h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, it'll soon be time for the Oscars. It will be a very interesting show, less for the competition itself (Peter Jackson was robbed!) and more for the way it will (or won't) address the war.

As is usual, Bernadette and I will be staying up to watch, so I might post here occasionally, if there are any other viewers online.

Well, Micheal Moore is up for best documentary isn't he - and he's bound to say something. I've also heard that they're doing away with the red carpet.

I suspect they'll start playing music if he gets too political, like they did for the LOTR SFX guys

I'm not watching it, no tv here. What happened with the 'LOTR SFX guys'?? Is it being shown live and uncut?

BBC1 are showing it. They were in the middle of their speech and the orchestra started playing to get them off. Very rude.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/film/2867797.stm

Can't believe they drafted in National Guard. a bit OTT...

It would be a *very* juicy target.

Lots of international coverage.

Michael Moore won.

And I must say i was impressed with his speech.

it's nice that the film industry are happy for the self-indulgent speeches to go on and on (Nicole Kidman and Aiden watsisname, anyone?), but if someone dares to speak out about the US President and condemn the situation we're in, he gets booed.

Notice they crashed him with the music for going on too long, but that Aiden dude got away with just telling the band to stop?

Ah well, a conscience obviously isn't necesarily a good thing to have in Hollywood.

Why they didn't factor in time for his speech I'll never know. It's not as if someone like Michael Moore is going to pass up the chance of an occasion like that to make an important point.

They're only happy with the self-indulgent speeches if it's someone famous. They didn't let any of the technical people get away with full sentences.

I was very irritated that this much-vaunted "45 second speech" rule was implemented on Michael Moore but not on Aiden thungummybob, when Michael Moore had a point to make, but had to cram them into the 45 seconds, while Aiden thingummybob blubbed on about some inanities, and a bit of a "I hope no-one dies in the war" business. For that, he gets an ovatian, for honesty, Michael moore gets booed. Shame, isn't it?

Honesty makes some people uncomfortable. At least a few people had the decency to cheer him.

I can't imagine what would make people actually boo him, though. Unless he was making them feel guilty about their own choices.

I got the impression that a lot of people subscribed to the "we shouldn't do anything which is anti-war with iraq" school of tought, you know, the school of thought that everyone, whatever their opinion, should "get behind our boys", and some people obviously thought that Moore had overstepped the boundary, although I considered him to be making fair points in the ludicrously brief amount of time he was allowed onstage.

I was still astonished people actually *booing* him for speaking his mind though, although i liked what one of Jonathan Ross's studio guests said, that apparently everyone had been warned not to m ake political speeches, and then whichever other guest was on at the time (they were both female and neither was Linda Blair) said that asking MIchael Moore *not* to be political was asking for trouble really.

I'm glad he did give the speech he gave- much better than all the "I'd like to thank my mum, my dad, my school drama teacher, my next door neighbour's cat" and so on.

Yeah, some people booed Michael Moore, but a good few cheered and clapped him too, and it sounded to me like the same one or two voices doing all the booing - prolly Charlton "Pry'em From My Cold Dead Hands" Heston sitting at the back somehwere.

And since I posted that, I'm happy to say the only excerpt of any Oscar speech which NPR have used during their headlines at the top and the bottom of the hour during 'Morning Edition' (their equivalent of 'Today') is Michael Moore shouting "Shame on you Mr Bush, shame on you!"

Egon, regarding the 'get behind our boys' issue, isn't it ridiculous how as soon as war breaks out we're suppossed to become patriotic and forget our differences over the reasons for it in the first place? It's just Blair's way of trying to put a dampner on the anti-war arguments and at the same time imply that anti-war protestors don't care about the lives of coalition forces.

I utterly agree, Frankie.