To 'new york bennie' and YOU are an embarrasment period!! Who the F$$K are you to say that this ISN'T 1932 a-hole so get over yourself and to ALL the bitches mocking Eddie,Beyonce,and Cuba gee racist much c-bags?!! Maybe they 'sucked' because the WHOLE damn show sucked! Hollywood has been a cesspool od garbage for wayyyyyyyy too long now but because you all have been coughing up your hard-earned dough for their years of CRAP just reinforces these no-talent,unoriginal fools! And by the by Robert Downey Jr. is a HIGHLY overrated,obnoxious,worthless crackhead and if that had been a BLACK actor doing whiteface you all would have been PISSED so maybe you are the ones who should be 'embarrased'.

I agree with you. Better than most past Oscar shows I've seen, but still had issues. The best was Sean Penn's line: "I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me."

What Sucked?????? Let me think.....
- The Host!!!! Hugh Jack man is a nice guy, but WTF with the musical number with the High School Musical and Mamma Mia kid??? and when he screamed "The Musical is back"....... A little too gay for me

- The past winners presenting the nominees!!!!!! A night to lick some asses. Anybody think that seemed a scene from a beauty contest?????
I prefer to watch 10 seconds of the movie so I can decide if the FX experts can make Brad Pitt act like a human being for the first time.

- Only two Oscars to The Dark Knight? One oscar to WALL-E?? They were the best movies of the year! Show some respect!
- The Rahman/Legend performance. Very strange... I missed M.I.A.. Why didn't you invite her with her baby?

What didn't suck?
- The Steve Martin - Tina Fey duo! It's great to see martin doing something clever, not the Pink Panther.
- Slumdog Millionaire. Not a classic, but at least the most interesting nominee for Best Picture.
- Kate Winslet best actress. You deserve it for Iris and Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind, and those years crappy performances took the the prize (Admit it! Jennifer Connelly and Hillary Swank suck). But winning over Meryl Streep is the best Oscar you can win!

Only time will tell how well Slumdog holds up. There was a time when Audrey Hepburn was panned for My Fair Lady and although her singing was dubbed, she was excellent.

There have been many movies that were very popular, Titanic comes to mind, but that I absolutely despised. I wonder how many people watch that gem repeatedly.

I thought the overall show was great - didn't like Jennifer Aniston as a presenter - she does B light fare movies at best - Clint Eastwood should have been nominated as Best Actor for "Gran Torino" - Slumdog Millionaire is a good movie, but NOT a Best Picture movie - It will not hold up in later years - I loved Winslet winning for "The Reader," which I loved. But, no Leonardo DiCaprio for "Revolutionary Road"? What's up with that? I love Leo and Kate together in that great movie of a great book.

Mike (12/24), that was a great social argument you tossed out there. It's a pity you didn't say anything about the movies. I do believe that is what this was originally about.

And boom goes the dynamite!

the death montage filmed so far away you couldn't tell who anyone was....

Wall.E should have won for all the technical aspects on where he was nominated and it didn't, shame os them. i'm not even going to talk about of the other (at least 2) categories where he should have been up to. this was just one of the decades best, and i feel like people miss it. Anyway, was a good show with a great host, i haven't realized anne hathaway's voice until last night and it's great, a Tony is gonna come before the Oscar i predict.

In regards to presenting, I felt that having 5 previous winners was both classy and exciting. I am a huge DeNiro and Hopkins fan and I thought it was great to see them talk one on one with the nominees. With the exception of Cuba Gooding Jr. who should have never won in the first place, I thought the presenting went well.

The choice of movies was quite narrow this year in my opinion. I did not appreciate the best picture snubbings of WALL-E and The Dark Knight, nor did I like the fact that it was terribly predictable. I was so happy that Richard Jenkins finally got the respect he deserves.

Now...the host.

Personally, I felt that Hugh Jackman did a terrific job and he truly showed his versatility. That being said, I have and always will be a fan of comedic hosts. I grew up with Johnny Carson and Billy Crystal. Therefore, I was disappointed in the rearrangement of the host.

I almost pissed myself when Franco butchered the pronunciation of "Best Foreign Film".

The "Leopard Skin Pill Box Hat" is originally a Bob Dylan song but the version in the Oscars was done by Beck. Dylan hand picked Beck to cover the song for a new compilation benefiting children in war-torn areas. I still have to pick that up.

I always like when deserving actors and actresses when the awards that they deserve for their work.
Kate Winslet was excellent in "The Reader"!
I haven't seen Sean Penn's performance in "Milk" yet but I'm sure he was deserving. He's a truly under-appreciated actor!
And Heath's performance was stellar as The Joker! (Were you afraid of him? Because I was!) He was totally unpredictable, maniacal, homicidal, devious--everything The Joker was meant to be originally in the Batman comics of old. Like River Phoenix, we'll never know the potential of what he could have become. It saddens me.
Rest In Peace, brother!

loved that my baby kate won best actress.
not only is she hot but she's one heck of an actress!
it was very tight race between rourke and penn but i'm glad penn won.
he really did a magnifcent performance.
rourke could have won just the same as i thought it was a tie between the two.
the people that are slamming penn probably haven't seen milk which i think is silly.
this is supposed to be about the performance of an actor and not whether you like or dislike the character.
he did a great job.
that's my take as i didn't see slumdog.
still it's fantastic that rourke got nominated and is back.
always dug pope,diner, and especially barfly.
rourke rocks and let's hope he gets it next time.

Good Stuff:

Hugh Jackman's opening song (the due with Hathaway worked, against all odds).
Penn's Speech: Finally, someone with some fucking backbone willing to use a the bully pulpit for a cause. Like him or not, he has principles.
The previous-winners-circle. Loved DeNiro, Joel Grey, Shirley McClane. Bump that idea into the Director category as well. My choices- Scorsese, Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Woody Allen, Oliver Stone (if his head can fit in the room, the prick).
Ben Stiller, Steve Martin, Tina Fey for comedy. Laugh out loud time.

Bad Stuff: Let's see. The Musical shit bomb in the middle, the badly coordinated tribute clip, the constant montage of different genres (what no montage of Holocaust films? That could fill in better than musicals!), Eddie Murphy, and Peter Gabriel getting no chance to perform his song. I'm sure there's more, but I don't have space here.

Can anyone tell me the name of the singer or band that did "Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat" for the closing credits of the Oscars? it was really good.

The People (although you don't speak for me) You compared Sean Penn to "John wayne Gacy", can you explain what he did to deserve this? ... Right Wingers do this all the time. They come up with wild fabrications, and no explanation, and we TOLERATE them.

It must have been so hard to choose between Rourke and Penn but either way, one of the two best men was going to win. And it isn't beyond Rourke's abilities to pull out another blinder. ;)

I liked this year's Oscars. The production was fun and light, the winners were predictable (but deserving), and the presenters were MUCH less stale than the usual award show trash.

As for all the people that say the Oscars are too elitist: Sure, they may lean towards message movies too often (The Reader) but the Oscars are about honoring films that combine all of the elements of moviemaking, from script to acting to sound and all, to make great movies, not simply honoring what's popular (The Grammys). It used to be that the great films and the popular films were the same, but Hollywood has begun to sacrifice great cinematography, smart scripts, and fantastic acting for big names, stupid laughs, and things that go boom. Now I think TDK could have taken The Reader's spot for Best Picture nom, but other than that, the Academy did a fantastic job of honoring quality, not popularity.

I thought these Oscars were better than previous years. Possibly the best in 5 years.

I think Sean Penn deserved this awards. I to loved Mickey Rourke. But I thought Sean gave a magnificent performance as Harvey Milk. But I have to give props to Mickey for a great comeback.

The best speech of the night was for Best Original Screenplay. The recipient (Dustin Lance Black) gave a personal touch to his award. I thought it was the highlight of the night. It made me actually get quite emotional.

Overall, it was a good Oscars. I hope next year is even better. (I hope they keep the way they gave the major awards away. Having previous winners was a wonderful idea)

otm. the musical number with beyonce and others was horrendous. one bad idea after another, thrown into a complete mess. horrible outfits, clunky dance moves, songs that didn't go well with one another and the marching snares totally out of the place. i heard the snow white dance number with corey feldman was widely considered the worst musical number in oscar history - baz luhrmann has given us a serious contender.

I hate Danny "Spaz-Wit" Boyle with the burning passion of a thousand suns. So I spent Oscar night eating takeout Chinese food and watching two GOOD movies: "The Graduate" and "The Lucky Ones." Carry on....

I sort of liked the show, but there were so many damn commercials it made it hard to really get into it. It felt like something was missing.

I'm glad Sean Penn won, now Robert Downey Jr. needs to win something!

Two major problems:
1. All Original Song nominees should have been performed in whole, scattered throughout the show. And to see John Legend steal Gabriel's "Down to Earth" felt like a punch in the gut from the Academy after Peter's (good) protest. Plus, no nomination for "The Wrestler". Wtf?
2. During the "In Memoriam" sequence, the camera kept moving around a screen and you couldn't read the people's profession/name. Plus I liked it better when they played clips w/ audio.

I was upset about Mickey. He was my boy.

How do you bash Eddie Murphy's hommage to Nutty Professor but give Steve Martin props after his Pink Panther fiasco? Zonkers.

I liked how they were able to make the Oscars more informal (like the Globes) without turning it into a meaningless affair (like the Globes).

