Didn’t anyone else turn off that mastubatory drivel and opt for Renoir’s Grand Illusion on TCM instead?
Actually, I watched Robson (sigh!) Green in Me & Mrs. Jones on PBS. But if I’d known there was going to be masturbating going on during ther Oscars, I’d have tuned in!
[Note: I stopped paying any attention the year neither Bette Davis nor Lillian Gish were even nominated for Whales of August]
While I don’t agree with the OP entirely, I am always amazed at how big they are across the world.
The BBC had a ‘pre-match special’ just like an international sporting match, with pundits giving their predictions, to which they returned throughout the night. They were shown live (which means they began at 3am) and a few people I know, including my wife, stayed up to watch them.
Very odd. They’re just films.
That said, I was excited to hear the results first thing this morning.
I went shopping for most of it, but I tuned in at the end, long enough to see Return of the King win its last few awards.
I’m not saying I want to see Peter Jackson masturbating, or anything, but I did want to see what he had to say if he won. I liked the fact that he mentioned Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles in his Best Director acceptance speech. Pretty bold, that. 
Actually, after the first hour, I tuned in to *Inside the Actors’ Guild * because they had the six people who do the voices for *all * of *The Simpson’s * characters. It was hilarious. If I could come back as another person after I die, and I couldn’t be Cary Grant or Brad Pitt, I would want to be Hank Azaria.
We watched four episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, which makes no bones (ha!) about masturbation or anything else.
I knew that if I were watching when Sean Penn was announced for his gratuitous award for that emoting piece of crap in “Mystic River”, that I would end up having to buy a new TV.
Maybe now that both he and that homely Zellweger broad have won an Oscar, they will both go away and stop annoying those of us who can’t stand either one of them.
Hey, hey. Who’s the moody bastard here, pal? 
I usually don’t watch the Oscars, but I did this time, and with the exception of a couple political screeds, I enjoyed it.
Wow, pretty thin skin for political comments, I thought it was much better than previous years in this respect. Let’s see, one crack about WMD from Sean Penn, and the “rabbit hole in Iraq” comment by Errol Morris. The rest was pretty tame topical humor by Billy Crystal, hardly more controversial than what you might hear from Leno or Lettermen. Surely you are not objecting to Tim Robbins comment, urging victims of child abuse to seek help?
It wasn’t bad. Sending 170-year-old Blake Edwards crashing through a wall was inspired. I would have liked it better without Jim Carrey mugging in the background (the man really cannot act at all), but it was still fun.
The Oliphaunt smushing Michael Moore, Billy Crystal shushing Clint Eastwood, and the “Boring” song were each worth a chuckle or two.
I quite agree. I naturally abstained from the “Oscars,” preferring instead to engage in my usual evening pastime of translating Kant into Swahili; my only accompaniment a little Heinrich Schutz on the phonograph and a glass of very decent Chateau Lafite '61.
So much civilized than staring into the so-called “tele-vision” trying to catch a glimpse of Angelina Jolie’s nipples through her dress, don’t you think?
(Er, not that I would know anything about this Angelina Jolie person, of course.)
I was building a desk. Dang completely forgot about the Oscars, and now I regret missing Robin Williams.
I watched the Oscars, though I usually don’t. I must admit that, though I don’t take them very seriously, I get more caught up in the whole spectacle thing each years.
Plus, I have* Grand Illusion* on DVD.
I have a friend who refers to me as the “poster child for the Curmudgeon Society”, but the name is too long for the board, space hoarding bastards that they are.
I think this actually was the first time I ever did tune in and I actually enjoyed Crystal’s quips, his song to Eastwood, etc.
Still, inexperienced as I am with acceptance speeches, I believe I nevertheless can accurately proclaim Sean Penn’s as one of the worst of all time. It was like he was rising from a nap.
No, and I agree it was far less political than previous years. But I thought Penn’s comment was stupid and I also thought the guy who won for best short film with “Two Soldiers” was making a ham-handed political statement (on the other side of the issue from Penn and Errol Morris but still out of place) that was also selfish in that his partner didn’t get to speak. Morris just sounded like all too many products of the 60s that think every military action is another Vietnam. He was also a day late and a dollar short in his warning, considering there is no way in hell at this point that any president, Republican or Democrat, can just up and pull out of Iraq.
But as I said, it was much better than in recent years and I thought the whole show went pretty smoothly.
I watched “Braveheart” on USA.
Whoops. Nevermind.
I thought this was another one of them thar homo threads.
I was reading the boards the entire time.
The only award I was interested in was “Best Supporting Actor” and since I was pretty sure my favorite, Ken Watanabe, wouldn’t get it, I didn’t even tune in. Thank god, too… I’m one of the few people out there that just doesn’t like the LotR trilogy and if I had had to watch it sweep all the categories, I would have been *highly * annoyed.
Hey, now. If you remove yourself from the bilious spew a moment, and think about it, tell us- what kind of speech would YOU write?
I had to write one, in 1995 or so. I got the call from the Producer, the work had been nominated for an Emmy and I got to write the speech just in case. At first I figured, that’s bullshit, I’ll go up, say Hey Thanks Neato and split. Then I thought no, I ought to thank those who mentored and inspired me to work hard and do a good job of it- that’s why I won, right? ( I won if I’m giving the speech , of course ).
THEN, I thought that the speech sounded awfully drippy and gushy. So I cut it way down, and thanked the people at the network who were gonna be sitting IN the audience, waiting for me to thank them so I could be hired for next season’s shows.
We lost, and the speech was thrown out at the elevators in the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square. Highly humbling thing to go through, ok?
If you are going to watch, then you are by default buying into the idea that this is a show of excellent works, judged by the peers of the nominees. Otherwise, uh…why watch? Okay, so it’s the best work in that area. Acting, shooting editing, writing, whatever. You win. Damned RIGHT you ought to do your 90 second speech and say your thanks to those who got you to that spot.
And, might I add, it is exceedingly hard to stand in front of 10,000 of your closest pals in your business and NOT get all gushy or emotional, ok? They’re all smiling at you cause you won !!
Cartooniverse, always the bridesmaid, never the bride.