RE The Oscars: How do you rate the job host Ellen Degeneres did?

[WI_DEM]

Poll question: RE The Oscars: How do you rate the job host Ellen Degeneres did?

[helderheid]

1. Excellent. I love her.

[FVZA_Colonel]

2. Getting Steven Spielberg to take a picture of her and Clint Eastwood for her MySpace page

was particuarly inspired.

[TahitiNut]

12. Yep. That had me laughing hard enough to get tears.

When she passed judgment on Spielberg's first effort with the camera and asked for a "second take" I laughed hardest. I thought Spielberg showed excellent panache, too, cooperating fully.

[FourScore]

20. That was really great!

I thought she did a terrific job. In fact, I thought the Oscars were very well done in general this year.

[Glorfindel]

3. Just right.

She made it about the nominees, as it should be, and not about her. Very classy indeed.

[hlthe2b]

4. I thought she was excellent... the show was pretty slow

and poorly timed, with so much early "filler" and minor awards culminating in all the major awards in a 10 minute segment (or so it seemed). But, there were good aspects as well, including some of the film segments and Ellen. I really do think she did a great job.

[WI_DEM]

6. I agree, you can have the best host around (and Ellen was very good) but

the Oscars are always slow and monotonous.

[Phredicles]

13. They could shave 45-60 min. off the show just by ditching the montages;

sure, you have to have the tribute to the people who passed away in the last year, but the rest are a drag in every sense of the word.

Ellen DeGeneres is a very likable, warm person, but her sense of humor strikes me more as wry than anything else. The Oscars are too big and grandiose for Wry. I'd like to see Colbert have a go at it, even if the feeling was that at his last emceeing gig he told a bit too much truth.

[Arugula Latte]

33. I always think that tribute to the dead is the best part of the show. nt

[Cha]

34. They're not "monotonous" for some

of us who are movie junkies..I loved every second.

I was surprised that Ellen had never hosted the Oscars before..I guess it was the Emmys that she hosted after bush bombed Iraq.

[MonkeyFunk]

5. I thought

she was the best non-Billy Crystal host in many years.

[Auggie]

7. I'll give her an excellent. That would be one tough show to host and

she did it flawlessly.

[spanone]

8. 'somebody dropped their rolling papers' she was very relaxed & funny.

[Cha]

35. "Oh it was the

band's"! :D And she throws them in the Orchestra Pit!

[The_Casual_Observer]

9. Her stock in trade are those little quirky sketches

with the vacuum cleaner & so on. They were kind of superfluous & made the whole thing longer.

[LSparkle]

10. But it gave us a chance to see people's feet and P. Cruz's dress

When you're going on 4 hours, another 30 seconds is no big deal, and I thought it was cute. (What would have been funny is if she got Penelope's dress stuck in the vacuum!)

[Ian David]

11. Ellen rocks, but she's no Jon Stewart. n/t

[Divernan]

14. The Academy nominations were more artistic & sophisticated than usual, I thought

And Ellen DeGeneres provided just the right humorous, light-hearted touches. She goes the self-deprecating route - poking fun at herself and gentle fun at the big names - and they seemed to delight in her kidding them.

I thoroughly enjoyed this year's show - more than prior years. One thing I really liked was the various ways that global warming was addressed - not only with the awards for best song and An Inconvenient Truth, but that the Acadamy actively "went green".

Working with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the telecast's producers arranged for hybrid vehicles for presenters and staff, comprehensive recycling for the event, and the purchase of renewable energy credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions.

Then there was the broad range of nominees/award winners - China, Japan, Germany, Spain; a very young woman (and not overly madeup or anorectic - the antithesis of the Jon Bennet Ramsey caricature); older women - Mirren, Dench & Streep; black actors/actresses. As Jesse Jackson noted, the Academy includes only 110 African American members out of 5,830 members, but awarded the Best Actor & Best Supporting Actress to black artists.

This broadcast presented to the rest of the world that the "old" U.S. is still there - one that celebrates differences and reaches out to other cultures and parts of the world, and accepts responsibility, and most importantly, honors films which examine serious issues. Gone were the sexed up/Vegas style dance numbers of previous years. Some of the top grossing films, which appeal to the "American Idol" crowd, were ignored, in favor of the movie industry holding to a gold standard for the best it is capable of.

[Cha]

36. That's right..there was no

humiliating, embarrassing jokes at someone else's expense. Sometimes I just want mute it when one of the Oscar hosts starts picking on the selected victims. Ellen didn't do that..it was very classy.

And I was cracking up the whole time as well as interested in who was going to get the next Oscar.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. Good delivery.

Usual bad material.

[IDemo]

16. move over, Billy Crystal

[Annces]

17. She seemed to be out of place there to me

But then she also brought the thing down to earth somewhat. Basically it is about rich celebrities broadcasting their own award show, but we are invited.

[chelsea0011]

18. I find her humor nothing more than a simple smirk from me

And her joke about without blacks, jews, or gays there would be no oscar or the name oscar is without history. Blacks have been all but ignored from the Oscars until recently.

