Apologies for this dull and sleepy Oscar wrap-up post which has been written in the spirit of last night’s award show.

You’ll find few bloggers who defend the overlong, montage-packed, drunken-celebrity-slurring Oscar show with a greater sense of being a starry-eyed apologist than me. I’ve written about the shows before and commented across the bloguverse in previous years about how great the edited pieces are, that I don’t give a hang how long the show gets, and what a terrific time I always have watching it. I’d even want to see David Letterman host again someday.

But wow, last night’s show was a snoozer.

I have no problem with the movies themselves that won; they were all fairly easily predicted by anyone who reads as much pre-show prognostication as I do, and having seen a rare 60% of this year’s Best Picture contenders, I felt like I was in a better-than-usual spot to be emotionally involved. But I’m talking about the show itself and its lack of any great moments, any true surprises, any controversy, and any decent humor. The writing of the show felt as forced and stilted as it had to be with the shortened amount of time that the writers had to put it together, but I might have hoped for just a touch more spontaneity and wit. Jon Stewart’s jokes felt hollow and toothless and the presenters’ blurbs were lame at best and achingly dull at worst. Harrison Ford’s “…movies are made from ideas. And pictures. And WORDS…” was, I thought, bordering on parody for its simplistic and clichéd construction. It sounded like something you’d hear on The Simpsons, only they’d make it funny.

I’m finding it hard to even write much more about this, so I’ll simply go to the bullets:

• I’d say the very best moment of the show was when “Falling Slowly” won, and that’s only because Mrs. Burbanked and I rented Once via Netflix several weeks ago and discovered what a wonderful, precious diamond of a movie it is – unlike, I’m guessing, 72% of last night’s viewing audience.
• Is there another Hollywood actress as useless as Cameron Diaz?
• I had read great things about Enchanted when it came out. Hearing the three songs nominated from it convinced me that avoiding seeing it should probably become my abiding mission for the rest of my life.
• John Travolta’s hair reminded me of that episode of The Brady Bunch where Peter Brady had to keep putting on the Dracula costume with the plastic widow’s peak hairpiece.
• I didn’t mind the idea of them celebrating 80 years of Oscar, but it seems as though they might have chosen to highlight the previous years’ awards either through showing all the winners or by interviewing the previous winners, instead of doing both. These pieces all felt rushed and stripped of much meaning.
• the original screenplay award winner usually has the most compelling, eloquent acceptance speech, because I personally believe that they put more thought into what they’ll say because they’re, you know, writers. Diablo Cody screwed the pooch on this one. It’s fine that she was emotional, that’s great, and she’s clever enough – but I’m not convinced that she has all that much to say.
• LOVE the Coens. LOVE Javier. Roger Deakins got the shaft and I hope that doesn’t mean he’ll be relegated to getting the Old Man Special Oscar someday.
• And this may be a complete fabrication of my memory, but doesn’t the “In Memoriam” montage usually include Hollywood deaths from January 1 – January 1? Last night’s included – and was noted on the screen – February of 2007 through January of 2008, and my cold, cynical heart believes that the extended qualifying timeframe was created purely to be able to include Heath Ledger, whose January death wouldn’t have been fresh in the telecast audience’s minds next year.

What do you think? Was the show mind-warpingly dull or just business as usual?