Academy Awards (Oscars)

Randy's right, as usual, the idiotic glorification of the lefto agenda is beneath the stature of the Oscars.  I didn't see DiCaprio's presentation until the next day as it is touted and replayed on all the liberal bastions of "news" (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, etc.).  Of course "An Inconvenient Truth" won its Oscar for "Best Documentary" and I appreciated the tips on how to battle global warming, and I noticed how many of the stars set the example by taking public transportation to the show.  Aren't these the guys who are trying to rejuvenate the "Fairness Doctrine" to eliminate conservative talk radio.  Ah, but they know the 'truth", right.  The DNC doesn't even have to pay for this free promotion. 

Last nights Oscars was so-so. I watched most of it and thought Ellen Degeneres did a fair job. She had her moments. Personally, I think she's funny. I have not seen "The Last King of Scotland" yet, but I plan to, I was however glad to see Forrest Whittaker win for best actor. I thought he gave a great and very humble acceptance speech. I was equally glad to see Martin Scorsese win for "The Departed", however, like most people I feel this is not his best work, though it was still a great movie. He probably should have won years ago for any number of movies, and I feel last nights win was an attempt to rectify that. I can accept that. He deserved that moment of glory.

What has become troubling to me about the Oscars is their insistance on making it a forum for political agendas. When I'm watching a television show for entertainments sake, I do not want to be hijacked and forced to sit through a political rally. By either side. There is a time and a place for politics, and a award show is not, or should not be the place for it.

Televised awards shows are uniformly contrived and tedious. If I want to know who won, I read it in the paper the next morning.

I haven't watched this, or any other televised awards show in two decades.

When we had the likes of Gregory Peck or James Stewart and others of that era, the Oscars were worth a watch. Today we have a group of self-absorbed semi-literate no talents handing out valentines to each other for increasingly bad entries. Avoid for your own sake. I give it two stars for the old-timers.

I can't look at any of the award shows. You like to see them in movies,on television or listen to them singing, but on their own excepting an award I would feel embarrassed for them. They seem to dumb to be embarrassed, so I was the only one suffering!

It was boring and never got off the ground. Hollywood is out of touch with americans. Why can't George Clooney just admit he is gay and get over it?

It wasn't bored out of my mind this year. Chris Rock was awesome.

Stupid bunch of sluts and pimps parading and posing for the camera as if anybody gives a poop. More than half the women walking around with open front dresses revealing non-cleavages where you could park a Mac Truck.

It's an in crowd awards show. They hardly ever give oscars to foreign actors, and sometimes when four out of five nominees are foreign actors, they will give it to an American. Furthermore, Hollywood's elitism skewers other races, as well. For example,a few years ago, Ang Lee did superb directing jobs with The Ice Storm and Sense and Sensibility but was ignored in the nominations. Ingmar Bergman, who influenced so many directors, never received an oscar. This year, I told anybody who'd listen, that The Passion of the Christ wouldn't get Best Picture, or Director nominations. And that's another segment of society that's shut out by the voters: Christians. Now, I'm not a model Christian, but if I was a voter, I'd play fair. So, I agree with my longtime Oscar buff/friendly acquaintance, that outsiders have an uphill battle getting recognized in the oscar race. Matter of fact, he told me that I won't see a modern German, or a Native American actor ever win an Academy Award. So by eliminating so many outsiders, I feel they are painting themselves into a corner, and that makes for a very dull show, indeed!

Everyone looked really good but the show was DULL with a capital D. U. L. L.

Why are ratings down for the Academy Awards? First, the American public is disgusted with Hollywood right now. With all the political bashing it did in the past year, were they really thinking that we would care about them anymore? Second, they don't nominate films we love anymore. They take movies that glorify assisted suicide (Million Dollar Baby) and give it an Oscar. They take unaccomplished actors and actresses and give them Oscars. They have no regard to the public or what we're interested in when they nominate and select winners. They don't mind taking our money at the box office though. Third, I think the academy has just gotten too politically correct. Why else did they choose presenters that establish absolutely no credibility in the mind of the audience (Penelope, Salma, and Chris Rock). And Beyonce, and Beyonce, and Beyonce. Next year I won't even bother!!!

After years of improving Academy Awards Shows with Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, Ellen DeGeneres and Steve Martin hosting with true talent, this year's show was a let down, boring and a disservice to the nominees and viewers. Compare Chris Rock's monologue and visit to magic Johnson's Cinema (rip-off from Jay Leno) to the complex and hilarious skits Billy Crystal did of the Best Picture nominees. Rock's jokes just were not funny. The changes in format failed and I felt embarrassed for those poor people in the lesser categories being featured so uncomfortably. WORSE OF ALL-- Who picked the presenters this year? What happened to last year's winners and Hollywood veterans presenting? Instead we had people unconnected to industry presenting like Prince, Puff Daddy (Sick of this guy!) and folks more suited to the Grammys. Salma Hayak and Penelope Cruz were ridiculously unintelligible when they spoke. Being articulate should be a criteria! YoYoMa is a great talent but his play caused me to mute the TV during what is usually a show highlight--the memoriams. And, why oh why did Beonce of all people sing 3 out of 5 nominated songs? She was terribly out of place singing songs from the Phantom and while she looked nice she should stick with her Crazy in Love type music. Nothing like when Faith Hill subbed for Whitney Houston with Somehwere Over the Rainbow.All in all, a bad show.

