‘Birdman’ soars to Oscars glory

HOLLYWOOD: “Birdman” — a showbiz satire about the dark side of fame — soared to Oscars glory on Sunday, taking four Academy Awards including the coveted best picture prize on Hollywood’s biggest night.
Emotions ran high at the Dolby Theatre on an evening marked by political statements about women’s rights, racial equality and the lives of Mexican migrants.
And there was disappointment for the team behind coming-of-age drama “Boyhood,” a longtime best picture favorite that lost steam as Tinseltown’s awards season came to a close, with just one prize for best supporting actress Patricia Arquette out of six nominations.
“Birdman,” the fanciful yet dark story of a washed-up superhero film actor battling to revive his career on Broadway, was a grand triumph for Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who personally won three of the film’s four golden statuettes.
Stylist crime caper “The Grand Budapest Hotel” also won four Oscars, but several of them came in technical categories, while jazz drumming drama “Whiplash” scored three, including best supporting actor for veteran actor J.K. Simmons.
Best actor went to Britain’s Eddie Redmayne as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” while veteran Julianne Moore took best actress as a professor suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease in “Still Alice.”
Disney’s “Big Hero 6” was named best animated feature, while Poland’s “Ida” took the best foreign language film prize.
Lady Gaga brought the house down with a soaring medley of songs from the classic “The Sound of Music” to mark its 50th anniversary — before welcoming actress Julie Andrews onto the stage.
An In Memoriam section paid tribute to stars and filmmakers who died in 2014, including Robin Williams, Lauren Bacall and Mike Nichols. But eyebrows were raised about the absence of Joan Rivers, as well as Italian director Francesco Rosi.

Political activism
Inarritu, the second Mexican in a row to take the best director Oscar after Alfonso Cuaron won last year for “Gravity,” dedicated his award to his fellow countrymen.
Sean Penn raised eyebrows with a reference he made to green cards in presenting the Oscar for best picture to Inarritu but the two are friends and Inarritu interpreted the comment as a joke.
Inarritu hugged Penn warmly, and joked that the US government might now impose immigration rules on the academy: “Two Mexicans in a row, that’s suspicious.”
On a serious note, he said, he hoped the “latest generation of immigrants ... can be treated with the same dignity and respect of the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.”
Graham Moore, who won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay for “The Imitation Game,” said in his acceptance speech that he had tried to kill himself as a teenager.
“When I was 16, I tried to kill myself because I felt weird and I felt different and I felt like I did not belong,” he said. “I would like this moment to be for the kid out there who feels like she’s weird and different and feels like she doesn’t belong. ... Yes, you do.”
Meryl Streep leapt to her feet cheering, pointing and shouting, “Yes! Yes!” as Patricia Arquette ended her Oscar acceptance speech with a call for women’s rights.
“To every woman who gave birth to every taxpayer and citizen in this nation: We have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality in the US,” said Arquette, who won best supporting actress for portraying the mother in “Boyhood.” The biggest standing ovation of the night honored “Selma,” about civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.
The film, while nominated for best picture, controversially failed to secure nods for British actor David Oyelowo and director Ava DuVernay.
In the end, it won for best original song for the rousing “Glory” — and the A-list audience rose to their feet after John Legend and Common performed the song.
Oyelowo was seen with tears pouring down his face.
“We live in the most incarcerated country in the world,” Legend said as he accepted his Oscar.
“There are more black men under correctional control today than there were under slavery in 1850.”
There was also a political edge to the best documentary Oscar winner: “Citizenfour,” about the leaking of classified US government documents by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Snowden — who lives in exile in Russia — hailed the film’s triumph.
“My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world,” he said in a statement.

