Beyoncé's Finest Night
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2005 10:41 PM
At tonight's Academy Awards ceremony, I went 18 for 24, which may or may not be enough for my Oscar pool—22 won it last year, but the Lord of the Rings made everything crazy. I started off strong—the first seven in a row, but it all went to hell at film editing. I still think Million Dollar Baby was edited so much better than The Aviator.

Live blogging, while interesting, was not my cup of tea and being done by people on-the-spot wittier than I. But I was keeping track of a few choice impressions.

My favorite star was Cate Blanchett , who was stunning. Her dress was beautiful, her hair perfect, and she just radiated that, cliché as it is, “Hollywood glamour.”

On Gil Cates' "innovations," I'd have to say no and even though the telecast was about half an hour short of last year's, I didn't think the changes improved the show. It was weird for the “minor” awards to be doled out with the presenter in the crowd and the nominees seated mere feet away from microphone. The ones where they all the nominees on stage where they had to stand by as someone else got to give an acceptance speech was also wrong somehow.

Scalett Johanssen was on the balcony, why? (“Because someone painted that railing,” Emily suggested.) It was nice they actually got tickets (although did they really have seats?).

Beyoncé was a tad scary on “Vois Sur Ton Chemin” (“Look to Your Path”) from Les Choristes (The Chorus). Girl can't sing in French well. I don't quite endorse Sars' suggestion that we just show a clip of the song from the movie with like a music video, but having Beyoncé “lend” her vocals to three songs (none of which she sang originally) doesn't tell me much about what the songs add to the movie. I longed for the day when they kept the show trim by disrespectfully playing all the nominated songs in a row, in abridged two minute snippets.

Was the swag so good that Pierce Brosnan couldn't bow out? Or was working with Edna Mode such a once in a lifetime experience?

I love Cate Blachett's win—she's fabulous (see adulation above)—and her “I hope your son will marry my daughter” line to Martin Scorsese even if I don't get it.

The best line of the night, while The Counting Crows were playing, we were trying to figure out what the hell was up with Adam Duritz and Grady shouts out “Hey, Kid! Where's Play?” Convulsions of laughter followed.

Lame and cheesy as the Adam Sandler-Chris Rock “Catherine Zeta-Jones didn't show” bit was, I had to laugh. It was funny and I loved the way they continued to go with it even after the utter silliness of it was revealed.

Sidney Lumet & Al Pacino's two-cheek kiss brought simultaneous groans and aws from the crowd in my living room. I'm not sure why the diametrically opposed reactions.

And when Beyoncé came back and freakily sang that “Learn to be Lonely” song from The Phantom of the Opera, all I could think of was Minnie Driver at home going “aaarrrggghhhh!” and clenching her fists in anger.

Salma Hayek and Penélope Cruz presenting together? Who came up with that? A man, I suppose, like the one in my living room who said “Am I the only one happy about this?” And Chris Rock's comment about the next four presenters before the duo came out? Nice.

A little too much crappy Beyoncé, eh? Josh Groban couldn't sing alone the song he sang solo for the movie? I'll admit that Josh seemed to be having a good time, and they made a weirdly cute couple. Was that just me? (The picture doesn't do them justice—he was smiling when not singing.)

On the dead roll call popularity contest, Marlon Brando emerged victorious. (Kind of wish they'd just mute the audience on that.)

Poor Annette Bening. To lose twice—to the same person? Geez.

I didn't realize until the night that all the Best Actor nominees were all doing "voices." That's a sign of talent, right?

And Million Dollar Baby over The Aviator got me to 18, phew! Best Picture was the only category where I saw every film and I genuinely thought Million Dollar Baby was the best. I enjoyed the whole movie—it was solid. The Aviator, took me a while to get into; Sideways was cute, funny, but not quite Best Picture material as I said before; Ray had a performance by Jaime Foxx that was better than the film, though it was a damn fine movie; and Finding Neverland was good, but just not enough.

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