Oscar show

Quite entertaining, better than recent shows, and my expectations were rather low, thinking Billy Crystal would be boring or something. It dragged a tiny bit toward the end, but it general felt like it moved along a a decent clip.

I enjoyed the more gentle humor; maybe that's Billy's influence, or just the absence of Bruce Villanch. The only joke I thought was mean was Billy grunting while the camera was on Nick Nolte (that whole "what are they thinking" bit should have been skipped entirely).

I thought other people were funny too - Will Farrell and Zach G were hilarious introducing the music awards, Emma Stone was hilarious (and Jonah Hill trying to shut her down), and Robert Downey Jr and Gwyneth Paltrow's intro to the documentary award was a stitch.

Some lovely speeches, especially Octavia and Meryl, who had the audience tearing up.

Some fun new touches - I loved the musicians in the balconies, and Cirque du Soleil was wonderful (though sometimes I was distracted by the film clips showing on the screen behind them).

Too many montages, as always, but several were very good. I enjoyed the stars talking about films, but I thought that was overused. I got a huge kick out of the 1st montage including the Twilight kiss - finally Oscar acknowledges a movie that made half a billion dollars!

I didn't like the focus group bit, it felt really forced and went on too long. Also having the last line, in reference to Gone with the Wind, be "I hope it has monkeys in it" could actually be considered racist - I thought it was a huge mistake to include that line - that's what I'll remember about it. 

Learned some trivia: The Artist was filmed enitrely in LA! And I had no idea this was Gary Oldman's first nomination - how is that even possible?

Some cool records: first French actor to win, and Christopher Plummer becomes the oldest winner, at 82 (his speech was perfect - funny and gracious).

I lost my Oscar pool, as usual, but not as badly as the last couple of years.  I had a feeling Meryl would win, but I also thought George would win, so it's not really a good idea to trust my gut.