Simmons, Arquette rewarded with Oscars

J.K. Simmons accepts the award Sunday for best actor in a supporting role for Whiplash at the 87th annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.
J.K. Simmons accepts the award Sunday for best actor in a supporting role for Whiplash at the 87th annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Editor's note: Because of inclement-weather deadlines and the lateness of the Academy Awards ceremony, this article does not offer full coverage of the awards. Coverage will be available on arkansasonline.com and in Tuesday's edition.

LOS ANGELES -- Oscar host Neil Patrick Harris wasted no time kicking off a stormy 87th Academy Awards conceding the ceremony's much-discussed lack of diversity.

"Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and whitest -- I mean brightest," said Harris in an introduction at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday. All of this year's acting nominees are white, leading some to push for a boycott of the broadcast.

The night's first Oscar went to J.K. Simmons, a career character actor widely acclaimed for one of his biggest parts: a drill sergeant of a jazz instructor in Whiplash. Simmons fittingly accepted his supporting acting Oscar with some straightforward advice, urging: "Call your mom. Call your dad."

Backstage, Simmons, known to many from various bit parts or his insurance commercials, recalled a long road as a professional actor that began decades ago in regional theater in Montana.

"Maybe more people saw me tonight than see me in the commercials," said Simmons, 60.

Patricia Arquette won best supporting actress for Boyhood.

Arquette plays the mother of Ellar Coltrane's Mason in Richard Linklater's sweeping look at a boy's life, filmed over 12 years.

Two of the night's early awards went to Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel, for costume design and for makeup and hair styling. The European caper -- released around last year's Academy Awards -- could be the night's unlikely leader in trophies, rewarding the handmade craft of Anderson's latest confection.

The black-and-white Polish film Ida took best foreign language film, marking the first such win for Poland despite a rich cinema history. Director Pawel Pawlikowski charmed the audience with a bemused acceptance speech that ran drastically over his allotted time.

Pawlikowski remarked on having made a quiet film of contemplation about withdrawing from the world, "and here we are at the epicenter of noise and attention. It's fantastic. Life is full of surprises."

Harris' opening quickly segued into a song-and-dance routine that celebrated a love for movies, complete with a villain to his sunny outlook in Jack Black. The comedian jumped on stage to counter that Hollywood wasn't so fabulous, making movies "opening with lots of zeroes, all we get is superheroes."

"After 50 Shades of Grey," Black added, referring to the weekend's top box office draw, "they'll all have leather whips."

Harris, a frequent Tony Awards host, struck a chipper tone while slyly mocking the Oscars. The $160,000 gift bags for attendees, he said, came with "an armored car ride to safety when the revolution comes." The performance by Andy Samberg's Lonely Island of the Oscar-nominated song "Everything Is Awesome," from The Lego Movie, let some live out their Oscar dreams, handing out golden Lego statuettes to Oprah Winfrey and Steve Carell.

Hard showers fell on the red carpet as guests arrived at the ceremony, and workers dispensed pink towels for soggy celebrities. One former Oscar nominee, Viola Davis, said on her way into the ceremony that Hollywood's diversity problems run deeper than the Oscars.

"You have to greenlight more stories that include people of color," said Davis, asked about how to improve diversity in Hollywood. "You can't get nominated for anything you're not in."

With a co-leading nine nominations, Alejandro Inarritu's backstage comedy Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) flies in with the strongest wind at its back. It topped the acting, directing and producing guild awards, which are often strong predictors of what the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will vote for.

Birdman also won best feature at Saturday's Film Independent Spirit Awards, further boosting its momentum.

The coronation of Birdman was far from certain. Many believe Linklater's Boyhood would ultimately prove irresistible to academy members. Best director also appeared to be a tossup between Inarritu and Linklater.

Whether suspense was enough to pull viewers to the telecast on ABC remains to be seen. Harris aimed to continue the recent ratings upswing for the Oscars, which last year drew 43 million viewers, making it the most-watched entertainment telecast in a decade.

This year's crop of nominees, however, was light on box-office smashes. Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (six nominations, including best picture) was the only best-picture candidate to gross more than $100 million domestically.

Information for this article was contributed by Beth Harris and Solvej Schou of The Associated Press.

A Section on 02/23/2015

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