got an Oscar before Martin Scorsese ever did. Case closed.

It just goes to show how execrable the current crop of anti Iraq war movies were when not even Hollywood can muster up the ire to award them damning praise.

I just saw "Rendition" and thought it was a remake of "A Wonderful Life"

This morning, every journalist is saying the same thing (the sort of stuff "The Daily Show" punctures appropriately): "Oscar (tm) likes foreigners." Please spare the hyperbole. Before agreeing to follow the shoal of journalists typing that in, consider defining "foreign."

Hollywood, as much as it exists, is not a place but a business model, and this business model has been very efficient at co-opting all things Outside, Other, and Fringe. It is about profit vs. return until the calculators at Disney and other megaliths break. When "Once" (or "Easy Rider") appears, Hollywood's sole mandate is to buy a controlling share. What, then, is a foreign film? Oscar couldn't figure it out this year, and therefore it never could tell what a foreigner is, either.

What is important, it seems to me, is that the awards went to bummers, anti-heroes, freaks, and the intense. From the nominees to the winners, what I saw was that a less hammered-in hero(ine), a less simple story, a denouement that was chopped in half, triumphed over the predictable. With the exception of the Disney/Pixar stuff, the stories and performances were less ritualistic, less formulaic, and less arrogant in that "we, the producers, have decided what you, the viewers, will buy, and we will give it to you" sort of way.

The "foreign" element was not in the nationalities of the winners (of all the things to fix upon, that is the silliest, given the fact that Hollywood has been 100% immigrant for most of its history) but the subjects, themes, and sobriety of even the comedies.

Oscar telecasts have their ups and downs, and this one was no (or not much) better and no (or not much) worse than recent years. So where does this unrelenting diatribe come from. From heavens' sake if you haven't liked Oscar telecasts in the past -- whether it's because they don't pick your favorite movies, or you have the format or the production numbers, or the montages -- don't watch.

There were no more montages than usual. They always have them, sometimes they work sometimes they didn't. We enjoy a good montage when we can spot movies and moments we've loved, and when the montage has a rhythm to it. The Bee montage was also supposed to be a joke, though the reviewer doesn't seem to have realized it.

The montages of past winners did *not* include anywhere near "all 79" past winners. They started in the mid-50's (when television broadcast began) and skipped many years, presenting maybe 20 winners. In less than a minute of airtime, I dare say.

There have been plenty of "give Oscars to the foreigners" years -- And the picture/director/screenplay awards went to Americans.

The production does not choose the songs that must be presented. So if you didn't like the three songs from Enchanted on their merits, or lack of them, don't blame the telecast producers. I'm glad that for the Disney-parody song (and it was a parody), that they let someone come out and just *sing* without a full production number.

The production numbers are always awful -- this year was no exception. You might have noticed that there were no production numbers other than the nominated songs -- in other years there has usually been one extra puke-stravaganza, which we were spared this year.

I honestly don't know what the reviewer was expecting -- it was a perfectly ordinary Oscar show. A lot of tedium, some enthusiastic and stumbling speeches, a couple of weird Tilda-Swinton type moments, a lot of fashion dos-and-donts, a few wretched production numbers, actors reading cue-cards badly, lame intros to awards, several montages and a few bright spots of genuineness peeking through. Can we get the perspective from someone who actually watched the show without their hands over their eyes?

(Major props to Jon Stewart for bringing that songwriter out to finish her thank yous....)

Those music numbers from "Enchanted" were beyond lame, and that choir song was run of the mill (though the kid was terrific). I'm glad that song from "Once" won. Like I said to the missus, shouldn't the Oscar-winning song be something you'd want to hear again?

I'm glad that Cotillard chick won; isn't Hollywood supposed to give us beautiful women on Oscar night? At least they also had the good sense to beam in Tilda Swinton from her home planet.

The biggest disappointment, though, was that Diablo Cody didn't strip down to pasties during her acceptance speech. That would have been fun.

And yeah, ol' Viggo wuz robbed!

We get the predictable and not-quite-kidding xenophobic schtick about furriners, plus another whack at Daniel Day-Lewis. Yes, we get it Salon, you decided Day-Lewis was undeserving and you're sticking to it (as Cintra and Stephanie are pals).

The only thing more endless than the montages is Wilson's whining about it.

Clearly she had little to say but was obligated to fill two pages. It seems like she cut and paste the paragraphs praising Michael Clayton from a different essay.

Perhaps Salon should have given her more time to write the piece. This seems like a collection of first draft ideas.

receive the 2nd or 3rd most Oscars for all the films, didn't it?

I misread the "Great Debbie Allen Interpretive Dance Meltdown of 1999" as the "Great Debbie Allen ALIEN Interpretive Dance Meltdown of 1999".

I followed the link expecting a YouTube chiclet of E.T., Spock, the alien from Alien alien, Predator, Yoda and Marvin the Martian flashing their best jazz hands/claws and kicking up a storm. And then a dancer, costumed as Ellen Ripley, but in lamé, comes up through the stage in an explosion of hydraulics and dry ice, and says "You've got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying ... in green, gooey alien blood, bitch!"

I've never been so disappointed.