[Divernan]

23. This was 3rd year (out of last 4) : multiple black actors WON Oscars, and even more were nominated

Although Jesse Jackson noted that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences includes only 110 African-Americans out of 5,830 members, such years have been increasingly frequent.

After a long history of the Academy Awards being a largely all-white affair (Chris Rock once called the Oscars a "million white man march") this was the third year where multiple black actors won Oscars.

Denzel Washington ("Training Day") and Halle Berry ("Monster's Ball") memorably shattered the Oscars' racial ceiling in 2002, the first time blacks won both lead-acting prizes. In 2005, Jamie Foxx ("Ray") and Morgan Freeman ("Million Dollar Baby") won Academy Awards, prompting Freeman to say: "It means that Hollywood is continuing to make history. We're evolving with the rest of the world."

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

19. as lame as Billy Crystal

Boring, safe and predictable.

I haven't enjoyed any Oscar hosts for the last 20 years other than David Letterman and Steve Martin.

[Quixote1818]

21. Randi Rhodes has been really hard on her today

Ellen did really good in an AOL poll as well.

[Phredicles]

26. What the hell for?

I mean, like she could do better? That'd be a memorable show: 8+ hours, with all her pontifications. On the other hand, you wouldn't need to have a band to play when the acceptance speeches ran long; 30 seconds is the very longest RR could ever let someone else talk.

[JackBeck]

28. Randi highlighted some of Ellen's jokes and laughed.

My impression was that she found the overall show boring, but not Ellen.

[Cha]

37. What's Randi's fucking problem with

Ellen? She was funny, self deprecating, and the audience loved her.

[Quixote1818]

22. Dupe

Dupe

[TheWraith]

24. Poor. Her style doesn't lend itself to hosting an awards show, in my opinion.

The bit with Eastwood and Spielberg was by far the best of the night, but she doesn't have the kind of pointed comedy that, in my opinion, makes for a really great host. Of course, it didn't help that the rest of the show sucked. They should have cut a lot more of the filler material like the interpretive dances, and in past years they would generally space out the major awards a little better, so that they're not rushing to do them all right at the end when they're already running over. Not to mention so as to keep the audience's attention. They ended up with a nearly four hour show with one hour of watchable material.

[Divernan]

25. I thought the dance numbers were cutting edge culturally and clever

A lot classier than babes with boob jobs spilling out of their Vegas style outfits, and lots of feathers on their heads. I liked the sound effects choir too - I had no idea that people could do those sounds - it was like peeking backstage.

And as a movie buff for the past 60 years, I very much enjoyed all the quick clips of old films and stars. And I liked the explanation of the Academy's film library/research facilities.

In the past, these evenings have been like an old boy's, inner circle roast. Given the fact that our television/broadcast industry, including the news divisions therein, has been taken over by profit motivated owners who cater to the dumbed-down, lowest common denominator of entertainment, the film industry is the Last Frontier of the visual arts in depicting our society to the general public, not to mention to the rest of the world which is so frightened of Bush's insane foreign policies.

[KittyWampus]

29. I was awestruck by those dancers. Never seen anything like it

[Guaranteed]

31. Me too. I thought that, just overall, this was a really good Oscar show.

I've been kind of impressed with our "mainstream arts" in the past year or two. They're not just churning out bullshit anymore.

I.E.- good halftime shows at the Superbowl. Since when? Prince was great. U2 was great.


I think the Britney Spears/Aerosmith duet was the breaking point. People had just had enough.

[Cha]

38. Yeah, same here.."movie buff"..

for a long time now. And this year's Oscars were Outstanding and more than a little credit goes to Ellen.

[TheWraith]

40. Cutting edge culturally? Whatever you're smoking, I'll buy some.

Just so much filler. I'd much rather have seen more attention paid to the actual craft--if you want something to put between awards, show some extended clips of the nominees. Oh, and on top of what I said earlier, none of the songs were very good--not even the one by Melissa Etheridge, who's usually well above that level.

Also, I'm a little distressed that so many people in the media seem to be either ignoring how bad the show was this year, or genuinely thinking it was good, particularly since I remember Jon Stewart being roundly criticized for not being good last year when he was. It was a really, really bad show this year.

At least Scorsese got his nod. Forrest Whitaker and Alan Arkin awinning were very pleasant surprises, I've always liked those guys.

[JackBeck]

27. I loved that her monologue

was all about inclusion and diversity. She fit very well into the show with her quips and delivery. I will always love it when she hosted the Grammys years ago.

And she looked fantastic in her suits.

[Guaranteed]

30. She's always good. Outstanding stage presence.

All one has to do is watch her standup to see that she's pretty much a genius.

[symbolman]

32. I TIVO'D it

so luckily I was able to fast forward through most of her.

SHe's just NOT funny to me.. the Spielberg bit I caught and I laughed, but the rest of it, mostly was just GABBING, and not humor. I find her boring, and am scared to death she's doing to DANCE, AHHHHH!!

Nope, she's not Academy Award material in my eyes, prefer Robin Williams or BEST OF ALL--

STEVEN COLBERT!!! HE WOULD ROCK. :)

[Generator]

39. Not enough Ellen

Though I watch her most everyday so I get my fix. The show was rather long and dull and it had nothing to do with her.