Who's Oscar?

Some belated comments on The 78th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday evening...

- Isn't there any way that they can cut the length of this show down from 3 hours to about 2 hours? I mean seriously, they draw you in with one of the first awards being "Best Supporting Actress", and then the next thing you know you're in a string of awards with cinematographers, makeup artists and foreign short film makers with funny looking bowties. Let's cut the junk out. Next thing you know, the Academy will be honoring the Best Supporting Part by an Animal in a Children's Film.

- I'll say it: I think Jon Stewart did a great job. He had the typical lowball wisecracks about Steven Spielberg, Russell Crowe, Felicity Huffman, and one about Dick Cheney thrown in for good measure. And after that crazy rap group (can't remember the name) performed the song from the critically-acclaimed "Hustle and Flow", it was pure comedy that Stewart couldn't even keep a straight face.

- I didn't find that Ben Stiller bit to be all that funny and they could have done much more with him as a presenter. They went a little overboard. On the other hand, the folks running the show did a nice job with the "less is more" when they had Will Ferrell and Steve Carell present and they looked like a bunch of crazies in the oddball makeup. It wasn't much, but got more of a chuckle out of me than the Ben Stiller piece.

- The Jessica and I did go to see "Transamerica" on Saturday, and it wasn't a bad movie, just wasn't that great either. First off, Felicity Huffman was excellent. I think it was a really different role for her (vastly different than anything on Desperate Housewives) and I feel she pulled it off superbly. However, the storyline wasn't all that great. I didn't feel overly entertained when I walked out of the theater, and I even heard the comment that it was supposed to be a bit of a comedy. Except for a few witty remarks by Huffman's character, it wasn't very funny at all. Again, decent acting, but overall not the best movie I've ever seen.

- I do have some interest in seeing "Crash" now that it won Best Picture. I was bored with the show by the end, but I heard that Jack Nicholson was surprised that "Crash" won over "Brokeback Mountain". As a result, I'll probably on-demand it this weekend and the whole time think... "Let's see, if Matt Dillon is Kevin Dillon's brother, and Kevin Dillon is Johnny Drama, and Johnny Drama is the brother of Vincent Chase, then the guy in Crash could technically be the brother of Vincent Chase too..."

- Other Burning Questions: How many times do we have to see the movie montages celebrating Hollywood's past? How ridiculously unbelievable did Jennifer Aniston look? How great was Jamie Foxx's reaction when Jon Stewart made the "Walk the Line is the Ray for white people" joke? How did Jack Nicholson ended up getting seated next to Keira Knightley? Does anyone else look at Philip Seymour Hoffman and think, "That's the guy who got killed by Hannibal Lecter in Red Dragon"? Did anyone else think that Rachel McAdams with blonde hair is a downgrade? Wouldn't the Oscars be better if movies like "Wedding Crashers" and "40 Year Old Virgin" were nominated? I mean come on, these are the movies we really enjoyed. Did anyone else want to offer Paul Giamatti a shave and a new pair of glasses? Who else loved the multiple Jewish jokes that Jon Stewart had? Who's Oscar and how do I get a trophy named after me?

- I guess I should mention after the fact that I'm not a huge fan of awards shows. My personal feeling is that I shouldn't deem a movie to be 'exceptional' just because the "Academy" says so. I'd rather judge for myself, and whether or not a movie wins an award doesn't sway my interest one way or another to see it. Except for "Crash", which looks like it'd rates high enough on the Off-the-Wall Scale for my enjoyment. But I really have no interest in seeing "Brokeback", "Capote", "Pride and Prejudice", or "Good Night and Good Luck" regardless of all of their nominations. Furthermore, the same stands true for the Grammys, which I boycott altogether. That's another story for another day.

- Lastly for this evening, if you have some time to read a long article, you must check out Bill Simmon's last version of Curious Guy with author Malcolm Gladwell (Part 1 and Part 2). Simmons writes e-mails back and forth with Gladwell, and although I'm not familiar with Gladwell's work, I am extremely impressed with his style of writing. Within these two pieces of the online interview, he presents himself very well, as he should being a writer for the New Yorker, and some of his analogies are fantastic -- and we all know how much I love analogies. It's quite lengthy, but check it out at your convenience. If I can ever get through books that I've already begun reading, I might check out "Blink" and "Tipping Point".

That's all for this evening. Back tomorrow...