Oscars continue, reveal nothing new
COMMENTARY
Patrick Jennings

My tolerance for whiny Hollywood people is low, but for you, my three readers, I sat down to watch the Oscars Sunday night.

7:30 — It opens with a diamond-themed montage, since it is the 75th anniversary of the Academy Awards. All the with audio are best picture winners (big surprise). They skipped most of the 80s. Not a lot of great films.

7:33 — Steve Martin is the host. I’ve seen old footage of him with dark hair, but he’s been white-haired since the 60s I think.

7:38 — I’m already tired of applause every 10 seconds. It’s worse than the State of the Union address.

7:45 — Martin’s monologue is over. Nothing was exceptionally funny.

7:49 — “The Lord of the Rings” picked up its first award of the night. There’s four guys trying to thank people in a 20-second window. They actually made the microphone retract on the last guy. I know they want to make the show faster, but that’s ridiculous.

7:55 — Another montage for winners of best supporting actor. Chris Cooper won for “Adaptation.” And we have our first anti-war sentiment of the night. Cooper threw in a plea for peace at the end of his speech.

8:03 — The evening’s first musical number, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Queen Latifah doing “I Move On.” Honestly, if they want to cut the ceremony, the best song performances should go first.

8:34— Another montage. Sean Connery presents an award, and he still looks good, even if he pronounced the category “Actress in a sporting role,” “Mel” Streep.

8:50 — Another montage, this one of Oscar dance numbers.

9:17 — “Bowling for Columbine” wins best documentary and Michael Moore makes an ass out himself protesting the war in Iraq and Bush in general. Absolutely no surprise there. What surprised me was that a lot of people booed him. Who said there are no Republicans in Hollywood?

9:26 — You guessed it, another montage. Oscar winners talk about winning the award.

9:33 — Colin Farrell begins babbling, I thought he was protesting the war, but it turns out he was introducing U2.

9:38 — The performance is followed by ... a montage. Something new! This one is for people who died in the past year.

9:47 — Martin makes a montage joke. “People you think are dead, but aren’t” is coming up. That is immediately followed by a montage of best actor winners.

9:51 — Adrien Brody wins best actor, beats four former Oscar winners, kisses Halle Berry, makes some of the best jokes of the night, stops the orchestra from sending him off and makes one of the few statements for peace which didn’t annoy me. Kudos.

10:01 — Eminem wins for best song. Do I have to call him “Oscar-winner Eminem” from now on?

10:05 — Montage No. 6 goes over Peter O’Toole’s career, which earned him an honorary Oscar tonight.

10:16 — Best actress montage. Do we really need filler in a four-hour telecast?

10:23 — Montage of AMPAS presidents opening up the Oscars. Wow, a new level of pointlessness.

10:26 — Sort of a montage. They gathered together people who have won acting Oscars together and sat them on stage with little clips playing as they’re introduced.

10:36 — They get through them all.

10:48 — Pedro Almodovar wins a writing award for a Spanish-language film and speaks against war in Iraq. The telecast is getting too long for me to write well.

10:53 — The pedophile, exile Roman Polanski wins Best Director and the crowd goes wild.

10:57 — “Chicago” wins Best Picture, Oscar number six for the film and the ceremony ends only half an hour late.

Patrick Jennings is a freshman economics major from Melbourne, Fla.