Belated Oscars Commentary

Now that it's a couple of days later, and everybody is completely over the Oscars, I think it's about time I weighed in with my thoughts. (In the form of a bulleted list, because that's always fun.)

- Ellen: Did pretty well as host, really, one of the more thankless jobs going. Think about it; tens of millions of people watching you, simultaneously expecting nonstop comedic brilliance and wishing you'd just shut up and get on with the show so they can go to bed, playing to a room of people who aren't going to laugh unless they can see a more famous person laughing so they know it's okay. So I'm not going to be too harsh on her comedy.

- I am, however, going to be harsh on her clothes. I knew she was going to be wearing a tux, and I'm fine with that. I could even have handled the fact that it was maroon velvet, if it had actually fit her. But nothing is going to get me to forgive the white patent leather loafers. (How many Salvation Army stores did she have to hit to find those?) Just because you're a comedienne is no excuse to go dressing like a used-car salesman attending a Lion's Club dinner, circa 1978.

- But I really should be thanking her for providing the necessary outlet for snarkiness, because otherwise the event was suffering from and unfortunate outbreak of taste and elegance in the clothing department, leaving poor Jennifer Hudson to face the collective wrath of the 5,864,233 fashion commentators present. And, yeah, the odd little shrug and disproportionate spagetti straps were unfortunate, but let's face it, it was no swan dress.

- Did you know they actually gave out awards at this thing? For movies! I hadn't seen any of them, because I have very bad taste.

- But I do have to comment on what was the greatest travesty of the evening, and possibly the decade: Happy Feet beating out Cars for best animated feature. I believe I have made my feeling on the former abundantly clear, but feel free to bring up the topic with me some time and I'll go ahead and rant some more to you.

- Based on the performances at the show, I would say that Best Song was a dissappointment too. I'm generally much more of a fan of Melissa Etheridge than Beyonce, but I have to say that any of the Dreamgirls songs (with a slight edge to "Listen", for being the most contemporary and least show-tuney) would have been better than whatever was the name of the one Ms. Etheridge won with. Seriously, the only thing I remember about her performance is that at one point the screen behind her flashed the word "recycle."

- I wonder what the CA Redemption Value of an Oscar is.

- About the running time. The show's producers are always blaming the winners for making it run long by taking too long with their thank-yous. That may have been true in the past, but if they try to use that excuse this year I'll be right here to tell you they're full of it. Because even if you cut every acceptance speech out of that program, it still would have run long by approximately, by my estimate, two montages and an honorary award. And anyway, shouldn't they be ready for long speeches? It's kind of like leaving yourself only fifteen minutes to get into the city on a Saturday afternoon and then blaming the fact that you're half an hour late on traffic on the Eastshore. I mean, what did you expect?