The Oscars

I’d like to thank the Academy for a boring show Sunday night. True, the Oscars are always the stiffest of award shows, but I always watch and hope they get better. I was especially pleased that Billy Crystal came back to host.

He was funny, schticky, and quick on his feet. A good host has to be able to riff and fill time when needed and keep the live show going smoothly. Most hosts choose to make fun of celebrities in the audience, but Billy Crystal is too good for that. His musical number was a throwback to his earlier hosting days. He’s older now and can’t move as quickly and was a little pitchy, but I still think it was a success.

Martin Scorcese was thanked over and over as Hugo kept winning awards. I made the drinking game joke a couple hours before the Bridesmaids did. If we all took a shot whenever anyone mentioned Scorcese we’d be pretty drunk the show would have been better.

Surprises: Clooney didn’t win. Meryl did. Meryl is like the Yankees. Everybody knows they are the best, so it’s not exactly exciting news when they win. A bunch of other boring stuff happened. Whatever. Let’s talk about the gowns.

The good:

The bad:

The ugly: