Oscar Roundup

The Siren has been swamped under her life, and apologizes for her silence of late. She did watch the Oscars, so here are a few random thoughts. Not the best Oscar show ever (to say the least) but not the worst either.

Loved the curtains not opening at the start, and the fact that you could hear the stagehands arguing about it.

"Recession" theme for the opening more than slightly tacky. Golddiggers of 1933 did it much better, with people coming on to repossess everything at the end.

Hugh Jackman was an unfunny and, toward, the end, nearly invisible host.

Eva Marie Saint is 85 and she looked beautiful. Sophia Loren will have other, better nights, I say no more. Meryl Streep has amazing skin and she has passed it on to her beautiful, but ever-so-slightly-snooty-seeming daughter. My favorite dress was Frieda Pinto's. On the runway, it was completely, and I do mean completely, transparent. Check out the original at my pal Annie's place.

The Siren wanted Mickey Rourke to win, but Sean Penn gave a good speech.

Having past winners give back-patting speeches instead of clips was pretty excruciating, but no writer had any presenter dissing anything old so the Siren was happy.

With the tribute section, it's always a way-too-mixed bag. Mad props to whoever included Manny Farber in the Tribute montage. Boo, hiss, to whoever thought it was a good idea to film the onstage screens from a different zip code. Queen Latifah's singing managed to mute the perennial irritant of people applauding for anyone they've actually heard of, turning a valediction into an applause-o-meter, but Edward Copeland has a better idea: just turn off the audience mikes. And who the heck left off Patrick McGoohan? If you need more time, take it.

The Siren suggests trimming the time from Baz Luhrman's medley. I thought it was just the editing with his movies, but it's him. His musical numbers are like something dreamed up by an epileptic interior decorator.

The kids from Slumdog are unbelievably darling. Now I guess I have to see the movie. Was put off by the torture aspect.