I should preface this by stating that I write this from north of the border-- the cold, slouching-toward-the-Bible-Right land of Canada. Our film awards are to the Oscars as donuts are to ass implants. Communist donuts, of course.

The Oscars are a fascinating study in American popular culture, but I didn't find the 78th broadcast to be any more self-congratulatory than any other. To be sure, the lauded films discuss tense issues, but do so in a way that is more about appeasing the industry's gluttony and superficial ideology than saving the world. There are bigoted cops? Gay men wear jeans under chaps?

And by the way--we LOVE Jon Stewart here, and while I think he was somewhat constrained by the Academy's mandate, he did manage some well placed jabs. He at times looked as if he was about to bolt for the bar, but who wouldn't when you're facing a roomful of droids who have had their meds hidden?

What I found most interesting is how Dolly Parton remains upright. That, and the fact that if her face was pulled any tighter she'd fart out the back of her head. And yes, I agree with Cintra Wilson. I'd have liked to seen more franken-tits and drunken rage, but that's more to do with the fact that our new Prime Minister is a smarter version of George W and we need *something* to be indignant about up here.

You expect bravery from the Oscars? A marketing event put on by Hollywood to glorify Hollywood? Go watch the movies instead.

Jon Stewart knew from the outset that the Oscars was not where he belonged, but he did a fantastic job melding his kind of irreverent humor into a milieu where politeness reigns, irreverence is rarely tolerated and everything is too golden and precious to be made fun of. The guy not only knows how to highlight absurdity, but he also knows when to cut back, and his performance did well to show this.

It looks bad when the camera cuts to Joaquin Phoenix being too smug and self-righteous to crack a smile at a joke about himself. I guarantee you more people were laughing in their living rooms.

If you want to talk about what’s wrong with the Oscars, then ask how “Crash,” a film with all the subtlety of a cannonball falling through a windshield, could possibly take Best Picture. There’s your major disappointment for the evening.

My biggest beef with the broadcast was the playing of music at the beginning of each speech (for everyone except for Altman). It was rude and completely destroyed any semblance of spontaneity during the broadcast.

It's not the awards that we remember after the broadcast has ended - it's these tiny moments of humanity. Where were the Sally Fields, the Jack Palances, even the Susan Sarandons and Tim Robbins?

For a community that prides itself on pushing social boundaries, the Oscars stayed clear of the outer bounds.

Sarah

PS: No plunging necklines? Hello...Felicity Huffman.

I have always really appreciated Reese's PR. She has very successfully been made to look like she actually has integrity. No T&A, uplifting talk, etc. But let's not confuse that with actually BEING a person of substance. No one can judge that from underneath the mound of constructed artifice that makes up a 29 million per film actor. The great part about the Oscars is watching the tension between the artifice and the reality - the freeze-frame moment when the actor has to speak for herself, not edited by TV news inerviews, magazines, etc. Come on people, it's not Reese you like, it's the Reese TM brand you like.

Now what was good about the Oscars this year was watching her reponse to winning, which I felt was a very public meltdown on the order of good ol' Gwyneth's sobbing in the flat pink ball gown. She recited the most rigidly practised acceptance speech I have ever seen with a saccarhine, automatic grace of a winner, a American winner, a "real woman", just tryin' to make it like she did back in Tennesee. For those who buy this stuff it may have actually inspired sympathetic tears.

And yet a big crack was visible - "my children, who should be in bed right now".

WHY? Why slam your kids, Reese? Yet another attempt to prove that actors can have family values? I mean this is really weird: your mom's on stage, winning her Oscar, and yet she needs to tell the world how bad you are for staying up to watch?

Hello, flip side of the pressure drop of attaining the totally bizarre, unsustainable pinnacle of a 29 million salary and yet still being a real mom with a small child who refuses to acknowledge you're the most powerful woman in Hollywood.

Fascinating.

Again, not a comment on Reeese Witherspoon the human being. That is not for me to judge.

Cintra's comments were really funny to me - but she missed that one.

Didn't you notice his sly reference to the fact that two of the nominated films featured courageous journalists defying tremendous pressure to bring Americans the truth?

"Obviously these are PERIOD pieces," he concluded.

So, "Oscar castrates himself" this year, according to Cintra Wilson. "Just when you thought it couldn't possibly get any more wrist-slashingly boring, the boringness collapsed in on itself and became a deadly howling void of terrible sucking from which the light of no star could escape."

Wow! That must be pretty boring. Not like last year, right?

from 2005: "Welcome to wartime Academy Awards: Cheap, tense and cobbled together from graphics rations donated by the E! Channel. Not even Chris Rock or Beyoncé -- or the travesty that is Antonio Banderas -- can save it."

Oh, maybe 2004 was better:

""The Passion of the Frodo" sweeps, and more beautiful stars bravely impersonate the genuinely homely to great success. But all the crooked teeth in New Zealand can't save a dull, dull Oscar night."

Okay, 2003?

"But nobody was able to justify the existence of the Oscars this year. Oscar shot his self-rationalizing power-wad defending himself after 9/11. "

Hmm. 2002? Oh yeah, that was the year that the article was titled: "Somebody make it stop!"

2001? There seems to be no links for that, but there is for 2000: "Untethered hooters! Suave cocksmiths! But even Billy Crystal and Hilary Swank couldn't save a crushingly boring show."

Salon editors! What kind of journalistic Gitmo are you running there! Stop the torture! If you have any decency, you'll let Cintra cover Iraq or Darfur or something more compelling -- and certainly less boring.