The Oscars: Recitation of lists punctuated by musical productions that last 4 days.

Every year, it’s the same. Winners come up on stage, recite a long list of people to thank, and say almost nothing of interest. Yawn.

Instead of actually showing us clips of outstanding performances this year, they decided to bring five former winners out, to play the part of professors handing out oral exam results to each nominee.

This might have worked, if everyone were as good as Robert DeNiro in praising Sean Penn (“How for so many years did Sean Penn get all those jobs playing straight men?”). But we had to suffer through too many Adrian Brodys saying something like: good job, dude.

Did anyone else think the 5 former winners coming out on stage at the same time looked a little too much like ringwraiths descending on Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring? The nominees even looked like frightened hobbits a lot of the time.

Next year, just show us clips of the performances, please.

Hugh Jackman? Really? I like the guy, but it’s kind of like having Colin Firth host. Talented. Handsome. Not all that funny. Sure, Hugh did a good job with the opening number. But then he disappeared. Until the 4 day long musical production.

The only unquestionably great bit of the evening was Steve Martin and Tina Fey's screenwriting introduction. Please let them co-host next year. We need comedians as hosts, not dancing X-Men.

The Man on Wire guy did a magic trick and balanced the Oscar on his chin, and he didn’t even win the Oscar. We need more guys like him to actually win.

The Oscars: Recitation of lists punctuated not often enough by a man balancing an Oscar on his chin.

Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix was certainly funny, but I think he went over the line by wandering around the stage while the nominees for cinematographer were being read. It was a hilarious bit, but unfair to the cinematographers. They should get their moment of glory without the distraction of an on-going comedy routine.

Eveyone seemed genuinely choked up by Heath Ledger’s Oscar. It’s hard to tell though, because they are all such great actors. I was a little choked up though.

Bill Maher was pretty clunky. His message: Religion sucks and see my documentary.

The Oscars: Recitation of lists punctuated by clunky political advocacy combined with self-serving presentations.

Even during the dead people montage, they couldn’t seem to manage to show us the damn movie clips. They showed us the screen that was on-stage that was showing the clips. Then the camera kept swooping around the stage. I felt like I was in a boat during a squall.

Wow, they actually showed men kissing on national prime-time television, during the romance montage. They even got it in twice, with James Franco inching closer to Seth Rogen during the Judd Apatow short that showed James Franco making out with Sean Penn. Nice work. I thought Franco deserved a Best Supporting Actor nod for Milk, so it was good to see him get some Academy love, so to speak.

Oh yeah, there were winners too.

Much as I love Danny Boyle and his entire body of work, I didn’t think Slumdog deserved best picture over Milk.

Kate Winslet deserves an Oscar for her body of work, but I also think Meryl Streep needs to win more Oscars. Sure, she’s been nominated 15 times, but has only won twice, over 25 years ago. She deserves to have won more.

Sean Penn deserved his Oscar. Gave a great little speech too, before pulling out the list and his bi-focals.

Finally, finally, at the end, they had a good film montage. Not only did they show us clips from the nominated movies, but they brilliantly weaved classic film nuggets into each Best Picture montage, related to the theme of that film.

The Oscars: Recitation of lists punctuated by occasionally inspired montages.