It's all about movie magic

Movie magic was at its highest on February 26th, as the 84th Academy Awards took place. Truly, there wasn't a more suitable theme than film-making itself for a night like this. Hosted by Billy Crystal (who did a great job), this year's ceremony was a greatly enjoyable experience throughout and the production felt very well thought-out.The awe-inspiring performance by Cirque du Soleil was definitely among the biggest highlights of the night, as the performers defied the laws of gravity and stretched the abilities of the human body to the maximum. 

The year of 2011 celebrated movies, and it shows in the major winners. The Artist, the first silent movie since 1929 to be nominated, took home the biggest award - Best Picture. A very well-deserved award, no doubt, for a movie that stood out so much from the rest of the contenders. The Artist and Hugo collected five Oscars each. While Hugo dominated the technical categories (Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing), The Artist, along with Best Picture, took home some of the bigger awards, including Best Actor (Jean Dujardin) and Best Director (Michel Hazanavicius). There were no surprises in the rest of the acting categories, as Meryl Streep went on to receive Best Actress Oscar for The Iron Lady, Best Supporting Actress Oscar went to Octavia Spencer for her role in The Help, and Best Supporting Actor Oscar - to Christopher Plummer for Beginners. The Descendants collected its only Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, while Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris received the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.


This year, the Oscars were all about reminding us why we love movies so much. Everything celebrated film-making - from the major nominees to the performance by Cirque du Soleil. Also, an interesting addition this year was that in some categories (mostly technical), the nominees talked a bit about their work in pre-recorded videos. This added a nice touch and allowed us to get a better look at how the movie magic happens. All in all, this year's ceremony was highly engaging and paid a great tribute to films and film-making.