This is one of my favorite seasons. No, it is not the winter; I hate the winter and the cold (minus the snow for some reason). My favorite season is awards season. Celebrities have chosen their one-of-a-kind gowns that probably cost more than I will ever see in my life, and the paparazzi are stocking up on film and different kinds of lenses so they can catch that one tear in a dress or the sparkle coming from another.
In the past month, viewers have seen three of the biggest awards ceremonies of the year: People’s Choice, Critic’s Choice and Golden Globes. So far, it is easy to see that the front-runners for movies this past year range from teen obsession “The Hunger Games,” to the heart-wrenching “Les Misérables” and the action- packed true story “Argo.”
The People’s Choice Awards kicked off the awards season on Wednesday Jan. 9, and it was definitely a night of winners with “The Hunger Games” cast taking home six awards, including Favorite Action Movie, Actress and all around favorite movie. Katy Perry also took away a handful of awards with four wins in the music artist and video categories. Personally, I was extremely excited when “The Big Bang Theory” (one of my favorite shows ever) won Favorite Network TV Comedy. It made it even better that Kaley Cuoco hosted the show that night.
Next up was the Critic’s Choice Awards which I unfortunately missed live, but I followed the winners online as they were announced. While it seems to me that People’s Choice focuses more on the popular trends of the younger crowd, it is at Critic’s Choice that the nominations seem to up- the-ante. With winners such as “Argo” for Best Picture and “Lincoln” actor Daniel Day-Lewis winning for Best Actor alongside Jessica Chastain from “Zero Dark Thirty” for Best Actress.
It was interesting to see that there was really no big winner that night; each epic movie took home a good amount of awards -- though it could be argued that “Silver Linings Playbook” might have tilted the scale. While they did not take home the top five wins in picture and actor categories, the cast took home a total of four awards.
“I’d like to thank the Academy ...” said Ben Affleck when accepting the award for Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards, the most recent drug for award season junkies like myself. That moment, when Affleck accepted his award: funniest moment of the night. At least it was for me. As many know, the nominations for the prestigious Academy Awards (also known as the Oscars) were revealed this month, and many believed that Affleck was going to be nominated for Best Director, but he was surprisingly not. When he won the award at the Golden Globes, he sarcastically thanked the Academy before laughing it off and going on with his speech.
The next moment that made the audience laugh was when Jennifer Lawrence was awarded Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Musical for her role in “Silver Linings Playbook,” and she held the award up and remarked, “I beat Meryl Streep!” What seemed like an insult was actually praise to the elder actress, commending her for her role in “The First Wives Club” after beating her in the award.
The next award ceremony to look forward to is definitely the Academy Awards, which is going to appear on ABC on Feb. 24. I am not going to lie when I say I am chomping to bits to see who is going to win this year. Having seen four out of nine nominations for Best Picture I’ve got my favorites for who I want to win (cough cough – “Les Mis”) and others that I do not think should even be nominated (not going to say).
So that’s me: award season junkie. And I mean, come on people, admit that you wait for the next day on Yahoo! for all the best and worst dresses of the night to go up with pictures – don’t deny it because I know you’ve don’t it too.
*** This editorial is an opinion stated by the writer and does not represent the views of The Rotunda or Longwood University.
