> I did not watch the Academy Awards Ceremony at all this year. It is the first year in many that I have managed to do this-- For several years now, I have held the opinion that the Oscars are not worth my time to watch, in part because they go too long, in part because they do not interest me enough, and in part because I am trying to cut back on the amount of TV I watch. I am curious, though-- does anyone have any thoughts on the value of the Academy Awards? Is there a good, solid reason to watch them, or is it better to skip them and find out who won and perhaps watch a few of the winners?

I didn't watch it. Maybe I don't have the right sense of humour, because I've never seen an Academy Awards host whose jokes didn't make me cringe. (I'm thinking this *must* be an example of the truly distinct American sense of humour, because Americans on this forum whose opinions and humour normally coincide with mine have mentioned how funny Steve Martin and Billy Crystal are at the awards, and I can't even BEGIN to understand why.)

I have no interest in what Hollywood stars are wearing, or which movie/actor is considered the best by some people I don't even know. It did occur to me, this year, that if they changed the names of the awards from "Best" to "Most Popular", 95% of each year's controversy would go away. Of course, that makes it sound like the award would be based on statistics, so maybe not.

Watching the ceremony is rendered even more useless because it isn't shown live here. My day went like this: 1) Hear all about who won what, who wore what, and everybody's opinion on that, in Rinkchat. 2) Hours later, on the TV news, hear who won what, who wore what, and everybody's opinion on that. 3) After the news, watch interminable interviews with the winners and losers, rehashed from various overseas networks. 4) After *that*, see an ad exhorting me to tune in later this evening to watch the awards ceremony. Sure. I love watching the game after I've already heard the final score, and seen replays of all the interesting action.

In general, this is what I think of the awards ceremony: if I ever get interested in that sort of thing, I'll start reading women's magazines, which at least take only a couple of minutes to get through. It's the most monumentally uninteresting waste of time I can imagine.

Brunnen-"just isn't the Hollywood-watching type"G