Surprise winners ruled the evening at last night’s Academy Awards. Alan Arkin took home a well-deserved Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and Happy Feet stole away the animation award from Cars and Monster House, but perhaps the biggest shock came from the Best Original Song category. With three numbers from Dreamgirls dominating the nominees, it was expected that it would be an easy category to handicap. And though two of the songs were only half decent, “I Love You, I Do” deserved recognition but had to defer to Melissa Etheridge and her ballad created for the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth.

The film also took home tops in the Documentary Feature category, prompting a gushy outpouring for Al Gore. Several times during the night, people broke out speeches about the importance of “going green.” Is this another case of Hollywood applauding itself for its political agenda, or did Etheridge really deserve the nod? All I know is that, by the end of the night, I was tired of seeing Al Gore.

Other thoughts on the Oscars:

• Abagail Breslin looked like I’m sure the rest of the audience felt: bored. Were the shadow dancers and clip montages necessary? There no reason to have an awards show telecast last longer than 4 hours.
• Even so, the “So Long, Farewell” music to cue someone to finish their speech or else seemed a little rude.
• Hooray for Marty Scorsese. I thought The Departed was an exceptional movie, but not his strongest effort of all time. But it was nice that he was finally recognized.
• Pan’s Labyrinth, thought by many in the Movie Hawk circle to be cheated out of a Best Picture nomination, didn’t even receive Best Foreign Language Film. I find this unacceptable.

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