UPDATE: The hate-filled, veteran F-bombardier and extremely un-funny Chris Rock managed to squash the small amount of dignity left in Oscar night in his first 10 minutes on stage last night. If this is the crude direction the award show's choice in hosts is heading and it definitely appears to be then I am certain I can find much better things to do with my time from now on. Last night I lasted all of about 20 minutes when, after Rocks second appearance on stage, I found myself ready to move on to something anything that didnt involve being screeched and shouted at. I find this man totally offensive and obsessed with race to the point that one wonders if he wasnt black and perpetually angry would he even speak at all? Chris Rock tries so hard to present himself as a streetwise guy striking back at whites for being bigoted when he is actually just an angry guy striking out at white people for being white period. I think that if you reverse the color scheme in your mind when listening to his bile you will easily see who the bigot is and you will also see a man cashing in on hate and discontent. One bright moment I caught when it was all being regurgitated this morning on CNN was when Sean Penn answered the question Rock posed earlier in the evening, Who is Jude Law? by pointing out that, Hes one of our finest actors. What I would like to add to that for Mr. Rocks further enlightenment is; Jude Law is someone with dignity and talent two attributes you sorely lack. To wind up my own personal diatribe I would like to add; I agreed almost 100% in the choices for the top awards last night (especially Jamie Foxx for his magnificent performance in Ray) - not because the awardees happened to be African American, or Italian or British or anything else other than gifted performers. I will feel that we have finally made progress when racial issues and thinly disguised hatred stop attending the academy awards. ORIGINAL POST 3-25-02 (3 Stars): Nice new theatre...same old boring parade of egos - and, on the later score, it doesn't matter if I'm talking last night or 30 years or more ago. Since I make up my own mind what rates and what doesn't movie-wise this is just another chance to see a bunch of self-important boobs wearing tacky formal dress and searching for a place to reveal their political and social opinions. The sad thing for most of them is they haven't realized they are only warming the seats for their replacements - few of which are very far behind them.

Chris Rock was a poor choice for host. Not very funny and not very smooth. And what was it with the Amazon women on-stage hostesses? They towered over everyone, showing how short those actors and actresses really are!

I love the awards since I'm a movie buff but often the actors speaches are waaay too long and alot of movies I like never win. But Billy Crystal and Steve Martin were hilarious hosts. But did you see the choice this year? CHRIS ROCK!!! Who's brilliant idea was that? Now the Osacars will probably be boring.

Boring stuff, boring hosts, boring comments from award winners that you would swear they have done something great in their lives, They just made a movie thats all, whats the big deal..terrible.......

The Oscars usually depend on who is hosting Steve Martin did a great job this year as have many others in the past. There is always at least one price less moment during the show. This is the award show of all award show. I could do with out most of the rest.

In general, this show is as good as its host. This is because the only real reason to *watch* this show (as opposed to waiting for the next day and checking out who won on the web, which takes about 2 minutes) is for the antics - and most of the antics (unless Life is Beautiful is being nominated) are from the host. In particular, the Oscars are fun to watch when Billy Crystal is hosting, mostly because of that intro he does. A good host makes watching the entire show a real treat. Otherwise, I don't usually bother.

It is a very good award show to watch. It is probably my favorite. Although i didnt get around to watching it. I still saw some of the movies that were up for some of the rewards.

This show is just not entertaining. At least the mtv music video and mtv movie awards make it fun and humorous so you can keep watching,but these awards are just boring.

It's a good show, but it's overrated. It just praises the richest people in showbiz, something that they love to do every year. I respect all the hard working people, but the academy awards do not take into account ALL of the movies being made around the world or the low budget ones, they ONLY like to praise themselves.

I'm not going to lie, I love watching the Oscars, it IS the mother of all award ceremonies. As most of you have guessed it is just as it states a show it wouldn't be what it is if the academy bowed to public opinion and caused some controversy and ruffled a few feathers to make the night more interesting. How many of us agree with the Academy's choice? (classics for me for Best Pictures; Driving Miss Daisy over Goodfellas, A Beautiful Mind over Lord of the Rings and my favourite (SARCASM) Ghandi over ET). For me there is no such thing as Best it just means you've done good work for the year and your beng credited for it. An Oscar doesn't validate any great actors talent's. I can name many great actors and actresses who have never won an oscar (Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore, Angela Bassett, Edward Norton, Samantha Morton, Scarlett Johannson) and many great directors who have never won (Martin Scorsese, Alfred Hitchcock, Gus Van Sant, Rob Reiner etc) and do these people's oustanding contribution to the film industry stop or has been forgotten because they haven't won a statuette?

