Road to Redemption: A short polemic on the 75th annual Academy Awards

Like most people I know, I wasn't too thrilled about the idea of wasting four hours of my life watching this year's Oscar telecast. There just didn't seem to be much to get excited about. As always, many of the films that deserved nominations didn't get them. And most of the nominees that did deserve to win didn't seem to have a chance. Chicago was going to win best picture, and the races that were questionable didn't seem to matter. All this predictability was only good for one thing - cashing in on your office Oscar pool.

Fortunately, there was much satisfaction and a few surprises to be had Sunday night. Unfortunately, those same surprises caused my success rate to take a few hits. Things seemed to be going quite smoothly at first, as I managed to get 8 of the first 9 categories right, and 12 of the first 15. Then some unusual things started happening and I wound up with 15 out of 24 overall. That's a respectable 63%, but I'm used to getting around 18 of 24. What's more, I ended up with only 5 out of 9 on the major categories. Nevertheless, I was very happy overall. What follows is a list of what made the Oscars worth watching;

• Hooray for Gollum! Andy Serkis didn't earn a supporting actor nomination, but his performance (with the aid of a little CGI) helped The Two Towers to a visual effects win.
• Hooray for animation! The Academy got off on the wrong foot last year with its inaugural animated feature award by neglecting to even nominate the best animated film - Waking Life. This year the best feature not only was nominated - it also won! Congratulations to my favorite (animated or otherwise) film of last year: Spirited Away. As a bonus, the hilarious sci-fi spoof The ChubbChubbs! won best animated short film.
• Hooray for Michael Moore! You're my hero...
• For speaking your mind in the face of controversy and persecution, and saying the things that no one else is saying.
• For inviting your fellow nominees on stage with you.
• For exercising your freedom of speech.

The nominees were told that any acceptance speeches that dealt with politics would be cut off. To deny movies as a political art form is to deny them their power. The implementation of this restriction is a good indicator of why Hollywood is so creatively bankrupt. Moore's acceptance speech for best documentary feature (for his savage and sad Bowling for Columbine) garnered simultaneous boos and applause, and he was rudely cut short and nearly dragged off stage.

After bringing his fellow nominees on stage to accept the award, he explained that they stood "in solidarity with me, because we like non-fiction, and we are living in fictitious times... We live in a time where we have a man who's sending us to war for fictitious reasons. We are against this war, Mr. Bush. Shame on you, Mr. Bush. Shame on you."

• Hooray for the late great cinematographer Conrad Hall! He passed away in January, but he still won an Oscar for his gorgeous photography on Road to Perdition. His son accepted the award on his behalf.
• Hooray for foreign films! The two best foreign-language features of last year were Y Tu Mama Tambien and Talk to Her. Neither were nominated for best foreign-language film because of the Academy's arcane rule system, and because their respective countries (Mexico and Spain) egregiously overlooked them. The voters made up for it by nominating both in other categories, and awarding an Oscar to writer-director Pedro Almodovar.
• And finally, hooray for actor Adrien Brody and director Roman Polanski, who collaborated on The Pianist - and wound up surprise Oscar-winners in the process! The directing race was thought to be a two-way contest between Chicago's Rob Marshall and Martin Scorsese for Gangs of New York. Polanski couldn't even attend the ceremony because he's still in exile from this country.

And the best actor category was supposed to come down to Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson. A shocked Adrien Brody gave an impassioned acceptance speech that went well past his deadline - and was the highlight of the evening. If things like this keep happening, the Academy Awards may become something they've never really been - relevant.