The 73rd Annual Academy Awards

Please, banish Billy Crystal forever! Steve Martin's sly, understated wit, and his willingness to anger the humorless talent in the audience, was brilliant and refreshing. He was gracious without pandering or being silly. The bad; once again the Best Picture award went to a film nobody will remember five years from now.

This was by far the best Oscar show I've seen so far. The show for 2000 was a total bomb where the hi-tech computer look of the show was concerned but the outcome of all the winners were as I expected. This year was worth all the negativity from last year. Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts were my choices for best actor/actress. Marcia Gay Harden (in POLLOCK)was my choice for supporting actress but I figured it go to Kate Hudson for ALMOST FAMOUS (though she wasn't very good). The real surprise for me was Steven Soderbergh as best director of TRAFFIC over predicted winner Ang Lee for the over-hyped CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON... in my opinion he wouldn't have deserved it. It didn't deserve the art direction award either which should have gone to GLADIATOR. The Roman, Toga-donned epic wasn't a surprise winner for Best Picture of course though TRAFFIC did put up quite a good battle. I was happy to see Miss Roberts win best actress but after a while (especially after her over-excited acceptance speech) she started to turn me and a lot of other people off. Host Steve Martin was just adequate and his smart-aleck remarks towards Russell Crowe "hitting on" Ellen Burstyn and Tom Hanks alleged ring-leading of the plot to kidnap Russell Crowe were in really bad taste. I miss Whoopi! But the show was all-in-all a real enjoyment... if only because the sets were reasonably attractive and the winners were deserving.

Here's what I think should've won this time:

Best Picture: Traffic

Best Director: Ridley Scott (Gladiator)

Best Actor: Tom Hanks (Cast Away)

Best Actress: Ellen Burstyn (Requiem for a Dream)

Best Supporting Actor: Albert Finney (Erin Brockovich)

Best Supporting Actress: Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock)

The show was great, although Bjørk's swan dress will probably be more remembered than Gladiator.a very cool dress in my book...I was personally rooting for Crouching Tigre all the way...because once in a blue moon a fantasy flick should win for Best Picture!

...And what else can you feel when Bob Dylan wins an Academy Award other than pure happiness and joy? His humble acceptance speech was no less riveting than his exciting via-satellite performance. I only wished I could've been there to start a standing ovation. Truly memorable.

Steve Martin is certainly one of the Oscar hosts whom I like most. His comment about "Dude, Where's My Car?" here was a big enough laugh in and of itself. Most of the evening was actually a little bit predictable, and I thought that Ed Harris did a better job in "Pollock" than Russell Crowe did in "Gladiator". Listening to Julia Roberts's acceptance speech, it was clear that she was more full of herself than the people doing costume design and stuff like that. But I do think that "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" - remember Steve Martin's comment about the title characters - deserved its win. As for Bjork's dress, I now like the fact that it provided Jon Stewart with a joke when he hosted the Oscars a few years later.

Looking back on "The 73rd Annual Academy Awards", some things are a little surprising. This was the last Oscars ceremony before September 11, 2001. Did that make this ceremony a sign of things to come? I don't know, and maybe I'm the only person who even identified that. But mostly I liked the ceremony.