The Oscars: My verdict

The new format of the show SUCKED! And a lot of people at our party were saying Hugh Jackman was great, but just about anyone could be great if they only let him come out two or three times during the entire telecast, and then he just sang and danced, which is what he does well! He was fine, I had no qualms with him, but he definitely did not play the part of host. No jokes about how long the damn thing was, what's up with that? Let's bring back Jon Stewart, or even better, Ben Stiller. He came out to present as Joaquin Phoenix and was awesome. Just go back to one of my Jewish comedian teen crushes and I'll be happy. And these silly montages of all the films in different genres for the year: animated, action, romance. I forgive the comedy one because they had James Franco and Seth Rogan reprising their roles in Pineapple Express to talk about the comedies, and that was actually damn funny. In fact, I didn't realize that's what they were doing until later when someone told me. Make me laugh and you are forgiven. But the rest of them were pointless and just served to pad the 3 and a half hour running time.

But the worst change, the most absolutely horrible tweak they did, was to have past award winners fawn all over the current nominees when introducing an award. It was the most disgusting ass-kissing session I've ever seen. Hollywood, if you want to blow smoke up each other's butts, do it at the after parties. I do not need to see it. Plus, it took FOREVER, and you didn't get to see a clip of the movie to make you go, "huh, that looks interesting, I think I'd like to see that." Or at the very least to see the transformation of actor into character. It was just mostly the nominee trying not to look horribly embarassed as the past winner emptied meaningless compliments into their lap. Our party was about 75% against this new change and about 25% for it. There was actually squealing as some of the past winners came out, although there were also screams of horror at Sophia Loren. Jeez, it looked like she was there to give out two very tarnished Golden Globes, if you know what I mean. Sophia, you're lovely at any age, but hire a stylist. You looked like Peaches n' Cream Barbie.

Tim and I have decided we need to make one major change for next year: we need to have a "shut up I want to hear everything that's said" section right by the television and a "I am only watching this because of the company of good alcohol and great friends and we can be catty and make fun of it" section in the back. I swear, if I heard one more shush, I was going to yell out, "if you wanna' hear everything that's said, watch it at home!" You can obviously see what camp I was in;) Plus I'm a grumpy pregnant lady. I just didn't care enough about anything last night, although there have definitely been years when I wanted to hear some acceptance speeches more than others. I would have loved to hear Mickey Rourke had he won, although I'm certainly happy for Sean Penn since Milk is one of the top Best Picture nominees I want to see.

And one more thing: DO NOT GIVE AWAY THE END OF THE MOVIE IN YOUR STUPID MONTAGES! I am so pissed that they gave away the end of Benjamin Button, a movie I really want to see. Everyone was like, "obviously that's how it has to end, surely you see that coming." And I was like, "maybe, but I'd rather not see that image before the movie, it loses its impact." And don't show Schindler's List images either. Especially the one of the little girl in the red coat. Dammit, I got all choked up when they showed that. Argh!

Oscars, you know I will crawl back to you next year like Rihanna crawling back to Chris Brown, but please re-examine these silly changes you made. I only know one person who likes montages and while she and I have our battle every year over them, I don't think you're getting more ratings from adding montages! Or kiss-up fests. You've got a lot of talent on your side, find someone who has some and get them to make your show entertaining!