What a night for Musical Theatre Nerds! We are legion and we are getting ever stronger. And it surprised nobody that if you’re doing a musical sequence, you get Anna Kendrick to come on board and pick things up. And Anna Kendrick will deliver for you, no matter what. I mean if I were being …      

It was such a promising beginning, wasn’t it?

Look. There wasn’t anyone not on Neil Patrick Harris’s team last night. Which, of course, is a testament to his popularity but also, perhaps, in retrospect, a detriment too because, well, he was the one we all EXPECTED to deliver…      

Dear Gossips,

So. Birdman. I mean, yeah. It’s a really good movie. And when it started picking up that momentum, the suspense was gone. Boyhood was done.

My only question is, and I don’t have the answer, but I feel like if I was going to Celebrity Studies class today this woul…      

Birdman nabbed the Best Picture Oscar tonight much to my delight. I loved the movie but understood the criticisms of its overrated nature. Most of the films in this category were extra Oscar-y this year. Birdman was no different in that respect. All of the unending shots and magical realism in this movie are an acquired taste. I also think people who enjoyed the movie appreciated how it poked fun at the superhero movie trend. Will we see Robert Downey Jr. aiming to make a big comeback on Broadway one day?

Director Alejandro Inarritu fluidly constructed a film meant to depict a group of broken characters. The contrast startled, and his single-take approach was risky. Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, and the other actors all referenced the stressful nature of this shooting method. This necessary illusion created a dream-like aura and fed the fragility of Riggan Thomson’s need for validation. The end result was a blisteringly satiric and uncomfortable work full of blemishes and a lack of dignity. I found all of it beautiful. The long shots were artsy and pretentious, but this movie was about a tortured actor. We all know actors are some of the most pretentious people. So Inarritu’s method worked. If the movie was filmed in a traditional way, the effect wouldn’t have been the same.

In turn, the quality of the actors involved prevented Birdman from playing like a gimmick. Inarritu coaxed his cast to give a series of furious performances, the best they’ve ever given. The craftsmanship of the entire production is evident. During his speech, Inarritu thanked Tess Gallagher, the widow of Raymond Carver, for letting him use a Carver short story as a framing device. Keaton stepped up with a quick, “This has been a tremendous experience. This guy is as bold as bold can be … look, I’m just glad to be here.”

Alejandro Inarritu also took Best Director. He began his speech with “Tonight I am wearing the real Michael Keaton tighty whiteys. They are tight, smell like balls, but it worked. Thank you, Mikey.”” Inarritu acknowledged the mastery of his fellow nominees and seemed surprised to win. All those long shots paid off. Congrats to Alejandro and the cast and crew of Birdman!

Movie stills & poster courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

While Julianne Moore’s Best Actress Oscar win wasn’t a surprise, it was more than welcome. Julianne’s awards reign this season reminded me of Jeff Bridges’ winning streak several years ago for Crazy Heart. We don’t even really remember Bridges’ performance in that one particular film, but it was more about it being “his turn” and “his time.” Same with Julianne – is Still Alice her greatest work ever? No, because it’s just another wonderful performance in a career of strong work. Julianne got this because it was her turn, her time and all of the stars aligned for her. And good for her.

Julianne was emotional and funny when she won. At the Spirit Awards, Julianne joked/told the truth about the miniscule budget on Still Alice, saying that she brought her own bras and her own food to the set. For her Oscar speech, it did feel like fait accompli so the emotion wasn’t as strong, but still, she was jazzed.

She thanked her management team first, then her family, then the cast and crew on Still Alice. She spoke about what it meant to play someone with Alzheimer’s and represent their struggles and “people with Alzheimer’s deserve to be seen.” Finally, she thanked her husband and her children, saying: “Thank you for my life, thank you for giving me a home!”

Yay for Julianne!!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

Everyone knew the Best Actor race was boiling down to Eddie Redmayne and Michael Keaton, and Bedhead and I made our feelings pretty clear. She was pro-Keaton and I was pro-Redmayne. I thought Keaton gave a good performance in a stupid film and Redmayne gave an amazing performance in a by-the-books bio-pic. Well… I’m SO GLAD Eddie won. I feel sorry for Keaton a little bit, but still. #TeamRedmayne Eddie was so wonderful.

Redmayne was stunned and so sweet with his speech. He said in part: “Thank you… to the Academy…I’m fully aware that I am a lucky, lucky man. WOW!” He said this Oscar “belongs to every person battling ALS” and Stephen Hawking and Hawking’s family. He thanked Felicity Jones, the director, everyone that worked on the film, his team, his family and his new wife Hannah Bagshawe. Then he ended with this: “We have a new fellow coming to share our apartment!” So… Hannah is pregnant? And he didn’t have to make a big deal about it for his Oscar campaign? Well played, Redmayne. Update: so, wait, he was talking about the Oscar? Or was he talking about a baby? I really don’t know.

Congrats to Eddie!!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

As was widely expected, Patricia Arquette has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Boyhood. Patricia hasn’t had much competition in this category. Despite the talent she’s been up against, she’s won every major award this season. An unnamed Academy member told The Hollywood Reporter that she was voting for Arquette because “she gets points for working on a film for 12 years and bonus points for having no work done during the 12 years.” Much more than that, Arquette embodied the role in a way that made her seem exactly like her character; a struggling single mom trying to better herself while raising her kids and dealing with a string of bad relationships. Arquette’s character Olivia sometimes faded into the background, she sometimes begged us to pay attention to her. Either way she was completely believable. Here’s some of the text of Arquette’s speech, which was quite rushed but full of sentiment. She ended with a rousing call for women’s rights:

Thank you to the academy to my beautiful, powerful nominees… our whole cast and our crew, my Boyhood family who I love and admire, our brilliant director Richard Linklater, the impeccable Ethan Hawke, my lovelies Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater, Thomas and Paul thank you for giving me my beautiful children, Enzo and Harlo you’re the deepest people that I know, my friends who all work so hard to make this world a better place, to my parents [and siblings] to my favorite painter in the world, Erick White, for the inspiration of living with a genius, to my heroes, volunteers and experts who help me bring ecological sanitation to the developing world with givelove.org.

To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights, it’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America.

We’ll have to see if Boyhood takes home either the Best Director and/or Best Picture statues tonight. I have my fingers crossed. Congratulations to Arquette on a well-deserved win!

Photo credit: WENN.com. These are not photos from the Oscars tonight; they’re from the Writers’ Guild and Spirit Awards.

Melissa Gorga’s son is going to pump you up!

Yesterday, Melissa Gorga posted up a new video on her Instagram account of her son showing off his pushup skills. Melissa captioned her video with the following:

“The youngest is always the most fun

So, how’d you do in yesterday’s bout of celebrity mom trivia?

Yesterday, we asked you to tell us which celebrity mom said the following in an interview:

“This baby is very wanted and very much what we’ve been waiting for. It’s no secret that I’ve always wanted to be a mother, and every time I had a birthday I would just be a little bit sad. You don’t mind clicking over another number when you’ve got something inside you, growing, that you’ve always dreamed about.”

So, were you able to guess which mom said it?

It was Melissa George! Check out the original post by clicking here.

Make sure you check back soon for some more celebrity mom trivia!

How’d you do in yesterday’s round of celebrity mom trivia?

Yesterday, we asked you to tell us which celebrity child was captured in this photograph:

The answer is Lily Sheen! Were you able to guess who it was? Either way, make sure you check back in the future for another round of Guess Who!