It lasted more than four hours. No awards show needs to be that long, ever.

And the worst part is, it absolutely did not need to. Last night's show was crammed with more filler than your average botox-ed actress' naturally wrinkly forehead. Montage after montage after montage (the most egregious: Michael Mann's tribute to "American films," which was so wide-reaching that at parts I literally forgot what it was about, and included clips from "The Naked Gun 2 1/2" and "American Dreamz" of all things) and little bits that were cute but added nothing the show. I liked Pilobius Dance's human shadow puppetry, in which the group used its members' bodies to symbolize various pics. But once we got to the "Snakes on a Plane" tribute I had to wonder, Is this really the best way to spend precious show time?

It seemed that the theme last night was "we're celebrating you, nominees." I was unaware that was ever in question. Aren't the Oscars ALWAYS about celebrating the nominees? Is that not what a navel-gazing, back-slapping awards fest is intrinsically designed to do? It started with a seemingly unending montage featuring a bunch of the nominees (and even some non-nominees, I think --- some presenters snuck in there for some reason) talking about....something. The sound quality was terrible and the editing was worse. Then we went to the Kodak theater where all of the nominees in the crowd stood up, clapped for each other, and basically stroked each others' egos as an announcer boasted "an unprecedented 177 nominees." Were there more categories this year or something? How is more nominees a big a deal? It's not like they added nominees because the performances were so great; they added nominees to pad the goddamn show!

Host Ellen DeGeneres got completely swallowed by the broadcast. It was too long, and her shtick too slight. She had a couple funny bits, but brought nothing new to the proceedings. She would be gone for huge stretches at a time, leaving me shocked when she came back: "Oh, I forgot Ellen was hosting this!" I like Ellen a ton, but I wouldn't want her to host another Oscars. (She's great at the Emmys, though.)

Random thought time:

-It really was the most diverse Oscars ever, with most of the major categories stuffed with a wide range of people or pictures of various nationalities or ethnicities. So kudos for that, Oscars.

-Cutest thing of the night: "Little Miss Sunshine"'s Abigail Breslin and "The Pursuit of  Happyness"' Jaden Smith, both under 12, presenting the awards for short films. They looked adorable and actually had fun -- Smith blew a line but played it off masterfully. Next year let's have more kids presenting awards and less earnest adults.

-Least cutest thing of the night: Composer Ennio Marricone's unending acceptance speech for his honorary Oscar, which was delivered entirely in Italian with no subtitles. Presenter Clint Eastwood --- who biffed the tribute monologue, although maybe Ennio doesn't speak English so he doesn't care --- translated for us, but there would be minutes-long stretches when this tiny little man who didn't even look like he wanted to BE there would go on and on in Italian. The camera would show shots of the audience, where the actors pretended to look either touched or interested or deeply involved in what he was saying, but were clearly bored out of their minds.

-Weirdest addition to the ceremony: The live people modeling the Best Costume Design nominees' work. The only thing I could think as it panned by people posing in pieces from "Curse of the Golden Flower," "Devil Wears Prada," "Marie Antoinette" and more was the Showcase Showdown from "The Price is Right." If only the Oscar podium had some gigantic purple flower on the front of it...

-Biggest mistake: Giving Jennifer Hudson an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for "Dreamgirls." Look, I love Hudson. But she is not an actress. You just gave her the great acting award there is over four VERY DESERVING women. I mean, Cate Blanchett? Seriously? It was a musical. She sang. Her acting bits were fine -- better than most of the rest of the cast, that's for sure. But Oscar-worthy? Nope. Total hype, and it'll come back to bite them in the ass. I have a hard time picturing Hudson in anything BUT musicals, and that'll mean another craptacular movie career to add to the Best Supporting Actress pile already featuring Marisa Tomei and Mira Sorvino.

-Best snub: Not giving an award to the aptly named Peter O' Toole. From everything I've read the man is a total jackass who thinks he "deserves" an Oscar. Shut up, Peter O' Toole.

-Thank you for getting it over with: Scorsese. OK, whatever. Maybe Hollywood can now shut up about how "overlooked" he's been. (Again, Shut up, Scorsese.)

-Worst backstage BS: Chris Connelly is such a sycophant, and they kept going to him for some Tim Russert/magic board-type shtick for the Oscar pools. It failed miserably and just ate up time again and again. The best part: Tom Hanks' sarcastically over energetic response when Connelly prodded him for some kind of comment. Oh, Hanks. Let's get another comedy out of you, shall we?

-The Mort-o-Meter: Robert Altman won, with Don Knotts, Red Buttons, and Jack Palance getting decent audience applause. Totally shut out: Anna Nicole Smith, overlooked from her seminal work in “Naked Gun 331/3.”

-Best dressed: Penelope Cruz's dress was gorgeous, although I'm not 100 percent in love with its peachy color on her very tan skin (peach was the color of the night; it is officially the new black, people); Reese Witherspoon finally avoided a cocktail dress this award season and looked amazing in a slate-blue dress with a surprisingly edgy, straightened 'do; Kate Winslet's mint green Grecian-inspired dress was a stunner, and she's classy enough to know not to overdo it with jewels. She was a vision. All in all I was just glad to see color last night, even when it didn't quite work (Nicole Kidman's electric red dress totally overwhelmed her pale complexion, and the shoulder bow was too cutesy; Emily Blunt's blue sparkly gown did nothing for her rack).

-Worst dressed: Anne Hathaway looked ridiculous in her white gown with giant black bow on the front; it would be more appropriate at an eighth-grade dinner dance; Jennifer Hudson's chocolate gown was simple and elegant, but got mucked up by the totally contradictory shiny silver capelet she wore on the red carpet. No idea. Jessica Biel's rock-hard bod was totally obscured by the shapeless sack she was wearing (but again, kudos for the color, a bright magenta). The costume designer from Devil Wears Prada died her hair to match her ridiculous red dress, but I'm not sure she counts. I loved Gwyenth Paltrow's dress and color, but she has a really bad habit of showing me her ACTUAL BREASTS by not a) supporting them or b) covering them up. Put them away, lady. But the worst of the night was Eddie Murphy's date --- sorry, didn't catch the name --- who wore a dress with an actual mirror in the peekaboo-cut top (handy, I guess, if your date has been eating spinach) and this weird cross-crossing at the bottom that made the very toned woman appears to have rolls of flab hanging off her midsection. Just awful.