I have a lot of questions about the 75th Academy Awards©. Why did we have another interminable line-up of past Oscar winners? Did they not hear the jokes about the last one? Who first had the idea to have Kate Hudson quote Diraeli? I'm all for the banishment of banter, but having everyone read some banal "a wise man once said" anecdote? Why? And where were the fucking clips of the best performances. If you have the time to present a retrospective of speeches by the presidents of the Academy, you have time to show me Jack Nicholson throwing those papers at Len Cariou again.

Obviously, the most egregious wrong, as is so often the case, was to Martin Scorsese. The Academy has once again dropped trou and shown their bare, envious asses at him. Robert Redford is one thing. Kevin Costner is another. But when you have the chance to give a career Oscar to two geniuses, one with one truly great movie and the other with at least three, which one do you give it to? I have not seen The Pianist. I have no doubt that it is a brilliant and haunting film. Still. I can live with Roman Polanski not having an Oscar. I cannot live with Martin Scorsese not having one.

The Thelma Ritter-ization of Julianne Moore is very alarming. Now, even though I thought The Hours was pretentious and horribly over-scored, I'll admit that Nicole Kidman gave a brilliant performance. But the person who broke my heart in that movie, the performance that was the richest and most moving, belonged to Julianne. And her lead performance in Far From Heaven was her most accomplished work to date. Julianne could have won two awards tonight and it would have been fine. Catherine Zeta-Jones was all right in Chicago and Nicole was fine as well, but those are not performances for the ages, Moore's are.

I'm happy for Adrien Brody, but really hope Eric Benet doesn't deck him at the Governor's Ball. Spirited Away was a surprise, and great choice, for Animated Feature. And damn, I really want to see "The Chubb Chubbs". I'm also very glad to be able to utter the phrase "Academy Award Winner Chris Cooper." The words "Academy Award Winner Eminem", however, are not so much fun.

You know who looked good tonight? Rita Moreno. She looked fabulous. As did Kathy Bates, Renee Zelwegger, Nicole, Julianne, well just about everyone. The only true fashion disasters were Sean Connery, apparently auditioning to replace Tom Cruise as Lestat, and Sally Kirkland. But then, making the Worst Dressed list at the Oscars is listed as her profession on her 1040.

Steve Martin was funny, but not the kind of funny he was two years ago. Still, the list of all the people he's had sex with, culminating in Ernest Borgnine, was great. I'm always down with a Borgnine joke.

Michael Moore, what can I say? Is there something that means "Right on, brother" and "Shut the fuck up" at the same time? The election is over, let it go.

What was missing tonight was the fun. The winners were either locks or total surprises, and most of the surprises were pretty unfun at our house. And how, exactly, do you give an award for Art Direction to a movie with long stretches performed in a bare, neutral place and not give it to a movie which perfectly captured not only a period in American history, but in film history as well. How Far From Heaven failed to even be nominated for this award is a joke. But then, more jokes are exactly what this ceremony needed.

Well, now I start a year of biting my nails, praying that Peter Jackson gets the recognition he so richly deserves next year. But, hey, if he doesn't, at least he's in good company. The best, actually.