By CONNOR RYAN and JOHN BONAZZO

Jack Nicholson and Michelle Obama (via webcast from Washington, D.C.) closed the Academy Awards on Sunday night by presenting the best picture award to Ben Affleck’s “Argo,” the favorite to win.

“Argo” won only two other awards: editing (William Goldenberg) and adapted screenplay (Chris Terrio). Affleck was not nominated for a best director Oscar — the award was quite unexpectedly picked up by Ang Lee for his work on “Life of Pi.”

“Argo” is the first film since 1990 to win the best picture award without a best director nomination.

Daniel Day-Lewis won his third Oscar in the best actor category for playing Abraham Lincoln in “Lincoln.” Jennifer Lawrence won the lead actress award for her role in “Silver Linings Playbook.” Christoph Waltz sneaked up from behind to nab the best supporting actor Oscar for his role in “Django Unchained.” And Anne Hathaway won for “Les Misérables.”

This year, no single movie dominated the awards. The most awards given to any one film was “Life of Pi,” which won four (director, original score, cinematography and visual effects).

Aside from Day-Lewis’s win, “Lincoln” received only one other award (production design). Lawrence represented the only win of the night for “Silver Linings Playbook.” Alongside Waltz, Quentin Tarantino won for the original screenplay of “Djano Unchained.” Tarantino previously won the award in 1995 for “Pulp Fiction.” Along with Hathaway’s gold, “Les Misérables” won for sound mixing and makeup and hairstyling.

For only the sixth time in Oscar history, there was a tie in a category, in this case sound editing. “Zero Dark Thirty” took home its only award in this category, and shared the gold with “Skyfall”. James Bond’s latest adventure also received best original song for Adele’s theme to the film.

“Amour”  took home Best Foreign Language Film, “Searching for Sugar Man” received best documentary and “Brave” won the best animated feature award. Other winners were “Paperman” (best animated short film), “Curfew” (best live action short film) and “Inocente”(documentary short subject).

Seth MacFarlane hosted, and mixed his familiar brand of “Family Guy” comedy with musical numbers paying tribute to classic films. His monologue featured everything from “Flight” reenacted with sock puppets to cameos from William Shatner, Daniel Radcliffe and Charlize Theron, among others.

This year’s Oscar theme of music in the movies was reflected in the show’s performances.

Adele, Hugh Jackman and Norah Jones performed nominated original songs, and there was also a tribute to James Bond music featuring Shirley Bassey. Barbra Streisand sang during the In Memoriam segment.

There were also live homages to great movie musicals of the last 10 years, with Catherine Zeta-Jones performing “All That Jazz” from “Chicago,”  Jennifer Hudson belting out “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from “Dreamgirls” and the entire cast of “Les Misérables” singing “One Day More.”

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Categories: Arts & Entertainment