Incendiary Advice

Still reeling a bit from last night. Wonder if Jack Nicholson just punked America and read the wrong film name??

Anyway, the rest of my predictions were spot-on. Whooopieee. They're listed about three pages back, and I got everything right but Best Pic. Or should that read: the Academy got everything right but Best Picture?

Soon you can judge for yourself by renting all the dvds. I'm kind of glad today that if the Academy didn't have real guts they didn't make truly good films like Capote, Munich and good Night & Good Luck bear the burden. There's gonna be a Crash backlash the likes of which we haven't seen since Gladiator beat Traffic, or The English Patient beat Fargo, or A Beautiful Mind beat anything.

Now forever Crash will bear the stigma of being one of the least-worthy Best Pic winners, and someday will be known primarily for that above anything else.


Now, a few other thoughts:

Jon Stewart did an admirable job, with some excellent ad-lib quotes and a few scathing remarks. Bet he doesn't get invited back though; AMPAS never likes being poked at.

Clooney gave the best speech of the night. Is he really the world's most perfect cyborg?

Reese Witherspoon grated. Such faux sincerity, dragging on and on and on.

Ruth Hussey, the acerbic photog from The Philadelphia Story, died in April 2005. She wasn't listed in the In Memoriam montage. Neither was Ossie Davis.

Who thought it was a good idea to drag the 81 year old Lauren Bacall out to give the night's longest intro? Idiots. That was hard to watch, even though it seemed she was winging the words well enough.

The direction of last night's show was also terrible: other cameras in shots, stage directions overheard - it was surprisingly amateur for a Gil Cates production.

Anyway, that's it for coverage of "my Superbowl."