'Argo' wins big at the 85th Academy Awards

The 85th Annual Academy Awards show is in the books, with the dramatic thriller Argo taking the top honors at this year's ceremony. For weeks, I'd speculated about a groundswell of support for the film, in part because Ben Affleck was not nominated for Best Director. It was a massive snub, and apparently big enough to help put Argo over the top for the win.

Argo made history at this year's Oscars, becoming only the fourth film to ever win Best Picture when its director failed to garner a Best Director nomination. Take a bow, Ben Affleck, you deserve that and more. Argo also won two other Academy Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film Editing. Once I saw Argo win those, I knew it would win Best Picture (especially Adapted Screenplay, that's almost always a predictor of the film that wins it all).

As far as the other major Academy Awards go, there were few surprises. Anne Hathaway, she of the weepy "I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables, walked away with the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Her speech wasn't nearly as annoying as the one she gave at the SAG Awards, by the way. Points for that, Anne.

Christoph Waltz got his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar win for Django Unchained. This was the category I went crazy over, trying to predict the winner. My thinking was it might wind up being Robert De Niro for Silver Linings Playbook, but either way, Harvey Weinstein wins it all, right?

In the two biggest acting categories, the winners were not surprising. Jennifer Lawrence won her first Oscar as Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook, and Daniel Day-Lewis won his third Best Actor Oscar for Lincoln. Let me say that again: This is DDL's third Best Actor Academy Award. That's never been done before. His acceptance speech was hilarious, memorable and ever-so-classy. He is the greatest actor of our generation. Period.

And now to the one win that did surprise me a little bit: Ang Lee's Best Director Oscar win for Life of Pi. I honestly thought Steven Spielberg would take it for Lincoln, but I was happily surprised to see Lee win that beautiful golden statue. His accomplishments with Life of Pi are nothing short of astounding. He made the movie that no one else could (and two other directors had considered an adaptation of the Life of Pi novel). Lee did it. And he deserved to win.

You can see the complete list of the 2013 Academy Awards winners here, including Best Cinematography (I'd hoped Roger Deakins would finally get his first win, but it was not to be) and Best Original Screenplay (here's to the quirky, brilliantly disturbing mind of Quentin Tarantino).

So that's that. Did anyone else hang for the duration of the show to see the big five awards? Do you agree with the winners or disagree? I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts!

Photo courtesy of CBS Philly