lol, Suzie. There was some travel in my home too, my DH traveled to the kitchen/bar and made us a nice margarita ... perhaps I should've posted on the Latin American board!

Oscars are not about travel - but this is a fairly tight little community and it's fun to share thoughts about some United States fun stuff.
i thought the show was very boring. the speeches could not have been more boring. Enough, already, about the names of everyone you ever met! Something meaningful would be of interest.
the gowns were subtle, but I thought most of the women looked pretty gorgeous.
Jon Stewart was very professional, but subdued. Not bad; not great, either.
Meryl and Lily did an excellent job of displaying their talents!
IMO - Munich was best picture.
Crash moved along very well, but seems SO contrived!
BBM was beautiful, but a bit slow. I did enjoy it alot anyway.
This is a fun topic for a change!

Are you sure Oscar is not about travel? Then what is it about Bjork (?) who couldn't get to it this year? Per Jon Stewart she would love to come, but Dick was hunting again...

So, Hollywood got it share of "crash" diet, huh? Loved to see Spielberg's dissapointed face! If I'd be there, I'd deliver a personal message: "spielberg, call home"

Loved Reese's dress! But it was a bit too brave for her to admit it was a 2nd hand... errr... vintage. How can anybody go public about a GoodWill shopping? But I love her anyway

Wow after the faux Pas at the Golden Globes when Reese wore a vintage Chanel that was worn by Kirsten Dunst at another event I wouldn’t think Reese would go with vintage again but there she was in vintage Dior. It is amazing how those dresses look so good after all those years. That dress was reportedly from 1955.

Rave: "It's hard out here for a pimp"--best song. Ten years or so from now there will be an orchestral version in a greatest movie songs ever album.
Just kidding. Actually, I really enjoyed the group's enthusiasm with their acceptance speech.
Also liked the guys from the Wallace and Grommit film. Nice to see that not everyone there takes themselves so seriously.
Did anyone notice how many times we were told how great the in theater movie experience is? I think the movie studio's are getting a little nervous about the rush to put films out on DVD.
Not sure how effective that montage of big movie hits was (intended to show us how great the big movie screen experience is). We saw it in the comfort of our living room big screen high def TV and thought it looked pretty good. We still enjoy going out to movies but I don't think that was a very good way to make their point.

The best joke (and there weren't that many good ones) was about how Bjork couldn't make it this year because she was trying on her dress and Cheney shot her...

No the best joke came after the montage of films about really serious subjects and then Jon says something like “And none of those issues were ever a problem again." LOL sometimes Hollywood is so self important and congratulatory.

I liked the lady who won an oscar and then thanked the Academy for sitting her next to George Clooney at a nominees' luncheon.

Of course this is about travel! Well, for me it was AVOIDING travel and hosting a few friends at home for dinner and (too much) bubbly.

Rave: Clooney's acceptance speech. "Out of touch" and proud.

Rant: Crash winning the Big One. It IS stereotypical and manipulative and shrill. It's earnest and well-meaning and unsubtle in pointing out everyone else's Internal Racist Pig. It's contrived and wholly unbelievable. So it appealed strongly to Academy voters who just wouldn't vote for a film about gay cowboys but WOULD vote for a film about ethnic and racial prejudice, which, as we all know, IS A VERY VERY BAD THING. And they don't feel they turned in their Good Liberal card.

Is the irony lost on everyone...?

I didn't watch or miss the show. Today's Hollywood is a far cry from the industry that Goldwyn, Mayer, DeMille, Ford, Capra, Cukor and the Warners built 75 years ago. The best 100 films in a given year, like 1939, are twice as good as the Oscar winner of our modern times.

The Academy gets the Oscar for the longest and most boring Oscars ever in the history of the world.

The actual award part lasted 8 minutes out of the two plus hour movie clip-a-thon.

Jon Stewart as host was exactly like Dave Letterman as host. It doesn't work.

Loved Crash, disliked Brokeback, didn't see Capote or the other movies.

Love Reese, love Cloony, think Halle is an idiot, and Nicole and Charlize are classic beauties.

My two cents.

Well Go, I'll always be delighted to agree to disagree with you!

I hope you and your family are holding up OK through your recent tragedy....

Did anyone else feel like hopping into their television to help poor Lauren Bacall?? I felt so sorry for her. She seemed to recover, but....

Whew, good to see I'm not the only Jon Stewart fan who thought he stunk. He looked so incredibly nervous in the beginning - I thought he actually lightened up with the rappers (whatever their name was). Otherwise, long, boring, and am so glad that Clooney won!

Didn't watch the entire show but kansasmom, I found that hilarious, too.

Also found it funny when Billy Crystal and Chris Rock were too busy in the tent to host the Oscars.

Schmerl, Yes! I so cringed for Lauren Bacall--did she possibly need reading glasses?

There was an awards ceremony last night?

Huh.

all I saw on ABC last night was bored millionares staring at some scared looking college student wannabe guy.

Apparently the ratings were down even from last year. "Small" movies (and some not released widely nationwide, or for too short a time) can't compete against junk food TV.

I think they're going to have to change the format and timing. Our collective attention span doesn't make 3+ hours work except for Super Bowls, and even then it's only because the ads are 60% of the draw.

I thought Jon Stewart did well enough, but the engineers should have predicted that he would bang on the lecturn - every time he did our dog jumped. In general, I thought the direction and engineering were a bit off - poor sound balancing, obviously a teleprompter problem with Lauren Bacall, poor guiding of winners off the stage. Quibbles, but they add up to extra time being used, hence cutting off the best picture winners' thankyous in mid-sentence.

As for the films, I thought neither BBM nor Crash deserved all the hype. I liked Good Night and Good Luck a lot (and really really liked David Strathairn's channeling of Murrow) but I don't think a B&W movie has a chance nowadays.

So I went in with low expectations and came out okay.

Can't wait to see Tsotsi in light of our return travel to South Africa later this year. There.

ahhnold, old buddy, the people in the audience weren't the only bored ones, unfortunately. (However, a few jokes here and there were good....)

I had a nice nap. B O R I N G ! ! !

I'm with you Gardyloo -- I cannot wait to see Tsotsi !!

I'm really pleased to see that some people on this board share my sentiments about Crash - it is a good movie but I found it contrived and oversimplified - if this is the depth of society's ability to understand how racism works, we have a ways to go. I was really rooting for Brokeback too - aside from the social statement it makes it is a gutwrenching love story. Heath Ledger really exemplified how it would be to feel like society wasn't allowing you to be who you really were...I was happy that Reese won though, she's been overlooked as an actress until now. Voila, my two cents...