... as Oscar host?

He has gotten, so far, mixed reviews. Some have slammed him, and the whole telecast, as boring. Others, such as Ebert and Roeper, said he was excellent. Ebert said that Stewart reminded him of Johnny Carson, longtime Oscar host, and that Stewart could be host for life if he so wished.

Myself, I give him a B+. There were some good LOL moments, but you could tell that he was used to playing to a smaller crowd, that there was a bit of the fish out of water feeling. I personally love The Daily Show and think that it is one of the funniest shows on TV. Maybe a few more bits like the fake "For Your Consideration" ads would have helped...

I think his nervousness showed. His lines seemed forced at times. I liked his effort and think he will get better next year. (If he gets the call back.)

Wow, I didn't even realize they were on last night. But since the kids are so small I haven't seen anything in the past year but Narnia so I probably would not have recognized any of the movies.

I really like John Stewart. I really like the Daily Show. The Oscars are a contrived event and it would take a miracle to make them truly entertaining. John Stewart is not a miracle worker, though.

He did have some great zingers, however. My favorite was when he was talking about Steven Spielberg and his two Jewish-centric movies, Schindler's List and Munich:

"I think I speak for all Jews when I say I can't wait to see what happens to us next. Trilogy?"

definitely lol'ed at that

I agree; no one is going to have them rolling in the aisles there. One well-written review said that his material probably played better to the home audience than the attendees.

I enjoyed the show a lot. I hope he hosts again next year.

I wish Capote had gotten one or two more awards though. Hoffman's performance has stolen the films thunder. He was amazing, but his performance was certainly not the films only high point. It was my favorite film of the year.

Crash winning the best pic oscar was certainly a surprise. By no mean undeserved, but all the buzz was surrounding Brokeback to win. With all the Brokeback hype, I'm glad it only won the awards it deserved. Ang Lee did a terrific job, and it definately had my favorite score of the year. Acting and best picture though? I don't think so.

The problem is that the audience is very self-important. These people think what they do is so important and that they should not be made fun of (Sean Penn). Stewart's jokes about piracy and Hollywood finally voting for a winner were hillarious, but apparently actors are too important to laugh. The line about Bjork and Dick Cheney was classic, though.

I don't ever remember as many comments about the "big screen" as last night. They definitely want us to go out to the movies.

I seem to enjoy them at home with my 50 inch screen and my Axioms just fine!

You're killing the industry!

Next thing you know, musicians are going to start begging fans at their concerts to buy entire CDs instead of just the good tracks...

Peter - you mean "track." - singular

The Oscars were on, Lisa watched them, I'm not so big into the whole entertainment thing... I stopped downstairs now and then to look in on them, but I don't know Jennifer Aniston from Jennifer Connelly. Kind of a big yawn-fest to me... like watching a junior high awards night.

I am glad to see more cerebral movies getting noticed, though, instead of all the awards going to "Dude, Where's My Pyro?" or whatever's been fished out of George Lucas' or Peter Jackson's septic tanks.

Bren R.

Jennifer Connelly is the one with the darker hair and the bigger ... movie career. So far.

Funny you didn’t include Jennifer Lopez... guess her butt give her away easily... jejeje

Now, concerning the Oscars... Crash won best picture?!
Cmon! That’s the most predictable, cliché movie I've seen in my life.
Granted, Crash is the only movie I've seen from the best picture nominees, but geesh…

Y'know, Crash was also the only best picture nominee that I saw, and I've heard that from a lot of my friends as well. I guess it is because we are all trying to kill the Academy by avoiding the multiplexes, and it's the only best picture nominee (that I know of) that's out on DVD.

oh, and Stewart did pretty well imho. Though, the intro monologue was a bit awkward, particularly the Angelina jolie adoption joke.

I saw four of the five nominees.

I would have rated them:

1) Capote
2) Crash
3) Brokeback Mountain
4) Good Night & Good Luck
5) Munich (didn't see this one)

I saw Crash, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night & Good Luck, and am partway through Munich (don't ask). They are all great movies.

I really want to see Capote. Philip Seymour Hoffman is an amazing actor. If you haven't also seen Owning Mahowney, I highly recommend it.

For those men holding out on Brokeback, just know that the boob shots are far more gratuitous than the man ass shots.

I watched about an hour of the program. I think it all went downhill during the the original song award. There were only 3 original songs nominated, one by Dolly Parton, and a hip hop song called "It's hard for a pimp" won. Wow. I was semi-stunned. I remember thinking that it must have been a lean year out in Hollywood. I gotta rush out and pick up my DVD copy of "To Kill a Mockingbird", and soon.

