Hollywood gets humble

Getting pictures of herself with Clint for her MySpace page! Ho, what a character! Actually dropping a script (and the name of her production company) in Scorsese's lap! She was just one big Ellen-ball! It was the El-Word all night long, and boy, was she a run-on sentence all by her lonesome. She was all-Ellen-veloping.

Sorry, gals, but when self-effacingness is relentlessly self-referential, it is merely self-ish. Or, in this case, 'Ellish.

But there were good parts.

Despite stiff competition, the beloved Alan Arkin was a delirious pleasure to watch accepting the best supporting actor award for his rowdy Grandpa in "Little Miss Sunshine." His speech was full of sublime values that tuned the collective vibrations a bit higher, on a feel-good level, than Ellen's navel:

"Innocence, growth, and connection ... Joy, trust, community."

There was undeniably great eye candy. The interpretive-dance shadow-puppet people were a creative, artsy touch, and it was nice to know that at least one professional dance company earned enough money to exist this year.

The leading ladies reverted back to the safety zone of old Hollywood glamour, which is never a disappointment or a mistake. Quite a few starlets looked jaw-droppingly beautiful in that mesmerizing, nostalgic, light-giving kind of way, with their bare, pearly shoulders, deep red lips and bejeweled metallic gowns cut in the vintage Dior style that holds a willowy body like champagne in a tall flute.

I am impressed by Anne Hathaway, the ingénue of "The Devil Wears Prada." She is poised yet dorky, relaxed yet nervous, preternaturally stunning yet somehow approachable-looking. She has a remarkable quality of seeming like the world's nicest waitress while wearing a Valentino gown made of unborn ballerina fur. According to the laws of physics, she can't actually exist, yet there she was.

Beyoncé, aka "Bodzilla," that most wholesome and breathtaking of starlets, seemed like a lightweight to me until "Dreamgirls," but now I believe she actually has enough personal, autonomous star power to stabilize uranium.

Motherhood seems to have been a good tenderizer for Gwyneth Paltrow, who is no longer apologetically brittle, but curvy and sumptuous. She was ivory, orange and brightly refreshing, like the world's most expensive Creamsicle. Rachel Weisz, likewise, seems to be enjoying a personal zenith of spectacular comeliness, now that both her inner and outer selves look softer. Best actress winner Helen Mirren was regal, splendid and inspiringly fuckable without even a "for her age" qualifier.

It was nice to see that Penélope Cruz has come a long way from being Tom Cruise's exotic bird. Even wonder-child Abigail Breslin was visually fantastic, glowing prettily in a dress that made her look like she came in her own Easter basket.

Celine Dion has been my personal punching-diva for years, but I actually think motherhood and nonstop Vegas performances have done her a world of good, in terms of looking less agonized by self-imposed professional discipline clamps. She looked like she was enjoying herself, and like she really loves singing. One cannot deny that her weird pink dress was packed to the rivets with professional mega-chops in prime condition, and an enhanced sense of humanity.

But I need a crying bib to watch Jennifer Hudson. I had to wring out my blouse after "Dreamgirls."

Hudson is so refreshingly not of that world. She's a perfect Rosetta stone for the big secret of star power -- it's not about how small your nose is, but how expansively and gracefully you accept yourself, how much of yourself you can lovingly reveal.

Her win was everything Halle Berry's 2002 moment should have been: a poised, yet emotional display of the glorious merits of organic virtue. Besides tree-bending vocal prowess, she has that Aretha Franklin thing that raises all the hair on the back of your arms: It's called Soul.

I believe that proximity to Hudson has made Beyoncé three times the singer she used to be. Through Hudson's divine example, Beyoncé finally figured out how to "put some stank on it." The two of them were a typhoon of melismatic emergency, harmonizing together like two police cars in love.

There were a few more low points.

Jack Nicholson, in solidarity with Britney, I suppose ... shaved his head, and looked like Mr. Unclean.

Kate Winslet's dress was a poisonous caterpillar green, I guess so her envy wouldn't show as much as it has in previous years ... but to no avail.

Melissa Etheridge's heavy, browbeating and pedantic "Inconvenient Truth" theme song won an Oscar -- undeservedly, I believe. But it was certainly a step forward for society that she made Oscar history by thanking her wife.

But hey, what is not to like about the Red Sox-like curse of Martin Scorsese finally lifting?

"The Departed" won best picture and best director, and not for nothing: It was structurally perfect, and made by a master.

Was it as good a movie experience as "Little Miss Sunshine"? I think no.

But was it the epitome of film craft? Yes. A technically virtuosic, elegant film machine: a treasure to be celebrated.

Finally, there was one genuinely historic moment: Jerry Seinfeld presenting the Academy Award to Al Gore, who received an A-List standing O in front of a billion viewers. Respect for the office of the American presidency notwithstanding, it should be noted that Sunday night, Hollywood successfully Photoshopped Al Gore's foot into George W.'s ass.

The plates are shifting, people. The trend is irreversible. At this rate, Texas and the entire Republican Party will be completely underwater by 2008.

It makes a larger cultural sense, this renewed appreciation for the genuine article that these Oscars seemed to reflect.

America has been at war for four years. The big unpopular war that the president and his lockstep administration declared was against the Truth. It seems the American people are engaged in a soft revolution: We are simply refusing to get in the back of that hateful bus anymore. We just like things to be honest.

Helen Mirren commented on societal dissatisfaction with a tone-deaf, disconnected leader in a montage about the queen: "She is so iconic and well known, and yet we don't know her at all."

Times, they are a-changin'.

Release the corgis!

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