By the time the supporting actor squad came out to present its award, whatever element of class that the show's director, Bill Condon, had in mind instead became an attenuating circumstance that provided too lengthy a buildup to one of the few touching moments of the evening: Ledger's parents and sister accepting his posthumous award.
Throughout, the show was a mishmash of camp and film school, the nadir being a tribute to musicals featuring Jackman, Beyonce Knowles and the youthful stars of High School Musical 3 and Mamma Mia, which shoved together West Side Story and Grease, Fred Astaire and Hairspray , and was so raggedly staged and choreographed it reminded me of why I hated Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, who did Rouge, did this.)
These Oscars declared they were going to look forward, but instead they kept looking backward, often to 2008 (!), as a way of honoring not just the nominees and winners, but all the movies that weren't nominated. At one point, the making-of-a-movie conceit got so tired that Will Smith, after bringing us through several steps of post-production, announced, "Hey, I'm still here."
Although Hollywood in previous years moaned and groaned about digital flimflammery taking over real live actors, it was only the invention of the tiny and flexible digital camera that allowed Oscar-winning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle to take us hurtling with him and his movie's characters though the streets of Mumbai, India, and it was only computer-graphic imagery that allowed Brad Pitt and the Oscar-winning makeup artists to create the aging-backward character who gave heart to the vast historical tapestry that won Oscars for art direction and production design.
And whether it was a compendium of clips from the year's animated features or an editing of the year's best romantic moments, it was the digitally created Wall-E who stole the hearts of the audiences at the Kodak Theatre and at home.
High points: Ben Stiller pulling a far-out Joaquin Phoenix imitation in full mountain-man beard and shades; a Judd Apatow film starring Seth Rogen and James Franco as stoners renting all the Oscar contenders and laughing uproariously through Doubt; and Jerry Lewis bringing a bucket of Old Hollywood sentimentality to his acceptance of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. But this year, all the heart was in the celluloid - and the digital.