Harris as host
Neil Patrick Harris won kudos Sunday for his debut outing as Oscars host, mocking the gala’s lack of racial diversity.
“Today we honor Hollywood’s best and whitest. Sorry, brightest,” the 41-year-old comic quipped as the three-and-a-half-hour gala, telecast worldwide, got under way.
The deliberate slip of the tongue acknowledged the striking absence of non-white performers among this year’s crop of Academy Award nominees.
Harris faced a tough act to follow after talk show hostess Ellen DeGeneres’ turn last year, which included the celebrity selfie retweeted millions of times. But initial reactions of his performance were positive.
“First impressions suggest Harris is the right guy for what can admittedly be a rather thankless job,” said Variety television critic Brian Lowry.
Clearly relishing his Oscar duties, Harris went on to spoof Michael Keaton’s underwear scene in “Birdman” — which went on to win best picture — appearing on stage in white briefs, black socks and nothing else.
John Travolta also got his comeuppance for flubbing singer Idina Menzel’s name at last year’s show as he introduced her to sing “Let It Go,” the Oscar-winning song from “Frozen.”
“Benedict Cumberbatch,” Harris said in another joke later in the evening, introducing the best-actor nominee for “The Imitation Game.”
“It’s not only the most awesome name in show business, it’s also the sound you get when you ask John Travolta to pronounce Ben Affleck.”
Menzel then introduced him as “Glom Gazingo.”
“I deserve that,” Travolta said.
When “Citizenfour” won best documentary, Harris couldn’t help making a play on words, saying intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden “could not be here tonight for some treason.”
But not all Harris’s gags worked.
His bid to compare the box-office success of “American Sniper” to Oprah Winfrey’s fortune fell flat, even if the talk-show diva took it in stride.

Fashion parade
Hollywood’s A-list actresses oozed old-school elegance in white and glittering silver on the Oscars red carpet Sunday, even as rain tumbled down on Tinseltown’s top fashion parade.
Beyond the icy color palette, another trend for the ladies was lots of pearls and beads. Many of the gowns seen on the red carpet at the Dolby Theatre were embellished to the max.
Luckily, organizers set up a canopy to protect the stars from the drizzle.
Julianne Moore, who won the best actress Oscar for playing a woman with early onset Alzheimer’s disease in “Still Alice,” wore a custom beaded white strapless Chanel gown with black accents, her red hair swept back in a bun.
“Karl Lagerfeld made this for me!” she exclaimed.
France’s Marion Cotillard, a previous Oscar winner and nominated again Sunday in the best actress category, also chose white — a sleeveless Dior polka dot gown with a geisha-style bustle.
“I dreamed of cinema glory, for sure... but I would have never thought I would be part of this American family of cinema,” Cotillard told E! television’s Ryan Seacrest.
Patricia Arquette, who took home the trophy for her moving portrayal of a single mother raising two kids in “Boyhood,” arrived early with several members of her acting family in tow.
The 46-year-old blonde dazzled in a one-shoulder Rosetta Getty gown with a ruched white bodice and a form-fitting black skirt. A simple up-do gave her a bit of a Greek goddess look.
“It’s a beautiful story about human beings and kids growing up,” Arquette told CNN of “Boyhood,” which earned a total of six nominations, but only the one award.
Lupita Nyong’o — the best supporting actress Oscar winner last year for “12 Years a Slave” and a red carpet darling — wore a custom pearl-encrusted sleeveless Calvin Klein gown.
“The pressure’s off,” she said. “I can just dress up and enjoy the show.”
And Lady Gaga, who sang a powerful “Sound of Music” tribute medley during the show to mark its 50th anniversary, wore a space-age sparkling white and silver Azzedine Alaia gown with a full skirt — and bright red gloves that seemed better suited for washing dishes.

$168K gift bags
Twenty Oscar-nominated directors, actors and actresses went home Sunday without a coveted statuette — but they were not entirely empty-handed.
For them, there were swag bags worth $168,000 each, put together by a Los Angeles niche marketing outfit called Distinctive Assets.
“This year’s bag is the most valuable collection of swag ever assembled at an Oscars gifting suite,” said Vanity Fair magazine on its website.
The contents range in value from $5 to $20,000, including a year of free car rentals, a high-end train trip in the Canadian Rockies, $25,000 of furniture and $4,000 of liposuction treatment.
Among the more eccentric items: $280 in maple syrup, herbal-tea-based lollipops and a $20,000 astrology reading, according to Vanity Fair and other US news media.
The value of this year’s “gift bag” is double that of last year’s — but under US tax law, recipients will have to declare the contents as income.