I was fortunate enough to be in Canada when the award show aired live, which makes a great change from watching everything either a day late or online (i.e. second hand). Lots of glitz and excellent hosting from Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.

Not quite sure how the assembled took Sacha Baron Cohen’s schtick but the highlight of the evening for me was the 6.5 minutes that Jodie Foster was on stage to receive her Cecil B Demille award. An inspiring and bloody well thought through message; although a little dichotomy I felt combining her “coming out” with a strong closing message on privacy. So cool and touching though that she managed to work in her “ok to go” line in from the movie Contact to her mother.

The low-light, I’m afraid, was the constant badgering that the actors were getting due to time pressure. After they’d used up their “allotted” time the wonderful incidental music lovingly hand-crafted specifically for the evening was played to give an aural nudge to get on with it and if they persisted the volume just got louder. At one point a reverse camera angle even accidentally showed a lit-up WRAP UP sign flashing!!! These people are pretty much the creme de la creme of Hollywood and to be treated this way is IMHO un-called for, un-professional and just plain rude! Perhaps we can look forward to the time when we can see celebrity celebrity wranglers, deftly pulling those who are out of time off-stage with a comedy crook from stage right.

Nicest touch: Michael J. Fox’s son was one of the on stage hosts and boy he looks scarily like his dad!