Oscar Broadcast

Of course I watched it. Thought about live-blogging it but we had company till 8p. My overall impression was that it was lacking. John Stewart seemed a little out of his medium. He's the type of comedian that needs something to work off of. He didn't seem alive until the 36 Posse won an Oscar. A few things stuck out though:
Who wrote the introductions for the presenters? They were dreadful. Meaningless and possibly created with magnetic poetry. Hollywood still has writers, right? It's even surprising that the actors didn't revolt. Seriously, you have weeks to prepare a 20 second intro. Make it good.
I always love the montages that they show during the Oscars and this time we got three. (Stewart's best line - Next a montage to montages!) The first was for film noir and it was the usual very good honoring of a genre. The next was for Hollywood's message movies, like Philadelphia and Norma Rae. What surprised me was how impotent those movies have actually been. Has Hollywood really moved anyone since the heyday of the civil rights era? The biggest thing Philadelphia did was to reintroduce Opera. (The best of this, was a short clip from 'The Day After Tomorrow', an incredibly bad movie that probably set the anti-global warming side back twenty years.) The third montage was nothing short of confusing. It was billed as a tribute to 'epics'. Among it's movies were Ben Hur and Braveheart. And also Back to the Future and ET. Um, time to tighten up that definition.
Not having seen many of the nominated films, I can't judge their quality but the major awards fell largely along predicted lines. There's quite a bit of discussion already if the academy was too homophobic to vote for 'Brokeback'. That's a problem with message movies. They can't be judged solely on their quality. For what it's worth, I've heard enough good things about 'Crash' to think it was probably deserving.
Highlight of the night? Selma Hayek. Stunning.