Thoughts on the 76th Annual Academy Awards

Okay, the Oscars are over and done...but before I tally up my score, here are my thoughts on the show:

-As always, Billy Crystal was pretty funny. The opening montage with Billy in all those movies was hilarious. I especially enjoyed Michael Moore poking fun at himself with the anti-Middle Earth War rhetoric (not to mention getting crushed by that elephant looking creature). Billy's Oscar song was funny as well. I just wish the rest of the show was as fun. Maybe the knowledge of that five second delay crushed all the spontaneity out of the people in the audience.

-Gotta love those double standards. Sure the actors can stay up there all they want, but the poor winner of live action short film was played off just as he reached the end of his little spiel. But as Jack Black and Will Ferrell sang "Catherine Zeta-Jones is snoring/You're boring!"

-Blake Edwards crashing through that fake wall was the single most exciting thing on the show

-You know, the people behind the Lord of The Rings films love their country. There's nothing wrong with that. But then again, how would New Zealanders feel if an American won a few New Zealand movie awards and they kept thanking the people of the good ole United States of America?

-What the hell was that thing Sting was holding during his performance?

-Upon seeing a close up of Oprah Winfrey, it's very clear that she's a morning person. Either that, or she has enough money to buy special cameras for her show that make her look decent.

-The fallout of Janet/Justin/Nipplegate continues. Jamie Lee Curtis's cleavage was too much for ABC as they slowly zoomed in during her introduction of those original song performances.

-Out of all the performances, the one for the song for The Triplets of Belleville was the best. And I like Annie Lennox and Sting.

-The best acceptance speech of the night was that of Errol Morris (the winner of Best Documentary Feature for The Fog of War). You see, that's the way to bash the War in Iraq.

-Hmm...an Austrailian clay-animated short film featuring the voice of Geoffrey Rush managed to beat out short films by Pixar and Blue Sky Studios (both Oscar winners) in addition to a short originally conceived by Walt Disney and Salvador Dali?? This is the only true upset of the night.

-The most useless portion of the show? Those "Sounds of Oscar" things. When they do this type of thing in sports games, you actually get to hear what the players are saying. Here, it's an unbelievable waste of time for an already bloated show.

-Now that a fantasy film has actually won Best Picture, what genre will be next? Action? Horror? A movie with a minority cast?

-I'll officially state that I think Robin Williams should host next year. I think the only way the Oscars will be really interesting is if someone crazy like him (or Conan O'Brien) hosts.