Daniel Day-Lewis accepting his Oscar for Best Actor at the 85th annual Academy Awards (Courtesy of AP)

The 85th annual Academy Awards have come and gone and for the first time in a long time, it feels like those who were “correctly” chosen actually deserved to win. There were definitely some glaring oversights and a couple of notable misses, but if I were to grade this past Sunday’s performance, I’d have to give the academy a solid B.

The show was by no means perfect and that had quite a bit to do with the host’s performance. Yes, I suppose it’s not that big of a crushing blow to the all-powerful Seth McFarlane if someone actually agreed with the fake headlines presented by William Shatner. Lord knows the redditors and online communities of the world will just prop him back up.

Many of the jokes of the night were not so much distasteful, but odd and sporadic. McFarlane seemed uncomfortable for someone who isn’t too ashamed to express his opinions whenever he deems it necessary on his shows. Although I will admit to a pretty good laugh at Jennifer Lawrence’s fist pump in the middle of McFarlane’s “We Saw Your Boobs” anthem.

That will bring me to my next bit of pessimism: the fact that the movie I thought was clearly the best of the year, “Zero Dark Thirty,” came away with zero awards for the night. I wasn’t very shocked by Argo winning Best Picture, but Jessica Chastain’s performance was magnificent. It’s also odd to think that a piece about something involving an important part of history didn’t have the academy drowning in a sea of their own self-indulgence.

Don’t mistake what I’m saying: Lawrence, Best Actress winner, is on her way to an incredible career that hopefully won’t be defined just by “The Hunger Games,” but for my money, I’ll take the psycho redhead going after Osama Bin Laden any day.

But, without a doubt, the biggest mistake on the night was of course Ben Affleck’s lack of a nomination for Argo. When almost your entire crew gets selected, many of them winning, and the director can’t even be acknowledged, someone screwed up. And no, Affleck winning the Best Picture award is not the same. It’s just some kind of pathetic attempt at an apology. Sorry, Ang Lee, but your statue needs to be holding an asterisk somewhere.

Besides those, the rest of the night was spot on.

Anne Hathaway received a very well-deserved Oscar for about four minutes of the most haunting and beautiful version of “I Dreamed a Dream” that may have ever been performed.
Christoph Waltz is now two for two under Quentin Tarantino’s direction for being the most interesting man in Hollywood.

Daniel Day-Lewis won his third Best Actor award for his stunning portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. It should also be noted that Day-Lewis is the first actor in history to win more than two Best Actor awards from the academy. I know there are plenty of people who would say Tom Hanks is better, but I’ll take “Lincoln,” “There Will be Blood” and “Gangs of New York” over “Saving Private Ryan,” “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump” any day. ‘

Without a doubt in my mind, the Oscars were once again a huge success because the academy put on a show like no one else could. Hopefully this year’s films will be just as high quality as 2012.

Costa is a junior majoring in journalism.