MEDIA MONDAY
What have you been reading, listening to, watching?

Playing it Safe
Kenneth Turan has a great Oscar column in today's LA Times: "Breaking no ground: Why 'Crash' won, why 'Brokeback' lost and how the academy chose to play it safe."

Oscar reaction
What did you think? of Jon Stewart? any acceptance speeches catch your attention? of Crash upsetting Brokeback to win best picture?

I thought Stewart was good - kind of a weak start but he warmed up. The gay western montage was hilarious, and the political ads were great. He was at his best when he was ad libbing with the flow of the show.

Liked Clooney's speech.

Really shocked that Crash built enough mo to beat Brokeback. And I think it's too bad.

My wishes for Oscar nights in the future: leave out the song performances. leave out the speech by the Academy President. leave out the useless montages, like the commitment to addressing big issues? and, it's been about 15 years since I saw Five Easy Pieces but what was the big issue there? I saw a scene stuck in that montage and if memory serves, the "big issue" in that scene was Jack Nicholson being upset that he couldn't get a sandwich served the way he liked at a diner. and you'd cut a half-hour off the show, plus have a couple minutes left over to actually allow the best picture winner to finish their speech. What they did to the Crash producer woman last night was embarrassing. You didn't see Clint Eastwood getting that kind of treatment that's for sure.