Remember last month, when Netscape handed out our own awards for the Golden Globes telecast? The plan was to do the same for the Academy Awards. But last night's production was a strange one, too odd in many ways to be reduced to bullet points, and one largely unworthy of praise. According to Matt Drudge, the general public wasn't even watching--if overnight estimates prove accurate, it will be the third least-watched Oscars in history. Nikki Finke warned us last week that telecast producer Laura Ziskin had a four-hour monster on her hands, but no one wants to believe that kind of bad news in advance. And based on the reports that have so far hit the Web, even those who get paid to watch these things could barely sit through this year's installment. The few bright spots have so far been glossed over by critics who seem appalled in equal measure by the show's lack of spectacle and host Ellen DeGeneres' velvet pantsuit.

These early reports (particularly Brian Lowry's review in Variety and Alessandra Stanley's analysis in the New York Times) sound simultaneously naive and hackneyed. At the Oscar viewing party I attended, at the IFC Center in downtown Manhattan, nobody in the local, primarily film industry-tangential crowd seemed particularly surprised that the show itself was overlong and, for long stretches, dreadfully dull. Certainly no one suggested that what the evening really needed was more production numbers and fewer flamboyant outfits. The New York crowd simply slogged through, clapping some but mocking more, waiting for the good stuff. For our perseverance, we were rewarded with four big wins (Film Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, Best Picture) for the hometown favorite, Martin Scorsese's The Departed. The genuine sense of joy in the room when the final award of the night was announced made sitting through the show's interminable middle three hours seem almost worthwhile.