Chris Gomez's Oscar Commentary

I've already written about how the Grammy Awards seemed to be losing its luster (and TV ratings) to shows that appealed to a much wider audience, like “American Idol.” I felt the same way about the Academy Awards, especially after the disaster they threw last year (it captured a record-low 32 million viewers). As expected, the Oscars made a few changes to make the show a little more interesting this year – and what we got was something that went surprisingly well.

The Good
#1 – “Wall-E” drop-kicks “Kung Fu Panda” for the Best Animated Feature Oscar! Sure, “Bolt” was a 3-D thrill ride, and everybody loves pandas, but come on – you can't top “Wall-E.” I've been wondering for weeks how “Kung Fu Panda” managed to win big in the Annie Awards, but now that “Wall-E” has proven how good it really is, I can finally sleep at night. Thank you, Andrew Stanton.

#2 – Hugh Jackman made for a good host. No one really expected him to open the Oscars with a musical number I suppose, but he did anyway – and yep, he can carry a tune. And I think to many it's going to be pretty hard to imagine that this is the same guy who'll be playing Wolverine in this summer's must-see movie. He later went on to do a little “High School Musical” tribute to, well, musicals, with the ever mesmerizing Beyonce, and HSM mainstays Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens.

#3 – Ed Catmull, Pixar co-founder, gets honored with the Gordon E. Sawyer award for his work in the digital realm. Not many people know about my industry friend Ed, but he has a this “god” status going in the 3-D animation industry – everything he says should be law :) This is his fifth Academy statuette.


The Bad
#1 – And the dubious award goes to Heath Ledger's entire family, when they received his Best Actor in a Supporting Role award. Everyone was half-expecting him to win Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the Joker in “The Dark Knight,” but to see three members of his family walk up the stage – and each take turns to read the three parts of a PRE-WRITTEN speech in his honor – left a bad taste in my mouth. It's okay for the family to know beforehand about Heath's win, but I really wished they'd been a little less obvious about this rather "interesting arrangement".

He's a really talented actor. I'll give you that. But I'm probably going to anger a lot of Heath's die-hard fans when I say you're just not going to be able to convince me that he deserved the Supporting Role Oscar for his work as The Joker. Anyway, if you really want to keep honoring the man at the expense of others, support this petition for whatever semblance of self-worth it gives you :)


The Funny
#1 - "Hi, I am Steve Martin. And I am Tina Fey. And... I am Steve Martin." The both of them kicked off the Oscar award presentation on a fab note.

#2 – Ben Stiller's parody of Joaquin Phoenix. I couldn't stop laughing at this one. If you missed the Oscars, this is one scene you should YouTube.

#3 - Seth Rogen and James Franco together with Janusz Kamiński, presenting the award for Best Cinematography - Seth Rogen laughs when James Franco stumbles at pronouncing the name of the winner, 'Spielzeugland' by Jochen Alexander Freydank.