's something that comes on and off depending on a variety of factors, mainly how tired I feel - which might mean I am just twitchy (I feel the need to do certain things more if I have had less sleep than usual on a cumulative basis) but I will always do certain things because they are part of my life. The deal, as ever, is recognising habits for what they are; physical manifestations of my mental state. In that respect I am dissimilar to other people but only because other people don't do specifically what I do.

I enjoyed Cooper's portrayal of a 'self-built' man hugely. I have never seen any Bradley Cooper films but this was a real eye-opener for me; the bull in a china shop approach I was expecting (and kind of got) was an aspect of, rather than the performance. The straight-upness of the guy was a big win for me and Cooper, with his 6 foot whatever frame, permagrizzled jawline and consistent choice of loungewear with a binbag for his street jogs came through as all goofy au naturelle rather than a calculated move. This is a film that really oozes sincerity in every hue and Cooper's Pat, saying farewell to A Farewell to Arms at 4am or watching Singin' In The Rain on his iPod (donated by his rageaholic buddy Ronnie) is an all over embodiment of that feeling. His clear-eyed focus on a goal he may never achieve through his previous sins was an admirable statement and I think Russell deserves a lot of credit for showing this without blinking.

Anybody reading this will have done so because they wanted information or (God forbid, from me) an opinion of David O. Russell (skip this blog if that's the case, I'm all shyness and weird turns in the dark) but anyway Russell is, of course, well known for his soupçon of giddy, screwball highs and social-realist lows, all of which again are delicious to my palette, and Playbook doesn't disappoint; the camerawork, a strong feature of his in Three Kings, is again employed to engaging and claustrophobic effect, particularly in the Solitano domestic household, an intense relay of a cramped and intense atmosphere in both the physical and metaphorical sense. At times it reminds me of those docu-dramas you (still?) get on terrestrial TV (usually Channel 4) 'observing' a family under pressure in some way. The Steadicam here both adds to the spicy ménage, suggesting an extra presence of induced stress, and another purely ambivalent perspective, content to watch as it blurs between a ranting Jennifer Lawrence (what a performance; great) and a slowly unpeeling Robert de Niro (my favourite character, for self-evident reasons).

It feels right to mention Lawrence on the basis that she is another actor that I have never seen in anything. Boy she is good. Most adjectives in the Depression Thesaurus feel lazy when describing this character and that's to Lawrence's great credit IMO: she is completely convincing in a plot that veers off the rails as it reaches its destination and handles her sentimental streak with the right amount of love and cynicism so that come that rather slushy conclusion you feel as though she (and Cooper) earned it. A post-game household scene in which she destroys Pat's father's (de Niro) obsession that she is redirecting his son's 'juju', much as a magnet does with filings is hilarious, and de Niro plays the obsessive to perfection, bowing to completely nonsensical reasoning in a totally lifelike manner (trust me on this; I have had exactly the same experience and was smiling whilst biting my fingers at this point).

De Niro, FWIW, is absolutely excellent. There's a charming piece on him in today's Observer and he comes across as a lovely guy, enamoured with youth and cajoling them into leading the way in life. I would be wholly unsurprised to see some sort of award going his way soon for this performance and his partnership with the wonderful, wonderful Jackie Lowe (a portrayal of desperately anxious motherly love that's completely beguiling) is the bedrock of Russell's tragicomic genesis. De Niro also lends a toughness to the film's emotional catharsis, a post-dance scene that in other hands may cloy with a sentiment too sugar-sweet for all tastes. But this is judged to perfection and the physical bond that is reignited between father and son - it's impossible to write that moment in unsentimental terms, let alone film it - was totally nutritious to me.

I was so pleased to see Russell demolish my previously held conventions on why certain scenes 'don't work' in cinema, a feeling I previously experienced in pop lit whilst reading Franzen's The Corrections. It's a delight to enjoy a thing whilst recognising elements you have seen in other films and fallen out of love with because of your judgement. I felt a reappraisal of a lot of previously held perceptions was due and ultimately the subjective part of me that responds to the rom com has changed in a definitive way. The most enjoyable experience I took away was a simple one; that whatever art is, it's definitely completely shapeless and logic and reason stand as part of the subjective experience to say anything, anything at all, can and will be fantastic in the right pair of hands.