Ellen DeGeneres as Oscar host ... It wasn't the most inspiring choice the Academy has ever made. Extremely successful daytime talk show host, yes; primetime awards show, maybe not.
And as the interminable opening montage of nominees cut together as if in a Mac ad finally ended and she took the stage, I was frightened for her. That's never a good sign.
Her opening monologue (written, reportedly, by a team of seven of her usual writers in her kitchen) was nervy, she stumbled over the first line, it was tame and craved easy applause. She wanted to celebrate the diversity of the line-up of nominees, she said. "Because - and I'm putting this out there - without blacks, gays and Jews, there wouldn't be any Oscars... There wouldn't be any one called Oscar". OK, there was one good joke. But come on, Steve Martin prides himself on making at least 20 nominees actually bleed in the opening 30 seconds.
As the ceremony progressed though, Ellen really began to turn it round (God knows, she had plenty of time). She was charming wandering through the stalls making friends with Martin Scorsese and Clint Eastwood. She played to her strengths with a fantastic "accidental" diss of Judi Dench ("She says she can't be here because of a knee operation. Really it's her eyes." I paraphrase but it was very funny). I read that Carrie Fisher and Bruce Vilanch who've scripted previous ceremonies but been sadly missing for a couple of years worked on the links. I'd bet the farm that Carrie (Postcards from the Edge) wrote that one.
She was no Dave Letterman disaster and for Ellen that's definitely a triumph. But she didn't come anywhere near the ceremony's actual highlights - Will Ferrell and Jack Black singing a ditty about why comedians don't win Oscars and - the revelation - Jerry Seinfeld at 3.45am introducing best documentary. Let's face it, he hasn't been around much in recent times and I'd just forgotten how good he is. He was funny, rude, confident and frankly an essential lift half way through a far from brisk ceremony. I think he might have got himself a gig -- Seinfeld in 2008.
