But not too young. By girlishly giggling and mugging her way into the evening's headlines with breathless blather about kissing Poitier, Julia Roberts exposed a childish, spotlight-hogging, less endearing side of her movie-star self that did her image no favors. And who knows what image scruffy-faced, underdressed Tom Cruise thought he was projecting in his stiff and subdued introduction to the evening's theme: Hollywood courage through 9/11 tears? Career survival skills without a razor?
This year's Oscars were about where we are in 2002, we and the movies and the Harry Winston bodyguards who make it all possible. And perhaps, as Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes said, we really are the most generous nation on earth. Especially when it comes to filling up telecast airtime. Anyhow, now it's done for the year. Spells and curses have been broken, and some unpleasantness has been avoided, too. Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, for instance, didn't have to paste on thespianic smiles when one or the other won for Gosford Park. The modern-day honor of bagging two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor still belongs to Tom Hanks (56 years after Spencer Tracy conjured the same magic), a distinction that, had Russell Crowe played his politicking cards better, our American Best Boy might have had to share with the Bad Boy of Australia.
This year, Oscar did his duty in ways I couldn't have anticipated when making up my lists of who should win and guessing who would. Old, sturdy, clubby, dependable Hollywood was acknowledged with wins for an old-fashioned Hollywood biopic. But a fresh prince and princess of a modern era in progressive Hollywood now also reign. What was a big deal on Oscar night will no longer ever be quite the deal it was--an advance that brings with it new expectations of further progress--for which I applaud all who won, all who voted, and all of us who only sat and watched.
STOPWATCH
[BOX]
STOPWATCH
00:03 Tom Cruise opens the show by deflecting criticism of the Oscars' superficiality, all the while wearing cosmetic braces.
00:11 In an Oscar rarity, perennial pouter Russell Crowe musters a big grin during Whoopi Goldberg's entrance.
00:21 Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland do their best Peter Coyote impersonations as this year's announcers.
00:33 Lord of the Rings makeup man Peter Owen picks up Juliette Binoche's flapper theme from last year.
00:48 Woody Allen engages in a four-minute stand-up routine--and manages to make a Curse of the Jade Scorpion joke before we can.
00:59 Ian McKellen's career: hot! Ian McKellen's date: hotter!
01:15 Prance-prone documentary star Thoth gleefully arrives on stage, in a loincloth by Bob Mackie and nipple rings by Yves Saint Laurent.
02:06 The medley of memorable scores allows orchestra conductor John Williams to pay tribute to...John Williams.
02:43 John Goodman does his best Fabulous Baker Boys imitation. Sexy, yes, but no Thoth!
