Academy Award Comments Part 2

-Peter Jackson should win Best Director based on his undoubtable insanity. Any director that would devote 5 years of his life to making essentially six 3-hour-plus films (theatrical and extended) based on a novel with an incredibly smart and picky fanbase all the while making it actually cool to like them deserves some type of recognition. I don't think even Steven Spielberg has the balls to take on a project like that.

-I wonder who will be the poor poor soul to present the Supporting Actress Oscar and have to pronounce Shohreh Aghdashloo.

-Damn, the backlash to The Matrix films is strong. Not one nomination, not even a technical one. I've only seen Reloaded, but I thought the effects were pretty good (weak in some spots though). I mean, Seabiscuit, actually had better sound mixing than either Matrix movie?? Another shutout--X2. The effects in that film were also very good (especially that kickass opening sequence with Nightcrawler). Hell, it was shutout despite being arguably the best sequel of last summer.

-The academy should add a Best Voice Acting category sometime in the near future. With the advent of CG characters in live-action movies not to mention the continued presence of animation, something has to give. It's a shame that great vocal performances like Ellen DeGeneres from Finding Nemo and Andy Serkis from LOTR won't get recognized at all...period.

-Billy Crystal's hosting AGAIN? What is it about the Oscars that only 3 people can host it in the last few years (Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, and Steve Martin)? Every other awards show gets cool hosts like Chris Rock, Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien, Bernie Mac and so on. Maybe those three always do the Oscars because they have nothing better going for them. Cheaper by The Dozen is probably Steve Martin's biggest hit in years. Whoopi's TV show is not good at all. And what the hell does Billy Crystal do when he's not hosting the Oscars...go into suspended animation?

Finally, for Pete's sake, will the producers of the Oscars make sure the show is shorter than LOTR: The Return of The King Extended Edition please! (The extended version of ROTK has been announced at 4 Hours and 10 Minutes, by the way).