The 2012 Academy Awards really offered no surprises on the night this year. Other than Sacha Baron Cohen arriving on the red carpet as his new character The Dictator and covering Ryan Seacrest in powder claiming to be Kim Jong-Il’s ashes that is! United Leeds Endeavours, a direct marketing and sales company in Leeds, looks at the big winners on the night.
When it came down to it, the favourites won this year. The ceremony was a lot more tame than in recent years, no outrageous speeches, no huge snubs. Octavia Spencer, who won Best Supporting Actress, was weepy but United Leeds Endeavours felt only in a touching way.
Silent film The Artist was the big winner of the night taking home 5 awards. They were Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Jean Dujardin, Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius, Best Original Score and finally Best Costume Design. Director Hazanavicius got the loudest laugh of the night when he thanked the dog, Uggie, who had a starring role in the film but added, “I don’t think he cares.”
United Leeds Endeavours feels that the only category that was closely contended was Best Actor which the team had thought might go to George Clooney. Martin Scorcese’s Hugo was also very successful but mainly in the technical areas. It won the Cinematography, Art Direction, Visual Effects, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing categories.
United Leeds Endeavours was delighted to see Meryl Streep win her third Oscar in a illustrious career that has seen her nominated 17 times. She thanked the Academy “for this inexplicably wonderful career.” She added “I look out here and I see my life before my eyes. My old friends, my new friends. This is such a great honour but the thing that counts the most for me is the friendships…Thank you. All of you, departed and here.”
“Meryl is such a class act, she was fantastic in The Iron Lady as she is in all of the roles she plays. It’s so important to have a female role model out there who is so versatile, so elegant and so classy,” said the director of Unique Client Solutions. “We love the awards season as it gives us a chance to catch up on all of the lastest films in the cinema, it’s also fantastic to see all the talent in the movie industry rewarded. It helps that Sacha Baron Cohen is always around to keep things scandalous!”
