No, no, I *do* think a member ought to see at least every *nominated* film, or opt out of the right to vote in that category.

A bit fascist? Perhaps....

Oh, and I heard from somewhere the Oscar ratings were up. Just how up is up? Anyone got share numbers?

No, they weren't. They were down 8% from last year, the third lowest ratings since 1987. Around 38m people, down from about 42m last year, better than 2003's horrendous 33m.


I don't think the Academy will get anywhere near Titanic's (1997's) 55m viewers in the near future. Not even ROTK got close.

Huh, thanks. Misinformed again.

I think you were looking at the report where the viewership from Males 18-34 are actually up.

They're most likely curious about Brokeback Mountain.

Closet cases.

My thoughts:

AWESOME for Crash!!! I know that myself and Libs both posted that we were pulling for it to pull off the upset. I didn't get to see if anybody else said that. Were you pulling for it, too, Lecter and baumer? I'm glad to see people like Libs, baumer, and Lecter in the Crash deserved it camp with me! (sorry, I don't know getluv, Mr. X, and others as well, I wasn't leaving anybody out)

Congrats to Ang Lee! I feel so bad for him, as he was visibly hurt. He took so much grief over the very good, but very misunderstood Hulk film, and now this. At least he got Best Director.

Congrats to Phillip Seymour Hoffman, even though Phoenix was better and had a much harder role to pull off.

Congrats to Reese, who was the best performance of the year, and the biggest lock in the entire Oscars all season! Some tried to project Huffman, but that was never anything to take seriously. Reese Witherspoon owned the screen in Walk the Line like few actresses and actors ever do. Very deserving!

Congrats to George Clooney! This was never anything that should have been in doubt.

Congrats to Rachel. Too bad for Amy Adams, who I thought would be a suprise win, but Rachel was always the frontrunner.

Congrats to Brokeback Mountain and Crash for their brilliant screenplays! This was an easy call, and positioning these awards right before Director and Picture gave it away that "drama" was trying to be created for the showdown between both films. They didn't even need to read the winners, the positioning told the story, if anybody still had doubts.

I'm surprised John Williams didn't get something since he was nominated twice for Score...

King Kong was brilliantly conceived, but the horrible green screen during the lame stampede scene makes this an embarrasing win. We won't even get into the cheese factory scene where Broday opened up the automatic weapon, never aimed, and picked off giant mosquitos one by one without hitting anyone with a stray bullet. Kong won because of Kong's "acting".

Sith should have been nominated and should have won. They seriously don't like George Lucas.

I am a bit disappointed over Williams' loss as well. Mind you, Brokeback Mountain was a deserving winner for score, it hads the best of the bunch and one of the best last year, but Munich's was close and Williams also delivered great scores for Star Wars and Geisha.

If anything, Ang Lee shouldn't have won Director. Munich was much more masterfully directed and direction wasn't one of BBM's strong assets.

Nonetheless, I couldn't help, but feel bad for Lee and the other Brokeback Mountain people, even though I was happy for Crash. I mean what a slap in the face. I am sure even they were convinced the film would win.

He said he thought he was going to win when E! interviewed him right after the ceremony. He was noticeably upset. Haggis also said he fully expected Brokeback to win because it had won everywhere else.