In past years, Roger Ebert was one of the hosts of the post-Oscar local telecast on KABC-TV Channel 7. Here's a link to Roger's recently-posted article on the 81st annual ceremony: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090222/OSCARS/902229997
I didn't see all of the telecast, but thought that Lawrence Mark and Bill Condon did a surprisingly not-bad job of production. Perhaps the only major debit was the decision to have Queen Latifah (again adopting her Dana Owens vocalist persona) sing "I'll Be Seeing You" over the In Memoriam segment. Let the clips speak for themselves, please.
A minor debit for the Judd Apatow PINEAPPLE EXPRESS-themed clipshow, which mostly existed for Apatow to extend a "my movies make a lot of money for the Industry and all I get is a Blackberry message to make a short film for the Oscar show" middle-finger to Hollywood. Note to Judd: with the sort-of exception of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, most of the films I saw that you had an active or passive hand in creating for release last year aren't going to be considered comedy classics (and that especially goes for STEP BROTHERS). Even the JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE commercial with Kimmel and Tom Cruise was funnier.
Otherwise, the awards were predictable, except for Foreign Film (thought it would go to THE CLASS or WALTZ WITH BASHIR), Feature Documentary (thought something intended as more conventionally ennobling such as TROUBLE THE WATER or THE GARDEN would win over the generally good, overly-adoring-of-performance-art MAN ON WIRE), costumes (glad to see THE DUCHESS shown a tiny amount of love) and Best Actor (equally happy with either Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke taking the prize home).
And congratulations to Kate Winslet and (posthumously) Heath Ledger for winning what can be partially considered Body-of-Work awards.
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