Jude Law was not at the Kodak Theatre on Sunday night – except as a joke.
In a riff that pointed not just to the Brit actor’s ubiquitous presence in many movies last year but to the difference between a star and a popular person, host Chris Rock made fun of Law. He also razzed Colin Farrell and, yes, himself.
“If you want Denzel Washington and all you can get is me, then wait,” he told studio suits.
After all the pre-Oscar buzz that teased or threatened with visions of naughtiness, it turns out the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences had not stooped to conquer when it chose tart-tongued Rock to host the 77th Academy Awards.
Instead, the Academy took a shot. And Rock scored.
The comedian was the best – perhaps the only – surprise in an evening short on them. While this may say something vexing about award program ratings, it hardly spells disaster for the movies themselves.
Early in the program, Morgan Freeman won for his commanding work in “Million Dollar Baby” and Cate Blanchett won the Oscar for supporting performance by an actress for her inhabiting of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese’s Howard Hughes biopic, “The Aviator.”
“The Aviator” did well in the early running; phenomenal editor Thelma Schoonmaker won her second Oscar for editing. (She last won for “Raging Bull.”) But “Million Dollar Baby’s” Clint Eastwood was the winner as the evening progressed, taking home the award for direction and for best picture.
Two class acts going up against each other for Hollywood’s greatest prize can’t be considered a disappointment. From a filmmaking perspective, it was a better than good night: Great performances were rewarded, and a powerhouse of a melodrama won.
Only after eight decades, the show itself has become a work in progress. For the next few installments, the challenge will be how to attract new audiences. Again, this is a TV ratings problem, not a good movie problem. What would the ratings have been like had the Academy nominated the two hugely successful though not better films “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “The Passion of the Christ”?
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2005 ACADEMY AWARDS
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And this lack of onstage drama is not a seven-second delay problem.
Rock nailed one of the dilemmas of the Oscars. The Grammys has music; this year’s was a series of jam sessions of the first order. The Tonys has dancing and singing. No one, Rock said, acts on the Academy Awards show. And if they did it would just make a show that sags in the midsection even more bloated.
A greater danger to the glitz and glamour of the Oscars is the glut in award shows that precedes Oscar night. By the time of Hollywood’s really big show arrives, the Oscars feel like dj vu all over again.
Rock proved that he might become part of a solution to the Oscars woes. He managed to be reverent and irreverent. His was a dance between class and comedy, edge and elegance that ran through the evening.
In a way, this tension is the televised equivalent of the dance the Academy’s voters are doing as more and more independent films and their makers get invited to the party. Granted, “Sideways” wasn’t a big winner, though Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor took the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.
Since they don’t give out Academy Awards for trying, the producers of the show shouldn’t get one. Yet having Beyonc do triple duty as the singer of three of the nominated songs made pop sense. She sang the song from the French film “Les Choristes,” then was accompanied by Andrew Lloyd Webber on “Learn to Be Lonely,” from “The Phantom of the Opera.” For that, she wore a black gown and the sort of sparkling hardware that makes you wonder how she could remain standing.
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 Million Dollar Baby: Won Best Picture; Best Actress Hilary Swank; Best Director Clint Eastwood; Best Supporting Actor Morgan Freeman.
 Ray: Won Best Actor Jamie Foxx  : Won Best Supporting Actress Cate Blanchett; Film Editing; Cinematography; Costume Design
 : Won Best Adapted Screenplay
 : Won Best Original Screenplay  : Won Best Original Score |
And Yo-Yo Ma’s solo requiem for the “In Memoriam” tribute to those filmmakers who died last year – among them Ronald Reagan, Peter Ustinov, Fay Wray, Elmer Bernstein, Christopher Reeve, Ossie Davis and Paul Winfield – was elegant. Respectful as it was, it didn’t deliver a special honor to the great Marlon Brando. Last year Julia Roberts introduced a special tribute to Katharine Hepburn. Brando begged for – no, demanded – the same treatment.
Moviedom’s high points were the actual awards.
The show’s high point was Rock going from the Kodak Theatre to the Magic Johnson multiplex to talk to folks about which films they had loved last year. Not an Academy pic among them. But each of the moviegoers he interviewed was able to do a gracious acceptance speech.
“Gracious” was just the word to describe Sidney Lumet’s speech when he received his lifetime achievement award from Al Pacino: “I’d like to thank the movies.”
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-820-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com .
