Connecting the Best Pictures Dots...

Madeline Wigen put together this nice venn diagram(s?) about how the Oscars are all connected. This is probably a conspiracy.

I believe

FEINBERG FORECAST: Scott's Final Projections for the 84th Academy Awards

A detailed article of the predictions for the Oscars, including all categories and reasoning for these predictions. I found this article interesting to compare to the results of the show. Not too far off!

OSCARS: Awards Season Frenzy Hits Pinnacle At WGA and ACE; End In Sight

This article was posted about a week ago debating who was going to take home the Oscars for the writing categories at the Academy Awards. According to the article, The Descendants was predicted to take home the award. However, for best original screenplay, even though The Artist is the hit movie of the season, Midnight in Paris was a favorite that had the chance to beat The Artist over any other movie within the category.

Did Nominations Hurt the Oscar Results?

In this article from the Tampa Bay Times, the author discusses what perhaps was the problem with this year's Oscars.

While many will associate the downward ratings with just recent trends in people not caring to watch, some argue that it is the fact that Art House films have been owning the nominations as of late.

Considering films like The Artist only reached a limited audience, perhaps it is films like this that are hurting the final results.

Do you think this is why the Oscars continue to struggle, or is it perhaps just because people don't care?

Angelina's Leg Is Meme

Social media works fast! Less than 24 hours after the Oscars, Angelina's leg has already became a sensation. It's been digitally altered

"onto the Statue of Liberty, and into scenes that include The Last Supper, Darth Vader, Betty White, Abbey Road, Jeremy Lin, and, by the time you read this, about a million other things. Check out this collection of leg-bombing photos from Pinterest. We're still waiting for the one with the lamp from "A Christmas Story."

On top of being edited into many pictures and scenes, her leg has its own twitter feed. How sad is that?

Billy Crystal in blackface: Are the Academy Awards out of touch on race?

Many reviews of the 84th Oscars characterized the telecast as playing it safe – returning to the tried-and-true and attempting to embrace the glory days of Hollywood. But even if it tried to please a wide-ranging audience, many African-Americans were, at best, rubbed the wrong way.

Oscars Get Post-Show Buzz

Even with Angelina's right leg showing through her gown and Jennifer Lopez's wardrobe malfunction, the Grammy's still outbeat the Oscars by more than 1.4 million views. It is interesting to see that there's a twitter (@AngiesRightLeg) with 20,000 followers for Jolie's leg and a twitter with 3,000 followers for Lopez's wardrobe malfunction. Just goes to show much people use social media.

Oscars Ratings Up 4 Percent From 2011

In this article from Entertainment Weekly writer James Hibberd, it's noted that the ratings for the Academy Awards rose slightly from last year's: 

 "ABC’s awards coverage delivered 39.3 million viewers, up 4 percent from 2011, according to the network. In the adult demo, the show received an 11.7 rating, off a tenth from 2011. The program out-delivered three of the past four Oscars telecasts and ranked as ABC’s most-watched program in two years."

However, even with that small increase, it looks like if the Oscars viewership tally is upheld in the Nielsen's rating release tomorrow, this will be the first year that the Grammys pulled a larger audience than the Oscars (a 14.1 rating compared to an 11.7, as noted in the article).

Forbes Names 2012 Oscar's "Disaster"

The caption for this photo on Forbes.com reads "never again." In an article published today Forbes denotes the aspects of the Academy Awards that I'm sure we all noticed last night. The article also offered up some tips for the 85th Academy Awards next year to avoid the bad ratings that could have ensued from this year's awards.

Oscars 2012: An effort to be inclusive

This article from the LA Times notes the noticeable attempt by the Academy at creating a more culturally diverse atmosphere for the awards ceremony.

It was interesting to me that they only mentioned the African-American side of the diversification we saw because it was more than the black community that saw some spotlight.

Iranian director, Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation" won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film which was the country's first Oscar win. Ever.

While I agree with the article in that the award ceremony did seem to obviously embrace the black community a little extra than usual, cultural diversity is not synonymous with African-American people.