Once again, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts managed to not surprise me with its ability to choose the mediocre.

The Oscars is a huge night at my house. I’m a movie geek, so even though I rarely believe the best films and performances of the year were selected, I watch with baited breath. I can’t help it.

Of course, half the fun is laughing over the insanely rich wearing clothes that wouldn’t sell at a garage sale. You know they spent thousands on their clothes, but you have to wonder why. Gwyneth Paltrow was wearing what looked to be an albino nipple S&M contraption. You could clearly see her nipples through this muslin like material. Over the muslin was a horribly random grouping of black fabric that caused her anorexic body to look as though giant fat rolls were spilling out everywhere.

Worse was Cameron Diaz, who appeared to be wearing a silk bathrobe and forgot to wash and comb her hair. Frighteningly, I’ll be her clothes cost more than my car. Jennifer Lopez looked like a refugee from Charlie’s Angels, with the Ultimate Immobile Curls. I kept expecting her to break out some roller-skates and boogie to The Ohio Players.

Why they keep hiring Whoopi Goldberg is beyond me. Periodically, she’d make me chuckle, but overall she seemed to be amusing herself. I missed the smart, self-deprecating, intelligent wit of Steve Martin. Goldberg is just . . . unfunny. She was showed up by Woody Allen’s off-the-cuff standup comments regarding his appearance at the awards. His five-minute routine was by far, the funniest moment of the evening.

The awards, of course, were somewhat predictable, though poorly selected. While I enjoyed Jim Broadbent, Ian McKellan was the superior performance. He transformed himself and brought a character to life. Denzel and Halle Berry certainly deserved their awards; though Berry’s maudlin speech was a little . . . well . . . maudlin. And long. Snore. I’m just not that interested in how these actors feel, I suppose. They give no glimpse into their psyche but, rather, give you an endless stream of excuses and agent product placements.

I was happy for Randy Newman. I love the man. Though I don’t think his best song won last night (Come on, “I Love to See You Smile” and “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” never one? Hell.) his composition was clearly the best song of the evening. His bitter sarcasm was truly welcomed in our house. I love that man.

The travesties of the evening were the fact that Amelie won nothing. (I suppose it was too original.) And that Shrek beat Monsters, Inc.

Let’s get serious here. Shrek is an ugly, intermittently funny film. It is just not that great. I thought Shrek's character design was about as ugly as you can get. Plus, the characters' interaction with the background was awful. It looked like colorforms. PDI, in my book, still has a lot of work to do. They had some nice movement, but in a poor vehicle. Also thought the script wasn't as sharp as everyone said it was . . .

That's one of DreamWorks' biggest faults, actually. They are not very good at blending elements. Look at their traditional animated films and the CG elements stick out. Disney is better, but they can all learn from the techniques Brad Bird used in The Iron Giant. Almost flawless.

Jimmy Neutron is a step in a great direction as well. Stylish, well designed and not trying for a hyper reality.

For sheer artistry, beauty and damn fine story telling, Pixar deserves a thousand awards.

In the end it doesn’t matter. The movies I like will never win these awards. I enjoy art mixed with entertainment. The general public, and the academy, seem to prefer pedestrian, manipulative pastiche. I can live with that.

As long as the art survives. When the aliens arrive and enslave us, I guarantee they’ll laugh and cry at Monsters, Inc. and say that Shrek, while technically interesting, is an ugly piece of animation. They’ll wonder at the beauty of Amelie and ponder over the oddities of Moulin Rouge. They’ll think A Beautiful Mind is a worthy effort, but nothing all that exciting.

And then they’ll watch Mulholland Drive and wonder, “What the hell was that?” And David Lynch will become their leader and we’ll all start seeing midgets.

Or something . . .