The Oscars, for newbies, is a movie rewards ceremony that is held at the beautiful Dolby Theater located in Hollywood, California. This year’s Oscars was action packed, and didn’t have any obvious or clear-cut winners right from the get go. With the popular films being those such as : Life of Pi, Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Les Miserables, Flight, DjangoUnchained, Lincoln, and Zero Dark Thirty . All of these films have had tremendous reviews and were box office hits from day one. In my opinion, the award for “Best Picture” was up for grabs for any of the films listed. With good movies come good actors and directors. The nominations for best leading role (male) were the following : Daniel Day Lewis (Lincoln), Joaquin Phoenix (The Master), Denzel Washington (Flight), Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook) and Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables). All of these actors are deserving and worked hard in their respective films, however, Daniel Day Lewis was the most impressive, bringing home his third leading role academy award playing our sixteenth President. Most reviews of Lincoln supported this decision, saying he fit the Lincoln persona perfectly. The nominations for best leading role (female) were the following : Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty ), Quevenzhane Wallis ( Beasts of the Southern Wild ), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook ), Emmanuele Riva (Amour), and Naomi Watts (The Impossible). Jennifer Lawrence came away with the award for her brilliant work in Silver Linings Playbook beside Bradley Cooper. Lastly, The award given for best Director was received by Ang Lee, director of Life of Pi . In a way, these Oscars were connected to people on our very own west side. Ian and Kirby Sullivan of Elder and Seton both are related to Patrick Osborne, a winner of a 2013 Oscar for best short animated film. I asked his cousin, Kirby, some questions. First, I asked her what her relationship with her cousin was like. She replied, “I see him on Christmas sometimes. He lives in California now so I don’t see him nearly as much.” We then had a conversation about her cousin’s work, “ Paperman”. “It’s set in the 40’s at a train station and a businessman’s paper blows away and a woman catches it, leaving a lipstick mark on it. He gets it back and you can tell he likes her, but she gets on a train and he loses her. Turns out she works across the street from him and he throws paper airplanes to try to get her attention but can’t. So when she leaves her office, he does too and tries to find her, and eventually the paper planes that he threw out of his window lead him into a train that happens to stop at the same station that the woman was lead to by a different paper airplane and they meet and in the end they’re just talking at a table.” Kirby continued to tell me that she was proud of her cousin and that his work keeps getting better and better. All in all, this year’s Oscar’s ceremony was exceptional. One of the perks was that there was an appearance from “Ted”, and was the evening was emceed by Seth McFarlane, creator of shows such as Family Guy and American Dad . The Oscars are trophies that symbolize brilliance, perseverance, and hard work, something each of these recipients have acquired over the years. Congratulations to all of this year’s Oscar winners!