In Memoriam
The annual In Memoriam tribute, was presented by actress Glenn Close. The montage featured an excerpt of the main title from Somewhere in Time by composer John Barry. At the conclusion of the tribute, singer Bette Midler performed her song "Wind Beneath My Wings" from the film Beaches.
- James Gandolfini
- Karen Black
- Tom Laughlin
- Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
- Carmen Zapata
- Hal Needham
- Richard Shepherd
- Stuart Freeborn
- Gerry Hambling
- Jim Kelly
- Stephenie McMillan
- Les Blank
- Eileen Brennan
- Paul Walker
- Fay Kanin
- Charles L. Campbell
- Deanna Durbin
- Frédéric Back
- A. C. Lyles
- Elmore Leonard
- Annette Funicello
- Petro Vlahos
- Eduardo Coutinho
- Saul Zaentz
- Riz Ortolani
- Peter O'Toole
- Ray Harryhausen
- Brian Ackland-Snow
- Richard Griffiths
- Sid Caesar
- Roger Ebert
- Shirley Temple
- Joan Fontaine
- Run Run Shaw
- Juanita Moore
- Mickey Moore
- Stefan Kudelski
- Harold Ramis
- Eleanor Parker
- Ray Dolby
- Julie Harris
- Maximilian Schell
- Richard Matheson
- Gilbert Taylor
- Tom Sherak
- Esther Williams
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
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Television personality Ellen DeGeneres hosted the show for the second time, after hosting the 79th ceremony in 2007. DeGeneres' hosting of the show utilized improv, at one point ordering pizzas, and bringing the startled delivery driver on stage with her to pass out slices to the audience. DeGeneres also posed for an impromptu photo with Bradley Cooper, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence, Jared Leto, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep, Channing Tatum, Lupita Nyong'o and her brother Peter, which she posted to Twitter and invited her fans on the microblogging site to retweet. The resulting activity on the site set a record for retweets, breaking the record previously held by Barack Obama following his reelection in 2012, and temporarilydisabled the site.
Box office performance of nominated films.
At the time of the Academy Award nomination announcement on January 16, 2014, the combined gross of the nine Best Picture nominees at the American and Canadian box offices was $645 million, with an average of $72 million per film.
Only one of the nine Best Picture nominees was among the top ten releases in box office receipts when the Academy revealed the nominations. Gravity was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees. Captain Phillips was the second-highest-grossing film with $105.5 million; this was followed by American Hustle ($105.4 million), The Wolf of Wall Street ($80.7 million), 12 Years a Slave ($39 million), Philomena ($22.3 million), Dallas Buyers Club ($16.8 million), Her ($9.9 million), and Nebraska ($8.5 million).
Of the top 50 grossing movies of the year, 47 nominations went to 14 films on the list. Only Frozen (3rd), Despicable Me 2 (4th), Gravity (7th), The Croods (14th), Captain Phillips (29th), American Hustle (30th), and The Wolf of Wall Street (42nd) were nominated for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, or any of the directing, acting, or screenwriting awards. The other top 50 box office hits that earned nominations were Iron Man 3 (2nd), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (8th), Star Trek Into Darkness (11th), Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (31st), The Lone Ranger (38th), andSaving Mr. Banks (49th).
Best Original Song controversy.
The Academy revoked the Best Original Song nomination for Alone Yet Not Alone's title song after determining that composer Bruce Broughton violated the Academy's promotional regulations. Broughton, a former Academy governor and member of the music branch's executive committee, had emailed other music branch members to inform them of his submission.
Fruitvale Station and Saving Mr. Banks snub controversy
The Academy received negative feedback from critics and audiences for having not nominated Fruitvale Station for a single award and Saving Mr. Banks for any of the major awards.Fruitvale Station is based on the events that led to the shooting death of Oscar Grant by a BART police officer on New Year's Day of 2009. The film's appearance on several prominent critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2013 and numerous awards accolades has attracted particular attention to its lack of nominations. It has also been noted that 2013 was hailed as a momentous year for black cinema and with Fruitvale Station and Lee Daniels' The Butler snubbed and only 12 Years a Slave nominated, the Academy was criticized for not recognizing other films with African American themes and performances rather than simply 12 Years a Slave. Ann Hornady of The Washington Post noted, "Having nominated nine films for best picture, surely the academy could have come up with a 10th in such a strong year. What a perfect way to honor 'Fruitvale Station'".
Best Documentary Feature controversy
The Academy attracted some negative attention following the announcement of the nominations for the exclusion of documentary film Blackfish. The film had inspired numerous protests against SeaWorld for the alleged mistreatment of killer whales in its care. Following the "snub," director Gabriela Cowperthwaite stated that she felt the documentary was left out of the nominations because it contained mainly archival footage and was not a "work of art," rather than being the result of a deliberate attempt to "snub" the film based on its message.
“Adele Dazeem” incident.
John Travolta received considerable negative criticism and ridicule for mispronouncing singer and actress Idina Menzel's name as "Adele Dazeem" during the broadcast. When presenting the Best Original Song performance of "Let It Go" from Frozen, Travolta mispronounced the actress's name as he introduced her to those in attendance in the Dolby Theater and those watching the live telecast of the show. Subsequently, Travolta was the subject of mockery and ridicule on social media, with "#AdeleDazeem" trending nationally on Twitter and a "Adele Dazeem" Twitter account, which has currently garnered more than 200,000 followers.
According to a source for E!, Menzel revealed that she wasn't upset about the mishap. "She laughed it off," the source said. "She thought it was so funny. She was like, 'What are you going to do?'" After performing "Let It Go", she went to the backstage and hugged Travolta. "The Oscars were a dream come true for Idina," the source said. "She wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that." Menzel reportedly took the flub in stride, printing up satirical Playbills that promoted her name as "Adele Dazeem", noting her past work in Nert , Wicked-ly and Farfignugen(Frozen). Three days after the ceremony, in an official announcement on the Associated Press, Travolta publicly apologized to Menzel for "mangling the pronunciation", saying that "I was beating myself up over it. Then I thought ... what would Idina Menzel say? She'd say, 'Let it go, let it go!' Idina is incredibly talented and I am so happy Frozen took home two Oscars Sunday night!"
Oscar protests
For the second year in a row, visual effects artists scheduled a protest outside the Academy Awards on Hollywood Boulevard. They were protesting against subsidies that were being used by foreign countries to take work away from California.[65]
United Service Workers West also planned a protest outside the show, to call attention to the Academy's use of nonunion security officers for the show.