If you're among the millions of viewers who thought Sunday night's 76th annual Academy Awards show was dull, then consider this:
Twenty-one people actually tried sneaking into Hollywood's Kodak Theatre to see it.
The gate crashers with forged credentials were caught outside the auditorium by security guards and cited by Los Angeles police with misdemeanor trespassing. This obviously calls for multiple pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Who in their right mind would scheme to sit through that? The musical segments were numbing, the acceptance speeches mostly Palm Pilot recitations, and there were fewer splashy production numbers - historically great chances for water cooler cattiness the next day - but that didn't prevent the show from running three hours and 45 minutes, tied with 1984's program as the fourth longest.
Even the suspense of a possible 11-for-11 sweep by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King left the building early. After nine Oscar awards, Peter Jackson's best director win and the film's coronation as best picture were foregone conclusions 30 minutes before the program ended. A boxing match would have been stopped by then.
Thank goodness for best documentary feature winner Errol Morris (The Fog of War) and his warning about a new fog of war descending upon America. How nice that Charlize Theron managed one more sobbing acceptance speech after so many awards for Monster that her tear ducts should be on vacation. And how about that three-second cameo appearance by the real Sean Penn, the guy more concerned with weapons of mass destruction than mass appeal?
The real five-second delay was the extra time folks took to think before they behaved. Morris and Penn, and to a lesser extent Theron, brought a few spontaneous moments to a show that drastically needed them. Let Julie Andrews demonstrate that "promiscuous vocabulary" her husband Blake Edwards praised in his lifetime achievement award acceptance speech.
The watchdogs won, rendering even chronic liberal mouthpiece Tim Robbins speechless about U.S. foreign policy. Robbins' strongest political statement was the hybrid car his troupe drove to the ceremony. His remarks in support of child abuse victims were an admirable means of proving to people that he can be apolitical in mixed company, and the only thing that saved him from bland appreciation.
I would have loved to see best actor nominee Bill Murray doing a reverse Roberto Benigni, walking across the tops of seats heading out of the auditorium when Penn's name was announced as the winner. I wished someone had the courage to wonder why Alison Krauss chose to wear $2-million diamond-studded shoes to sing two common-folk songs from Cold Mountain. Where was Mel Gibson when we really needed him?
Oh, that's right. It was Sunday.
Monday morning, the most interesting post-Oscar stories occurred overseas, where most of this year's Academy Awards are heading.
There was the guy in New Zealand, where betting on the Oscars is legal, who laid down $105,000 on Jackson to win best director. He'll collect a tiny profit of $5,250 for the gamble.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark congratulated Jackson and the other The Return of the King winners after their 16-month production of the Lord of the Rings trilogy down under. She expects the Oscar windfall to boost what is known as "the Frodo economy." Tourism is now a $3.8-billion industry as fans wander Middle-earth, or at least where it was filmed.
There's the justifiably proud reaction in Theron's hometown of Benoni, South Africa, although Monster didn't open in theaters there last Friday as expected. The distributor announced that the film is too "upmarket" for the city.
South Africa President Thabo Mbeki issued a statement declaring: "Theron has proved that we as a nation can produce the best in the world."
Maybe he'll invite her to his palace. Don't expect President Bush to do the same with Penn and Robbins. Zellweger is from Texas, though, so you never know.
Here in America, we're left only with overly polite activists - no noticeable ribbons worn for special causes - and fashion spreads. Sunday's ceremony finally closed the book on Jackson's epic. There are no more mountains to conquer, just a cinematic legacy and one bright hope for award show fans to cherish:
We'll never have to endure Sean Astin hogging the red carpet cameras again.
