THE OSCARS

78th annual... and still boring.

Read a phonebook. It's the same thing as watching the Oscars, except you get to see stars do it, as they prattle on listing their (WHO CARES?) thank you people. You want maybe a little insight into your favorite star - you watch - you lose!

The only moment I caught was Jennifer Garner slipping and not even embarrassed - she simply said, smiling, "I do my own stunts, too." Class. DAMN YOU Ben Affleck.

Bad red carpet interviews on ABC. Then... A super special effects thing with famous lines delivered from their original films, stripped of backgrounds and put into a clever "this is Hollywood" digital composite. Then a great funny clever opening, with former hosts, then a dream sequence with John Stewart. That hinted of great to come. It didn't. The later montages were boring and overdone (except maybe the gay lines in old westerns.)

They ran fake commercials in which competitors tore at each other - good idea, only half baked.

And John Stewart... boring beyond the opening 'dream.' I give him credit. He took his time and remained calm as the ship sank. Or it did for me. Our floor was wet under the TV. If only it had sparked, there would have been some excitement in the room.

There was/ always is a huge long parade of winners you never heard of and couldn't care less about (Sound editing, special effects, set decoration, more and more.) And a lecture about why going to the movies is still good (I guess the academy president has special seats. I get seats next to the coughing man, the candy in noisy plastic gobbler, the talkers, the smell-bad. Then 20 minutes of pre-show entertainment/ads.)

The rap performance (not the dancing or set) was actually very good.

Some favorites won. Crash as best picture was a surprise, not being the 'frontrunner' but it's very very good. Brokeback didn't sweep (not that there's anything wrong with that.)

There were a few good jokes. Some better than average acceptance speeches, but the average was lowball. Nice gowns. Keira Knightly is incredibly beautiful. Clooney, P.S. Hoffman, Weitz gave good speeches. D. Hoffman went off card and was funny. Or real. Thomlin/Streep did a hard-to-do piece which was trashed in our paper - they didn't get it was 'doing' Altman which it was FOR.

Why trash without offering a solution? Here it is: Do only these awards on TV: best actor, actress, supporting actor, actress, director, film. Save the best documentary, foreign language film, etc., for after midnight. Or downloading.

Show more of each nominated film and performance. That serves Hollywood, and gets folks out of their chairs who still haven't seen the movies. Have each nominee do a pre-taped piece about the film for which they were nominated and what it meant to them - the best and hardest parts maybe... let us get to know them a bit more.

Stop glorifying the past. It is or isn't what you want it to be. Let it lie there.

Stop dragging out an old Hollywood icon to show they are still alive. Lauren Bacall was embarrassing. Maybe she was trying to get cast on LOST. If it was booze or drugs or age, well, it wasn't good for her or the show. Sorry.

The Academy Awards are stuck in tradition. They are self-serving and boring. If you could count almost 12 years in Minnesota now 1+ years here in Texas, I guess that puts us attitudinally in Iowa, as middle America as they come. Please, somebody fix this show - it could be so much better!