Host DeGeneres schmoozed as her audience snoozed

Wearing a red velvet suit, she had less comic impact than one or two glimpses of Jack Nicholson, who’d shaved his head in solidarity with Britney Spears. When she offered a script to Martin Scorsese in the audience, she wanted us to laugh, but we cringed as Mark Wahlberg sat right behind them. Moments earlier, Wahlberg had lost his supporting-actor contest.

And so the night proceeded with the same meandering, awkward tone as DeGeneres, inching toward nothing in particular. Instead of the usual policy of announcing a few major prizes at the beginning, the first supporting award — to Alan Arkin, who stoically read his acceptance until a mention of his family brought a falter to his voice — wasn’t announced until almost an hour into the telecast. That’s just too much time to string us along.

The Oscarcast producers pulled out some old, old, old tricks to distract us during the early part of the night. We got a cutesy song and dance from Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and John C. Reilly about how sad, angry, and envious comedians feel about the Oscars. It wasn’t bad; it was charming; but still it felt like a stall. So did director Errol Morris’s interviews with the nominees, which opened the night, as well as a performance in which a chorus created sound effects — helicopters, cars, wind, water — for film clips.

And then there was the montage about writing, and then there were the Pilobolus dancers making cool shadow shapes. They were minutes, many minutes, we will never get back. Those of us looking for Oscar-worthy thrills had to settle for repeated shots of Peter O’Toole pretending he knew what was going on, or the odd glimpse of someone completely out of context — Jerry Seinfeld?

The E! red carpet preshow had only a few moments of oddity, although no O’Toole. Jennifer Hudson greeted Ryan Seacrest wearing a tin-foil-like jacket-ette. Somewhere in her refrigerator, a leftover is naked.