Top 10 Moments of the 86th Academy Awards

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Top 10 Moments of the 86th Academy Awards

Well, it's another one for the books. The 2013 Oscars (yes, 2013, folks; we're honoring the cinema of 2013 despite it being March of 2014) are now behind us, and despite the suspense of the Best Picture race (which even up until Will Smith opened the final envelope could have gone to either 12 Years a Slave or Gravity), there were no surprises to be found. Twenty-three of the 24 categories saw the presumed frontrunner walk away with a statue--the only exception being the French animated short Mr. Hublot besting Get a Horse!, the latter starring a (still winless) Mickey Mouse.

We at the CineMunch household had a great time as always, despite a truly terrifying 10 minutes during which the cable went out. (We fixed it in time to see Darlene Love belting a tune from the stage.) Much like the telecast, our menu featured some hits (American Brussels! Wolf of Waldorf Salad! Last-minute cheese additions!) and misses (We're looking at you, Tang Gravityni). So, before we put this year's awards race behind us, let's count down our ten most memorable moments from the Oscars telecast.

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Final 2013 Oscar Predictions

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Final 2013 Oscar Predictions

Pencils down! The day has finally arrived. It’s been a lengthy and exhausting awards season (stretched long due to the Sochi Olympics), but the time to has come to answer the question: "Gravity or 12 Years a Slave?". Or is it American Hustle? We'll know soon enough.

There are a few guarantees: Gravity will win Best Visual Effects and end the night with the most Oscars (though maybe not the top awards), Cate Blanchett will collect her second Academy Award (though first for a leading role), and nothing is likely to top Dame Shirley Bassey belting “Goldfinger” from last year’s ceremony. Strap in, grab a drink (see our Oscar menu here), and follow along with our sure-to-be-inaccurate predictions below!

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If We Had a Ballot 2013

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If We Had a Ballot 2013

What follows is a hypothetical scenario in which we are Academy voters who commit the ultimate sin of showing you our completed ballots.

Note: Like many Oscar voters, we could go through the motions of voting for shorts and foreign films, but, for the sake of honesty (and what we hope the real voters practice), we'll abstain from the categories where we have yet to see all the nominees.

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Oscar Menu 2014

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Oscar Menu 2014

With just nine days left before the red carpet shenanigans begin, it's time to get down to the business of food. We've shared our process for creating the perfect Oscar Menu, and now we're ready to unveil this year's feast. We prefer a balance of courses and flavors in our menu (with at least two cocktails in the mix), and we try to avoid an attention-hogging entree or epic meat course that will take away from the true star of the evening: the Oscars telecast itself.

The envelopes, please. <imagine a drumroll here>

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Best Picture Cheeses: '12 Years a Slave'

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Best Picture Cheeses: '12 Years a Slave'

In 1997 Max Schmidhauser created the semi-soft goat cheese Tomme Crayeuse as an answer to a top-selling French classic known as Tomme de Savoie. The latter is a perfectly fine cheese (I like to channel my inner cow and pretend I’m munching on grass while eating it), but Tomme Crayeuse’s flavors run deeper: from fresh earth to bright citrus to the gentle tang of goat’s milk. A visual stunner as well, it’s spotted with white and yellow molds against a marbled gray rind concealing an ivory paste. In its prime, the cheese is a lichen-covered rock after a rain shower, a painter’s splattered studio floor.

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The Art of the Oscar Menu

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The Art of the Oscar Menu

As one might expect from bloggers who focus on food and film, we spend a lot of time developing our Oscar night menu. It’s one of the most important creations of our entire year. The ideal menu includes all the necessary courses for a proper dinner party while also paying homage to the year in film and having a healthy sense of humor about the whole thing. There are several approaches one can take in adapting the year's nominated films and performances into an appropriate menu. We end up bouncing around a lot of terrible ideas for food and drinks before settling on nine, hopefully less terrible, dishes that will represent the Best Picture nominees and make for the perfect Oscars feast.

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Best Picture Cheeses: 'Gravity'

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Best Picture Cheeses: 'Gravity'

In space there are few straight lines, no clear up or down, and no earth to stand on. Flat planes of existence disappear and the world asserts its full three dimensions, enveloping your body in its grasp.

Not that I’ve been to space, but this is how I perceive it to be, and how Alfonso Cuarón makes us feel while watching his miracle of a movie, Gravity.

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