Boring. Too stuffy. And, of course, nothing I like ever wins.

Good to review the winners on the 'net or otherwise, but boring to watch. Speeches are too long and too boring. You get to hear a laundry list of names and then cut back to the usually-dry-humored host throw out some poor jokes. Oh, and then there's the categories that only a select few care about. All-in-all I could say that the show picks better winners than other award shows, but the show itself, again, is boring.

Good way to kill a few hours. This would be a great show, except I'm not so sure, recently, about who they've been giving out the awards to. People who have clearly deserved it less have been taking home the trophy.

it's so boring and what i can't stand are all those obsessed losers talking about it like 5 weeks after. it's like who really gives a f*ck who won

Purely political. There have been dozens and dozens of times when films that should have won awards haven't. I'm only giving it more than one star because occasionally people who deserve the awards get them, and some of the speeches are hilarious (See BigBaby's comment).

It's an award show! why would anyone want to watch it!? Oh some celeberty got an award! and you didn't! So you like to watch some rich people get somthing to make them more rich?

THE WORST! I couldn't care less what those idiots say or wear to this thing- I cannot believe the fanatical following it has!

The 75th Academy Awards was very interesting. I enjoyed hearing the political comments from the presenters and recipients. I especially enjoyed the comments that Michael Moore expressed. I thought they were terrific! Finally, truth coming out on a major network!! The only reason I didn't make it a 5 was because of Steve Martin's performance. He wasn't as funny as I remembered him to be.

At the top and should stay there.

I like the Oscars just for the awards. I shudder when the people go up to recieve the award; its always the same thing: I (sob) just want to (sob) thank God, the (sob) fans, (sob) and for (sob), well you get the picture. Some films deserve the awards they recieve; others dont.

Of the seemingly hundreds of awards shows out there, this is the one I most like to watch. The voting is a little bit too narrow minded for my tastes, but at least no really bad performances have ever been awarded an Oscar. I guess my favorite year for the Academy was 1991 when Silence of the Lambs took all top five honors. I was afraid that some of the high minded voters would steer clear of it because of its serial killer theme, but to their credit they did right. When Liz Taylor read the card naming it best picture, it renewed what little faith I had left in Hollywood. That being said, there are still quite a few mistakes the Academy has made in its history. Ready? Here goes...1934, Bette Davis not even nominated for Of Human Bondage/1939, Victor Fleming nominated and won for Gone With the Wind but was not even nominated for The Wizard of Oz/1943, Ingrid Bergman was not nominated for Casablanca/1952, Singin' In the Rain-perhaps the most loved musical of all time was not nominated for Best Picture/1955, neither East of Eden nor Rebel Without A Cause are nominated for Best Picture/1958, Gigi is picked over Cat On a Hot Tin Roof as Best Picture/1959, Some Like It Hot (picked as the American Film Institute's #1 Comedy of All-Time) is not nominated for Best Picture/1967, "Talk to the Animals" is picked over "Bare Necessities" as Best Song/1974, Tatum O'Neal is picked for Best Supporting Actress but the problem is, she was in pretty much every minute of screen time and should have been put in the Best Actress category/1975, Jaws should have won over One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, AND I'm Easy should never have won Best Song/1977, worst year for the Oscars--Annie Hall (a film no one has seen more than once or twice) was picked over Star Wars (a landmark film that practically changed the way studios do business and has been seen by millions of people many times over) as Best Picture, Woody Allen won director and actor too, a further spitting upon the good name of movies, and the corny "You Light Up My Life" won Best Song/1981, Chariots of Fire won Best Picture but On Golden Pond and Raiders of the Lost Ark were both better films/1982, Louis Gossett, Jr. won Best Supporting Actor for Officer and a Gentleman when John Lithgow was better in World According to Garp/1983, Barbra Streisand moaned and groaned about not being nominated for Best Director and Best Picture for Yentl (this is not an Academy mistake, this is just something that put a damper on the whole thing)/1984, Amadeus won Best Picture and I'm still trying to figure out why/1987, Olympia Dukakis won for Moonstruck and I agree that it was a fantastic performance, but the true winner should have been Anne Ramsey for Throw Momma From the Train/1988, Rainman won Best Picture and Dustin Hoffman won Best Actor. I'm not sure who should have won because this was a weak year overall, but I did not care for the picture or Hoffman either/1991, see above why it was a good year, but Jessica Tandy should have won for Fried Green Tomatoes instead of Mercedes Ruehl for Fisher King/1992, Crying Game (weird as it was) was a better film than Unforgiven, but the best film of the entire year was Bram Stoker's Dracula which wasn't even nominated, Gene Hackman won Best Supporting Actor but the best performance was by Jaye Davidson, and Mary McDonnell should have won Best Actress for Passion Fish instead of Emma Thompson for Howards End/1993, Schindler's List won for Best Picture and it was an amazing, complez film. However, the Fugitive was the best film of that year, and why in the world was The Piano even nominated for anything, let alone win? I thought it was a boring movie filled with whiney, uninteresting characters./1994, Four Weddings and a Funeral nominated for Best Picture, but shouldn't have been/1996, Edward Norton's performance in Primal Fear was by far better than Cuba Gooding's in Jerry Maguire, but Gooding got the Oscar. I could probably list at least a dozen more mistakes they've made over the years, but I won't. It won't change the fact that it's still the best award to win. That's saying something about the other awards isn't it?

