I know I've become indoctrinated to the Oscars when I consider a three and a half hour show short. That streamlined feeling came from the realization that in spite of it's length there was a lot of wasted time on the show. While Hollywood does an amazing job of congratulating itself this year they managed to keep it confined to the basics of award presentations. The pointless stage productions and film montages were jettisoned in favor of keeping things moving. While there were slow points, this time they didn't stretch out for over an hour.

Now for the high and lowlights:

Host: Steve Martin did a fearless job of hosting. An early high point of the evening came during the opening monologue when he took a cheap shot at Russell Crowe. The blank reaction shot on Crowe's face was priceless. Martin was also cagey enough to realize that all he had to do was introduce the next presenter and didn't have to try too hard to entertain, a lesson former hosts like Billy Crystal would do well to remember. Not only did the props, video insertion of Crystal into various movies, and musical numbers that Billy Crystal would pull out in years past often seem more distracting than entertaining, the sheen of flop-sweat Crystal developed during the night made him glisten like a glazed ham. If Crystal had been hosting this year he either would of felt the need to fly into the studio on wires or saunter out in a toga so the world as a whole dodged a bullet on that one.

The Set: I think the set was supposed to convey the sense of the future found in the 1960's film 2001. Instead it looked like an airport bathroom.

Sing it!: Old singers never die, they just sing songs for movies. While I knew Sting was still doing music, I was surprised to find the chick from the Bangles hadn't fallen off the edge of the Earth. The trouble with the best song category is that songs either sound like they were an old b-side the artist had lying around that they didn't want to include on their own album or the song just plain doesn't work outside the context of the film. For example, the song from Bjork worked when she sang it in the movie but came off as flat on the Oscar stage. But at least the music numbers gave the Oscar producers a chance to do some sort of stage production since I'm sure they were itching to have someone get pulled around on wires. The biggest surprise with the music scene was that Bob Dylan now looks like the spitting image of Vincent Price.

Jitters: While I suspect that Bjork thought she would make a splash with a dress that looked like a swan, she probably didn't think she would have to compete for attention with Winona Ryder's jumbled, fawning introduction. One would think that Ms. Ryder would be used to being in front of a camera by now. The way actors handled their mistakes was interesting to watch. When Samuel L. Jackson mis-spoke he corrected himself without breaking the flow of his sentence but when the perpetually flighty Goldie Hawn messed up on her lines she, naturally, broke into a fit of laughter. Kudos goes to the director for getting a shot of Kate Hudson beaming with family pride as her mom flubbed up.

It's Dino's world, the rest of us just live in it: Dino De Laurentiis was honored for producing an idiotically huge number of movies. That's right, the man who produced such films as Barberella, the re-make of King Kong and Red Sonja received everything he had coming to him. Then again, I've seen all those movies so I don't have too much room to talk.

Big Losers: The worst moment of the night came not from the show itself but a Pepsi commercial featuring Brittney Spears and Bob Dole. As Brittney Spears -who, it has been noted to me, is looking more and more like porn diva Jenna Jameson- ground about to a Pepsi jingle a viagra addled Dole watches the commercial and mutters "Down boy" when his... dog makes a bit of noise. To think, a few years ago Dole was coming down on Hollywood for pandering to the lowest common denominator and for this years Oscar telecast the creepiest thing to show up is his commercial.

Da Winners: The most obvious winner was Danny DeVito, who looked to be having so much fun that it seemed he was at a different, more entertaining party. Robert Mitchum clone Russell Crowe gave a surprisingly good acceptance speech as did Julia Roberts, even if she was the only person present who was surprised she won. Wild egos and petty fighting between the movies wasn't present this year. Whether that's good or bad depends on your sense of what's entertaining. Not having one movie steam-roll over everything else helped out too.

How did I do?: The only guess I got wrong was that I thought Ang Lee would win for best director. Still, Steve Soderberg did do a very good job with Traffic and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon walked off with four Oscars so I doubt anyone's complaining. I'll spare everyone from listening to me discuss the relative merits of each winner since everyone's sick of hearing me talk about that already plus I need to rest so I can gear up for next year.

Suggestions, comments, and blackmail material on the folks at Price-Waterhouse can be sent to gleep9@hotmail.com. Now head on down the red carpet to either the Second Movie or Main page.