The way the Academy tried to have their cake (not give the Dark Knight or any other "big" movie a fair shake) and eat it too (give a lot of screen time to the marginally talented people from HSM3 and Mamma Mia, as well as to tabloid friendly groupings, ex: Brangelina/Jennifer) was SICKENING

Either embrace the whole spectrum of film making, or simply advertise it as more of an indie award show. (for the record, Milk is my best picture, DK is number 2)

I knew the Academy would have a hard-on for Slumdog, but there was still a glimmer of hope that there's more to a movie than quick editing and an underdog story. Guess I was wrong...

I liked the idea of the past winners standing on stage and speaking directly to the nominees, mainly because it gave each nominee their moment in the spotlight, and it was better than simply showing a 10 second clip of their film. That said, I do feel that they could've maybe gotten better past winners(who knows...maybe they couldn't) The heart-felt messages from Shirly MacLaine to Anne Hathaway, DeNiro to Sean Penn, Michael Douglas to Frank Langella,etc showed that they actually thought of something great to say about these fellow actors, but others, like Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren, Adrien Brody, and Cuba Gooding Jr came off like they didnt think of anything ahead of time and just went up there and winged it. Gooding particularly looked like an idiot trying to make race jokes that were horrible and didnt make much sense. I thought the Academy wouldve wanted to stay away from the fact that they actually once gave this hack an Oscar. I wish Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem could've been there too. And where was George Clooney?
Overall, I thought it was a good show and liked how they gave out the awards according to the order in which a film is made, mainly because it put the screenplay awards at the beginning. Jackman's opening number was fun to watch too, but the medley in the middle of the production with Beyonce was awful. And why include clips of some of the worst movies of the year with oscar contenders? I particularly felt bad for WALL-E, which really stood alone as far as animated movies went this year. It was not only way above the other two nominees(Bolt?...C'mon, but then it had to be shown in a montage with movies like Space Chimps and Madagascar 2? Show some respect for a great movie.

didn't even watch them this year. nominees were awful and hearing about button winning practically everything it was nominated for made me want to hurl. the oscars seem to unfortunately be slowly transforming into the farce of the Grammys.

Steve Martin and Tina Fey actually starred together in a little movie called "Baby Mama," so I guess what you meant was, "Someone get these two a good movie."

Sorry, JP, but the fact that "The Dark Knight" wasn't nominated for Best Picture and Best Director shows that the academy are a lot of boring people who are stuck in the past. I do not think "TDK" is an allegory for anything--it is a taut well-made movie that has deserved every bit of the critical and financial success it has acquired. Nor do I think that "TDK" is the greatest movie ever made. With repeated viewings, it begins to feel a bit too long and could have ended at a couple of points and made a very satisfying movie. But i will say that I have never been more disappointed in the movies that won Oscars than this year. That "Slumdog" (a nice, better than average movie) could manage to come away with 8 awards is unfathomable.

Heath Ledeger wasn't better then Robert Downey Jr, The Jocker role is probably the most obvious characther to still a film and get attention on the popular culture, easy to do for many profesionals actors, but Downey role in Tropic Thunder is amazing, Downey probably will be a good Jocker in another "original" Batman film, but Legger could never be Robert Downey in Tropic Thunder, never!

The Dark Night is a good film but is so overrated:

Another movie were the character wears a Bat suit and fight crime and a bad guy steal the show?

Please people bring on some original ideas!!

The show is painless and predictable. I would have loved to seen some upsets in the acting categories. Anyone instead of Heath Ledger in the Best Supporting Actor category. Let face it, that was a belated Oscar for "Brokeback Mountain". It was kin to Al Pacino getting an Oscar for "Scent Of A Woman". Also, it would have been great to see Richard Jenkins get the award over Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke. Not necessarily, I thought he was better. It just would have more people interested in a really good movie that alot of people missed.

Like I said in another post, I didn't have a horse in a race. So, basically, I was rooting against anything "The Dark Knight" was nominated for. I have nothing against comic book movies getting serious recognition. "The Dark Knight" just wasn't that good. It was entertaining as a summer blockbuster. It had alot of psuedo-deep thoughts. Yet, none of it was coherent. I heard one person defending the movie as an alegory of US war against terrorism. OK, Batman is the US. The Joker is Al Quaida. Would that make Harvey Dent Pakistan? Which character in the movie would be Iraq? The girlfriend who got blown up? As you see, once you put some serious thought into what Christopher Nolan ham-fistedly tried to say. It falls apart quicker than wet tissue paper.

OK, Heath got his Oscar. Now we can finally get past the excruciating hype of his performance and the movie. Which, like "Borat", people five years from now will be wondering, "What did I find so great about this?".

Hated it! Most awkward Oscar show in history. The host was terrible. Stay with comedians, this is not the Tonys. The clips sucked. What happened to showing clips of the individual performances. I think people need to see what made these actors great not what other actors have to say about them. Also, this was supposed to be for 2008 and not the past 80 years, right?