Double Oscar Glory

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The 007 festivities kicked off with former Bond girl Halle Berry introducing a tribute to the James Bond franchise as it marks its fiftieth anniversary. What followed was a limp and uninspired clip reel put together by the Oscar event organizers overlayed with unnecessary animation.

It was a far cry from the sensational montage curated for the 'Skyfall' royal world premiere held at the Albert Hall in October, which had the hairs on the necks of all 1,500 attendees standing on end. Dame Shirley Bassey appeared from the floor to belt out "Goldfinger" in her inimitable style, and her powerful performance earned the first standing ovation of the night.

In the technical categories, "Skyfall" missed out on Sound Mixing but won the Best Sound Edited category in a rare Oscar tie with "Zero Dark Thirty". Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers collected the award. It was Hallberg's fourth time nominated, and second time for Landers.

Inexplicably, Roger Deakins did not win for Best Cinematography, with the award going instead to the green screen and CGI-heavy "Life of Pi". Many commentators noted that "Pi" did not even belong as a nomination for cinematography, let alone have a shot a winning. In one of the Academy's quirks, the voting slips just contained the titles of the films, rather than the cinematographers name, which no doubt led to the less attentive Academy voters missing Deakins' contribution.

Adele took to the stage to sing her hit "Skyfall", and although the usual Oscar orchestra was (somewhat strangely) based across the street from the Dolby Theatre in the old Capitol Records building, a small strings section joined with back-up vocals for the live performance on stage. Unfortunately, the sound mixing of the live production dipped Adele's microphone each time she broke in to the chorus, denting the impact of her vocals.

Richard Gere, with an air of inevitability, announced that Adele and Paul Epworth had won the Oscar for Best Original Song. "Thank you so much. This is amazing!", she said accepting the award on stage as the tears of joy started to flow. "I'd like to thank Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson at EON Productions, Sony Pictures, MGM... Paul Epworth for believing in me all the time. And my man! I love you baby." Epworth took over and said, "I can't really believe I'm up here to receive this!"

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