So I got 14 out of 28, which is about right for what little I knew about most of the movies. There are a couple of picks I wish I had back (most notably The Barbarian Invasions, which I think I would have gotten had I thought about it for another minute). I didn't expect the clean sweep for Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but as others have noted it was hardly surprising.

Both Greg and JQ have more in-depth comments on the night, but I'll add a few.

* The awards were deadly dull. I wound up reading most of the latest issue of Sports Illustrated during the middle of the telecast, stopping when there was something of relative interest. It was the sort of night where grouping the song nominees worked against them, as including them over the course of the evening would have livened up the dead spots.

* I continue to agree with Greg that they should jettison the host. Billy Crystal was OK, but nothing surprising. I'd much rather give winners more time to talk (and perhaps say something interesting, rather than try to ram all their thank yous into 45 seconds or whatever). It's a dicey proposition (Renee Zellweger would have passed out if she had to talk any longer) but worth the possible added drama.

* While I don't generally watch the Oscars for the dresses, I was a little disappointed at the lack of color. Even more black would have been nice. Points here for Scarlett Johannsen and her green dress and Marcia Gay Harden and her blue maternity dress (a small part of me wishes she'd won for the possibility of the surprise inducing labor).

* Is it me, or did Shohreh Aghdashloo look like a future version of Catherine Zeta-Jones?

* JQ suggested turning off the microphones during the section where we remember all the departed Hollywood types, which is a good idea. I'm not a fan of the Postmortem Barometer of Popularity. I also wonder how John Ritter gets the biggest cheer when, let's be frank, his movie career peaked with Americathon.

* What was Oprah doing there? I mean, other than being Oprah.