I love watching this award show, even with those horrible musical numbers. I never want to see Whoppie Goldberg host this show again. She is only funny in her own mind. Also kind of getting sick of the self importance of its winner. Hey Halle Berry is as much white as she is black! She is a babe though!

Academy Awards are a slow and long example of award shows. Whoopi Goldberg tried her best to be funny, but just came off forced and unfunny...

Oh I wish I were an Oscar award winner. That is what I'd truely like to beEEE. 'cause if I were an Oscar award winner, I could sit at the academy. Oh I wish I were an Oscar award winner, or even just a lousy nomineEEEE. 'cause watching them from my couch is boring, I fall asleep infront of my TV.

The Oscars stink because....1. It is too long. 2. In the last Oscars, they had a tribute to NYC. They put AL Sharpton in it. This media whore has done squat for this great city. 3. The committee cheated talented actors like Cate Blanchett, Joquin Phoenix, and Nicole Kidman. 4. These big egos rarely thank their fans. They thank their agents, god, and dead grandparents. Blah Blah 5. They reward airheads like Gwyneth Paltrow and Juila Roberts. This is my opinion and I am sticking to it.

I was proud of the Academy when they picked Forrest Gump, & not one of the other great movies from that year like The Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Four Wedding & A Funeral & Lion King, as the Best Picture in '94! :-) Other great choises were Gandhi in '82, Rain Man in '88, Amadeus in '84 & The Silence of the Lambs in '91! Some years they haven't done such a good job, like in '97, when they picked Titanic & not As Good As It Gets, or in '98 when Shakespear In Love was the lucky one, not La vita é bella.

All about whose turn it is and whose ass you want to kiss. Titanic, Gladiator, and ABM were all steaming piles of poo. Ron Howard is a mediocre hack and should do more voice work on the Simpsons (his true niche).

I really don't see what the hype is over the Oscars it's awards given out to movies that most people haven't even seen. I have not seen a Beautiful Mind, Moulin Rouge, Iris, In the Bedroom, Monster's Ball, Gosford Park or Training Day. I did see Lord of the Rings and I think it didn't win enough awards which it deserved. It's also so boring and too long I fell asleep. I just like to see what everyone is wearing.

Okay I will admit that I get drawn in to watch the awards. I am curious to see who will win that big award. It is a treat to see some of my favorite actors together on one night. One huge complaint is it is way too long. I am sitting here bleary eyed after staying up until almost one o'clock in the morning to see who would win. { of course i live in a time zone where they show this late}I like it when they do life time achievement awards honoring some deserving actor, actress, of director who has contributed years of movies etc. I have to admit I question how they decide which movies get selected for Oscar nominatons. Some, I have never even heard of yet it gets me curious in at least renting the video when the movie comes out. For the most part I like the acacemy awards.

So unbelievably over rated.

I love watching the Oscars. Why? Because every once and a while someone who truely deserves the award gets it. I just love getting completly pissed off when best actress goes to a little waif like Julia Roberts when the award obviously should have gone to Ellen Burstyn for her heart breaking performance in Requiem for a Dream and when good all right actors do their worst performance yet, like Benicio Del Toro, and win Best Supporting over Willem Dafo and Joaquin Pheonix who blew his performance out of the water. I feel the Academy is a little too, I don't know, predictable and a little too ...for lack of a better word, bad critics who shouldn't be giving out awards to people who don't deserve them. I still like to watch and root for the true talent that they al least nominated. Disapoints me all the time though.

Getting worse every year!

The boringest crap I have ever seen .

will not miss this at all!!!

I LOVE the awards shows for films! Nay-sayers, look at it this way: they're better than pageants!

Who wants to watch these pampered, socialist, out of touch people congratulate themselves?

How many day event is it this year? Decent awards....but way too long!

I have such negative feelings for so much of Hollywood that I can't even stand to watch this anymore.