I don’t like hip-hop music and/or the hip-hop ‘lifestyle’, ...I just don’t get it.
However, the movie Hustle & Flow is a pretty darn good movie. I rent it because of the good reviews it got from ‘respected’ movie critics; I really enjoyed the movie. It’s certainly one of the best movies of ’05 (that I’ve seen). I also like the Weather Man

I didn't mean to make any disparaging remarks about hip-hop and any other genre. I was surprised that there were only 3 original songs worth nominating this year. I imagine that quite a few original songs were overlooked.

Was out of town, so only saw the opening 20 minutes, thought he looked a little uneasy, which was probably to be expected at that point. Guy

Did you all see where Stephen Colbert picked all five of the "major" oscar awards? Best Picture, best actor, best actress, and two others.

He used the "Da Colbert Code" http://www.onegoodmove.org/1gm/

I forgot how to avoid the link police

You cannot avoid the link police!

http://www.onegoodmove.org/1gm/

Thanks PMB

Leesburg Va, huh? I didn't know you were so close by (I am in DC - not close but drivable)

I moved here in December from California.

I normally never watch any of these types of awards shows - grammys, oscars, emmys, etc. That being said we did keep our eye on the show with some interest as my girlfriend's boss was the Manitoba co-producer of Capote. I believe they used their studios during breaks in shooting (all the shooting was done in and around Winnnipeg). We watched the 60minutes interview with Philip Seymour Hoffman and it was interesting to see how intense he really is. My girlfriend's boss confirmed that. He said they'd be done shooting for the day and Hoffman would be back in their studio watching the footage and swearing at himself for not doing something perfectly. This guy takes his job seriously.

I personally thought Jon Stewart did a great job, i agree with most that he did look a little nervous to start but after the first minute or two seemed to loosen up. Probably not as effective as the Daily Show (one of my personal favorites) but not as captive an audience either. I lol'd at more than a few of the jokes including the one calling Walk the Line "Ray, but with white people". Jamie Foxx seemed to like that but psycho Jaoquin (sp?) dindn't seem to find it funny.

In reply to:

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psycho Jaoquin

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The next generations' Christopher Walken...just kinda odd....

no no. Not nearly accidentally funny enough to be a new Walken.

obviously you haven't seen Space Camp.

So, last night, Jon Stewart was back for round two as Oscar host.

I only saw the first hour or so before starting to nod off. I think that my sleepiness was only partially influenced by the telecast; I think the bigger factor was the comfort and near horizontality of my living room chair.

It was hard for me to very interested in the awards this year since I have not (on principle!) been to a movie theater since I got my Axioms and built a real HT. I haven't seen any of the nominees in the major categories, although I understand that some of them are out on DVD and Blu Ray.

Jon seemed to be having some more fun this time. I did enjoy the clips of binoculars and periscopes ...

Your old office furniture?

Heh, the psychiatrist's couch.

Nah, I just have chairs in the office. One day I would like to get a fainting couch just for the fun stereotype.

I guess the couch would make them too comfortable and could lead them to tell you their problems!

Ha!, I started reading this thread from the beginning and by the forth post , spiffnme was complaining why Capote wasn’t nominated for best picture. I was thinking, what?! ...there’s another Capote movie made last year? Then I looked at the post date
The Oscars show only gets interesting when you have seen the nominated movies, at least the nominated for best picture and best directon... On previous years my wife and I at least have seen half of them, these year we’ve seen any of them. So we decided yesterday afternoon to go see either 'There'll be blood' or 'No Country...'.
We decided at the last minute on 'No Country...'. Wow, what a great movie. Not for the squeamish, but really well made. My wife found it a bit too strong but enjoyed the dialog a lot. I think it will be out on DVD next week. Can’t wait to see it again. Also, I’m looking forward to seeing 'There'll be blood' , Michel Clayton and Juno and see how ‘No country for old man' holds up to them.
Oh, another great movie is Once. It’s kind of a musical/drama, they won best song. My wife loved that movie.

I LOVED him the first time he hosted, but last night was really flat. I honestly don't think it was his fault though. They had to slap together that entire show in about 2 weeks due to the writers strike. I certainly hope last night's performance doesn't hinder having him back as host again.

I think the show was alright, and Stewart was pretty good as usual (Yes, I'm a fan of the daily show). But his comment on Glen Hansard at the end of Glen’s acceptance speech was too 'sarcastic' for the general public.

I really liked that he brought out Marketa Irglova to give her half of the acceptance speech for best original song after she was played offstage the first time. That was a class act.

I agree. That was very cool.