My favorite Oscar moments: Bullock’s speech; Streisand presenting to Bigelow; John Hughes tribute, Oprah’s words

Well, I’ve had a busy day so am just now getting around to posting this. Overall, it was a fine Academy Awards telecast even though that interpretive dance numbers was complete torture.

I thought Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were an absolute riot as co-hosts, very funny together and just edgy enough. That was a big success. … The tribute to John Hughes featuring the stars of his movies including Jon Cryer, Molly Ringwald, Matthew Broderick, MacCauley Culkin and Ally Sheedy was absolutely perfect and very moving. … Oprah Winfrey was just so wonderfully eloquent in talking about Gabourey Sidibe as part of the best actress presentation and Gabby’s emotional reaction was just Oscar magic … I was rooting for Meryl Streep to win best actress and feel she deserved to win. But Sandra Bullock had the “momentum” as they say. But Bullock’s extraordinarily gracious and down-to-Earth speech just won me over and feel happy for her. Still, the Oscars are supposed to be about being the best and Streep absolutely was. … Best supporting actress Mo’Nique paid tribute to Hattie MacDaniel who was the first black woman to win an Oscar back in 1940 and the only one for the next 50 years when Whoopi Goldberg won. Mo’Nique pointedly thanked the Academy for making her win “about the performance and not the politics.” … Best actor winner Jeff Bridges was as big of a shoo-in as Mo’Nique but he expressed a lot more joy onstage than the Precious star did. I was damned happy to see this man win, it just felt so completely right. … So did the victory of Kathryn Bigelow for best director and how perfect it was that it was presented to her by Barbra Streisand who helped pave the way for Bigelow and others. Streisand should have been nominated for Yentl and especially for The Prince of Tides which got several other nods back in 1992 including best picture. … As for the photo of presenters Bradley Cooper–Gerard Butler? Their just walking on the stage together was one of my favorite Oscar moments!