oscar.

there was no oscar party this year, but we watched the show anyway. well, most of it. i missed the red carpet and morgan freeman. but we saw the rest.

i have to say, it was possibly a little silly of me to watch them this year, as i had seen even less of the nominated movies than usual. although i had read a fair bit about most of them. in fact, i think i saw...The Incredibles. oh, and Shrek 2. that may have been it. i wanted to see Finding Neverland and Sideways, but somehow i never got around to it. i have a terrible history of not seeing movies. i still haven't seen Titanic. although i'm not really sure i'm missing anything, best picture oscar notwithstanding. we all know the movie that wins the best picture oscar is not always the best movie (*cough*Gladiator*cough*).

i have to say, chris rock was a remarkably uncharismatic host. i'm agreeing with the reports that his routine was essentially neutered because ABC is afraid of the FCC. but still. he was just...i don't know. lacking stage presence, i think. the contrast was made even more glaring when they had a tribute to johnny carson. bring back billy crystal, please.

(speaking of tributes, russ meyer died last year? i missed that. bowever, i also noticed that when they credited him with 2 films, they left out his most famous Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill *grin*)

and where on everyone's list of fashion foul-ups is laura linney? sure, her dress was great, but honey, you need to fire your hair and makeup artist, please. blush was way too low on the cheeks, and the hair looked like a cross between a horse mane and the crest on a helmet. and her eye makeup made her look like she'd just come from the clockwork orange reconditioning.

also, note to gwynneth paltrow: when you have a kid, your breasts tend to swell. take that in mind next time you're fitting a dress.

and poor zhang ziyi. she still can't speak english, so why make her read 2 short, practically monosyllabic sentences from the teleprompter ("oscar" is 2 syllables) and then stand there looking uncomfortable the rest of the time? i mean, ok, the oscars are all about pretty people, but i guess the lining up and shooing away of "minor" awards losers wasn't enough humiliation for them.

it was nice to see people who long deserved oscars finally get them, though (morgan freeman, cate blanchett). too bad martin scorcese can't be added to that list. he's five for five, now. and poor johnny depp, snubbed twice in a row. they'll have to be added to the list of "probable honorary oscar winners."

all in all, a moderately unimpressive oscar show, i think. we shall have to see what happens this year.