Last night, as I do every year, I watched the Oscars. However, this is the first year where I really can't think of much to say about it. With the exception of Return of the King winning for Best Adapted Screenplay, I can't think of a single upset, a single unexpected win. I really can't think of any winners that I disagree with -- except perhaps for Best Song going to Into the West as opposed to A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow from A Mighty Wind (and, in that case, it was just for the chance to see Annette O'Toole again -- whatever happened to her?).

Let's see -- what else can be said about one of the most predictable, quite frankly dull Oscar ceremonies in recent memory? I'm of the minority opinion that Two Towers was the best part of the trilogy, but it was still gratifying to see Return of the King named Best Picture despite, as Peter Jackson said, all of the hobbits, goblins, and trolls. I was somewhat surprised to realize that Return actually managed to win every Oscar it was nominated for and one didn't sense a great deal of enthusiasm coming from those actually at the ceremony as presenter after presenter called out "Return of the King!" and winner after winner thanked the people of New Zealand. I hate to say it but whatever Peter Jackson does next, he better be prepared to deal with a lot of very envious people who will be tempted to say that Jackson doesn't have anything else in him beyond adapting Tolkien.

As was pointed out by the ever-present Oscar announcer, Return of the King managed to tie both Ben-Hur and Titanic for the most Oscars. Along with Titanic, it's also the only film to win every Oscar it was nominated for. The major difference between last night's winner and those two previous films is that Return of the King is actually a good film. Last night's awards might have been predictable but at least the Academy won't be embarrassed by them ten years from now.

Let's see -- what else? Billy Crystal was back as host and pretty much served to remind viewers just why exactly everyone got sick of him in the first place. You got the usual insider ass-kissing that Crystal specializes in (which, I imagine, is probably the reason he keeps getting asked back in the first place) and the insufferable "LOVE ME!" ego tripping. He sang his little song about the Oscars and, in his opening monologue, managed to come across as a combination of every single hack Borscht Belt comedian at their very worst. To understand just how much I actually hate Billy Crystal as Oscar host, you should understand that I'm actually a fan of hack Borscht Belt comedians and, usually, of Billy Crystal in general. Just not when he's being paid by the Academy....

We had the traditional montage of the dead and it was just as ghoulish as usual as the audience insisted on breaking out into applause when certain names popped up on their monitors. I understand that the idea is that they're applauding the life, the legacy, the whatever but it still comes across as "Yea! That guy's dead!" And I did notice a strong round of applause came up for Elia Kazan -- certainly more than he got when he accepted his honorary award a few years back and most of the auditorium sat on their hands rather than acknowledge someone who named names in the '50s. So -- either they were willing to forgive him now that he was dead (in other words, now that it was too late to really make any damn difference) or else they actually were applauding because he was dead. But if they were applauding the death, then why didn't anyone make a sound when they discovered that Leni Riefenstahl had finally made her way down to Hell? Now, there was a name that deserved some hooting and hollering. But honestly, I doubt if anyone in Hollywood knows why they're applauding either. It's a pavlovian thing.

Julia Roberts -- didn't she used to be an attractive, likeable movie star at some point in the past? It was hard to tell as she mugged her way through the Katharine Hepburn tribute, stopping after every salty anecdote to sigh, "Yeah." I found myself wishing for Hepburn's ghost to suddenly materialize there on stage and basically just slap the Hell out of America's former pretty woman.

As for the acceptance speeches, Tim Robbins showed an amount of restraint that I wouldn't have thought him capable of as he refrained from the political statement that we all know a part of him wanted to make and instead used his moment in the spotlight to offer comfort of victims of abuse. Good for him. Renee Zellweger was adorable. Sean Penn's speech was surprisingly gracious, and if he did have to make a political comment, at least he made it in the form of a joke. The only piece of real politicking came from documentary winner Errol Morris and he delivered it with a good deal more restraint than Michael Moore did with his little tantrum last year. Still, I found myself snickering when Morris commented that maybe his film could do some "damn good after all." I felt bad about it because Morris was obviously being quite sincere and meant well but seriously -- not only Morris with his salty, Ed Asner-as-Lou Grant self-righteousness but that unsmiling lady who made the short film about Chernobyl and, even when she was standing out on stage at the show's end with all the other winners, still could not make the effort to stop glowering just a little bit, has there ever been a documentarian who hasn't come across as a total pain in the ass to live with?   ¶ 11:38 AM