The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Honoring big screen’s best
‘Birdman’ wins for best picture, director and original screenplay. Find bonus coverage in our 10-page Oscars Extra at AJCePaper.
— In a fierce battle against “Boyhood,” the drama “Birdman” soared to greater heights Sunday by winning Academy Awards for best picture and for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu as best director. Julianne Moore took the Academy Award for best actress for “Still Alice,” while Eddie Redmayne won best actor for “The Theory of Everything.”
Moore gives a nuanced and heart-rending portrayal of a vibrant, ambitious Columbia University professor diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in the film by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland.
Redmayne plays the reallife role of physicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed with motor neuron disease at the age of 21. The actor has been praised for his skillful depiction of Hawking’s gradual physical decline.
Patricia Arquette and J.K. Simmons won supporting acting awards at a stormy but buoyant Oscars that was heavy on song-and-dance, occasionally lacking in clothes and animated by a passionate stand for women’s rights.
Accepting the Academy Award for best supporting actress in “Boyhood,” Arquette added a political burst to a ceremony otherwise happy to keep it light.
“To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation,” said Arquette. “We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once for all. And equal rights for women in the United States of America.”
The night’s first Oscar went to Simmons for his role as a drill sergeant of a jazz instructor in the indie “Whiplash.” Simmons fittingly accepted his supporting acting Oscar with some straightforward advice, urging: “Call your mom. Call your dad.”
Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris wasted no time kicking off a stormy 87th Academy Awards and conceding the ceremony’s much-discussed lack of diversity.
“Tonight we honor Hollywood’s best and whitest — I mean brightest,” Harris said before the star-studded crowd. All of this year’s acting nominees are white, a ratio that led some to push for a boycott of the broadcast.
The only consolation for the movie “Selma” was the Oscar it won for best song for “Glory.”
Most of Sunday’s early awards went as expected, though Disney’s “Big Hero 6” pulled off something of an upset in the best animated feature category, besting DreamWorks’ favored “How to Train Your Dragon 2.”
Two of the night’s early awards went to Wes Anderson’s “The Grand Budapest Hotel”: costume design, and makeup and styling.