A Couple Post-Oscar Comments

Well two of my favorites won, the two actor awards to Penn and Ledger. I think the general tendency in post-Oscar comments is to be a bit snarky about clothes worn by the stars or the length of the program, but frankly I don't care about any of those things. Personally, I just wish they would do away with the big production numbers, and provide longer clips of the films. The Oscars are the only awards show I watch, more out of habit than because I expect anything interesting or exciting to occur. I think the only big surprise to me last night was that Manny Farber, the widely respected (but I suspect largely unread) critic was included in the memorial reel of those who passed in the last year. One point I've seen raised elsewhere is that they might use more presenters from the ranks of past greats (like, for example, Robert Duvall, Gene Hackman, Peter O'Toole, Julie Christie, Warren Beatty, etc.). It seems like all the presenters are from the past twenty-five years or so, and they're missing out on some great tradition (though it was nice to see Shirley MacLaine & Sophia Loren last night).