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I think that Jon Stewart did the best he could and I enjoyed him, but the audience did seem curiously lifeless. Maybe they were just tense. Whatever was going on with them didn't feel good.
Something that I missed, which I didn't realize until I saw the wonderful interplay of Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin, was nominees in their age category. Judy Dench was our token female elder and she just seemed ignored. The rest of the female nominees and presenters (except Felicity Huffman) were young. It was clear that Hollywood movies feature and cater to very youthful women. That bothers me because there's tremendous talent that spans the age spectrum and there's a very apparent lack of wise women represented.
It also bothered me that we couldn't hear all the words of the award-winning song. How really insane to give the award to a song that we couldn't listen to in its entirety.
I did like having Dolly Parton sing, as well as the unknown writer/singer of the Crash song. And I have to say that I'm really tired of people like Beyonce Knowles and other assorted twits who are usually the featured performers at these events. So not having them at this award show is a thumbs up.
What really annoyed me was the orchestra playing while the winners did their acceptance speeches. How totally rude! I felt tense and rushed for the winner having that music playing the whole time they talked. Better would have been to keep Robert Altman's boring speech to 38 seconds.
It was a travesty that Grizzly Man and Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill were not nominated in the documentary category.
The saving grace of this year's awards was that we didn't have to be subjected to Tom Cruise and the antics of his mental illness even though War of the Worlds had some nominations.
