“Birdman” soars, “Grand Budapest Hotel” checks out, “Boyhood” stunted

Both “Birdman” and “The Grand Budapest Hotel” rounded out the evening with four awards, with the former taking home both Best Director and Best Picture. “Boyhood,” which many slated to be the biggest competition to “Birdman” (or, as some said, “Birdman” was the biggest competition to “Boyhood”) only took home a single award.

According to plan 

The four awards in acting went as many predicted. To no surprise, Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Leading Role went to J.K. Simmons, Patricia Arquette and Julianne Moore, respectively. Michael Keaton’s performance in “Birdman” versus Eddie Redmayne’s in “The Theory of Everything” was a narrative that was being pushed leading up to the ceremony, but Best Actor in a Leading Role never seemed to belong to anyone other than Redmayne.

Year of the speech 

The numerous memorable speeches were the highlights of the evening. The tone was set when Pawel Pawlikowski, director of Best Foreign Language Film “Ida,” literally talked over the orchestra that was attempting, in vain, to play him off. Both Redmayne and Moore drew awareness to ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which afflicts professor Stephen Hawking, who Redmayne portrayed. In a heartfelt moment when he revealed that he had attempted suicide when he was 16, Graham Moore, recipient of Best Adapted Screenplay for “The Imitation Game,” encouraged everyone to “stay weird, stay different.” However, the speech that started making rounds around the Internet as soon as it was televised was Arquette’s, who passionately advocated for wage equality. “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights,” Arquette said. “It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.”

Singing the praises 

Music was the big spectacle at an awards show for film. Early on, Tegan and Sara and The Lonely Island, along with a myriad of colorful extras that included Will Arnett in a Batman costume, performed “Everything Is Awesome” from “The LEGO Movie.” John Legend and Common, with a choir at their backs, performed “Glory” from “Selma,” which would go on to win Best Original Song. In a tribute to the 50th anniversary of “The Sound of Music,” Lady Gaga sang a medley of four tracks from the film. Julie Andrews met an emotional Gaga after her performance on stage.

Gone and, sadly, forgotten 

Though always impossible to respect all of the influential people in the film industry that had passed away over the past year, there was one very notable exception this year: Joan Rivers. Other than appearing in numerous films, Rivers wrote and directed the 1978 “Rabbit Test.”

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