Act 2 of the Oscars: The Show

But after sitting through Barbara Walters' more-stultifying-than-usual pre-Oscar special, which peaked with John Travolta giving a tour of his plane while wearing a pilot's uniform that looked as if it were about to burst into a flotation device, the Oscars seemed as bouncy and well oiled as Russell Crowe's 'do—a '50s Gene Vincent-style quiff that made for a cool rock & roll segue into Dylan's Best Song performance.

Let's face it: Dylan, live by satellite from Australia, was the biggest star of the night. Doing his old-man-with-a-touch-of-eyeliner squint into a camera thrust at his face, his mug nearly as pale as it was during his own movie days (remember the white pancake makeup in Renaldo and Clara?), his teeth an admission of the nicotine that lesser stars whiten their choppers to disguise, Dylan's literal warts-and-all ramble through "Things Have Changed" from Wonder Boys had the audience of superstars stoked (even if a shot into the crowd showed an enraptured Goldie Hawn momentarily dismayed that daughter Kate and her Black Crowe hubby, Chris Robinson, weren't clapping to the beat). And don't tell me you dug Bjork more—her Dancer in the Dark warble wandered more tunelessly than O-Town's harmonies at the Miss America pageant.

Producer Gil Cates assembled some dandy film-history montages for the honorary awards, with the one for cinematographer Jack Cardiff, gliding from Black Narcissus to The Red Shoes to The African Queen, particularly breathtaking. As for the big awards—well, it's great when Julia Roberts brings her dinner-plate smile to Letterman, but her damn-the-clock speech veered dangerously close to Sally Fieldian "You like me!" territory. If the night's best non sequitur was to beam in poor Arthur C. Clarke from his Sri Lankan homestead just to announce Stephen Gaghan's adapted-screenplay award for Traffic (wouldn't it have been more appropriate to have had Hunter S. Thompson hand out that one, with a pile of pills and a bottle of Wild Turkey, live by satellite from Woody Creek, Colo.?), the Oscars' biggest letdown was the barrage of bad Roman Empire puns ("Russell Crowe, you filled a whole arena with the force of your face"—huh?) one of the producers of Gladiator deployed to bury the evening.

Advice to producer Cates: Next year, let's do the Oscars Memento-style--run 'em backward, so we conclude with the boffo opening monologue, and remember only the relevant high points.