Staying true to his style, Stewart lifts the night

March 06, 2006|Matthew Gilbert, Globe Staff

For Jon Stewart fans, it was a night of relief.

The ''Daily Show" anchor didn't sell out to host the Super Bowl of awards shows. He didn't aim for the old-school vaudeville shtick of Billy Crystal to broaden his appeal. He was his Comedy Central self throughout: wry, deadpan, flip, and slightly subversive. His jokes were as sharp as ever, and punctuated with the pregnant pauses that are his trademark.

The Oscar host doesn't generally get a lot of screen time, but he or she sets the tone of the night. And Stewart's tone was swift, bemused, and ironic. He called ''Walk the Line" '' 'Ray' with white people," which Jamie Foxx, in the audience, thought was a hoot. He joked that Hollywood is so poor its women can't afford fabric to cover their breasts. An auditorium of sternums suddenly felt peculiarly itchy.

Stewart helped the night move painlessly toward its rousing ending, when ''Crash" beat ''Brokeback Mountain" for best picture and the audience erupted in gleeful surprise. He did make political jabs, turning Bjork's famous swan dress from the 2001 Oscars into a swipe at the vice president. The singer-actress couldn't make it, he explained, because ''she was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her." And he quipped that the Oscars are ''a night when you can see all your stars and not have to donate to the Democratic party." But the more potent political bent of the night had more to do with the nominees and winners, such as ''Syriana" and ''The Constant Gardener," than with Stewart.

Pre-filmed comedy sequences contributed to the night's ''Daily Show" flavor. A series of fake TV campaign ads by the nominees was clever. And the clips from classic westerns, arranged with an eye for gay subtext, were a funny razz on the ''Brokeback Mountain" phenomenon. It was a viral video sent to millions of viewers. Naturally, when the lights came up, the camera panned to Heath Ledger, who was smiling.

Despite the fact that fabulous and foolish acceptance speeches are the juiciest part of the Oscars, the producers tried to psych out winners by playing wrap-up music throughout their speeches. From the moment they started talking, the winners were expected to feel they were running long. Also, a pre-filmed skit in which the orchestra accosts Tom Hanks for time-consuming thank-yous aired early on as a kind of warning to any potential ramblers.