I’ve watched the annual Academy Awards telecast pretty much every year since I was in elementary school. Blame my mother and the TV Guide. See, Mom has always been drawn to the glamour of the Oscars, the clothes and hair and jewelry, the idea that the proceedings offer a glimpse of the celebrities’ real personalities, and that we viewers out there in TV land are being welcomed into their big, happening party. She grew up in the days when Hollywood was still the Dream Factory, and not just a cutthroat business run by corporate bean counters… when movie stars were, well, stars, and not unkempt schlubs who are claiming to be “just like us” while they snort cocaine off supermodels’ behinds using hundred-dollar bills, or whatever it is they do nowadays. (I know, I’m stuck in the ’80s. Sue me.) She loves seeing her favorites, especially the dwindling number of older actors and directors she identifies with, and it gives her genuine joy to see them win. (Of course, it also pisses her off when they don’t; I’ve had a lot of “how could so-and-so have beat such-and-such?” conversations with her over the years.) She always watched the Oscars, and, given that I was a little boy without much influence in these matters, I watched them with her. And in time, as I started to recognize the actors and directors and got caught up in the Hollywood myth myself, I started to enjoy the show as much as she did.I treasure my memories of the two of us sitting on the hearth, a roaring fire at ours backs, with the dashing men and lovely women of cinema gliding across the screen of our gargantuan old console TV.

Not surprisingly, my interest in the Oscars peaked during the years I worked at the multiplex movie theater, my early 20s, when I was thoroughly immersed in and preoccupied by cinema. My passion has faded a bit in the two decades since then, partly because I seem to be seeing fewer and fewer new-release movies each year, and partly because the films that get nominated these days are usually not the ones I am bothering to see. Not that I expect Captain America to get a Best Picture nod, but a definite rift has opened in recent years between popular films and those the Academy considers good enough to nominate. It didn’t used to be that way; consider past winners such as The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs, or Dances with Wolves, which managed to be both very popular and also critically respected. Nevertheless, I’m still there every winter, watching the Oscars as much out of ingrained habit as anything else, but still watching.

Which brings me to this year’s telecast. I had only limited interest going in — there didn’t seem to much point, as I’ve seen only one of the films nominated in any of the major categories, specifically The Help — but I quickly got sucked in. And sadly, “sucked” is a word that occurred to me a lot during the show. It really was pretty awful this year, in a myriad of ways. The big, boring production numbers of past years were mostly absent, but those that remained weren’t very effective. (Cirque de Soleil may be fascinating in a live setting but on TV, the cameraman never seems to know where he ought to be aiming, so there’s a sense that you’re missing stuff.) The perennial problem of winners getting cut off or having to rush to get through their acceptance speeches seemed particularly bad this time. The camera kept cutting to the frickin’ band instead of showing what the people on stage were doing. Worst of all, the jokes were terrible this year, all of them, from the stuff the presenters were trying to get through to Billy Crystal’s tired old schtick we’ve seen in eight previous Oscar shows. And Crystal himself — a person I normally feel great sympathy toward — was unexpectedly irritating as he mugged his way through his hosting duties, obviously aware that he was falling on his face and unable to do a damn thing about it. And yet, I hung in there, occasionally bouyed by the genuine emotion of an Octavia Spencer or Jean Dujardin, but generally wondering who in the hell was in charge of this mess and how they keep their jobs.

At some point, I decided I had to do something in order to keep myself interested. And so I turned to an activity which is practically cliche for many Internet users, but still something of a novelty to me (considering I’ve never done it before!): I decided to live-tweet this thing.

Yes, I have a Twitter account. Feel free to follow me if that’s your thing, but be warned that I’ve never figured out quite what to do with the damn thing, so my posting — or tweeting, or whatever you call it — is pretty sporadic.

Anyhow, just for fun, I’m going to repost my Oscar-night tweets here. Many of my Loyal Readers have already seen this stuff, either on Twitter or most likely Facebook, which I’ve got set up to repeat whatever I do on Twitter. However, Facebook seemed to be reposting everything out of order, so you may find it valuable to look at these posts again, in the proper descending order in which I made them. (One of the things I dislike about Twitter is that the new stuff is at the top, so if you’re doing something in a sequence, readers have to scroll backwards to get all the pieces.) Brave New World and all that:

• Crystal’s timing is rusty, the filmed comedy sketches are unfunny. Jettison this stuff and give the winners more time to speak. #
• “Hollywood runs on Diet Coke” ad was pretty classy – well-deserved thanks to all the behind-the-scenes folks. #
• Love how genuinely happy Marty Scorsese seems to be for his tech people when they win. #
• Wow. Love Downey Jr., but his bit with Gwyneth just died a miserable, lonely death. Who wrote this crap? #
• Emma Stone and Ben Stiller… another bit goes down in flames. Sigh. #
• I was hoping Real Steel would pick up the statue for Visual FX. Not a big spectacle, but I really loved that one. #
• Congrats to Christopher Plummer! His speech was pure Old Hollywood class… and genuinely funny! First thing tonight that was… #
• I guess John Williams’ day is past when he’s nominated twice and still loses. Ludovic Bource made a classy speech, though. #
• Will Farrell and Zach G: banging your own cymbals still doesn’t make the joke funny. #
• Okay, “Man or Muppet” is an awesome song, but were there really only two nomination-worthy original songs this years? #
• “The Academy accepts on behalf of Woody Allen…” because he’s too big a douchebag to actually show up. #
• Angelina Jolie is supposedly pregnant, right? Could’ve fooled me. I guess exposing her leg up to the uh-huh worked as distraction. #
• Short film categories are frustrating… where can we actually see these films?! #
• Michael Douglas looked healthy. I’m glad. #
• James Earl Jones, Dick Smith, Oprah… Why not keep the camera on them instead of showing the band?! Lamelamelame. #
• Dick Smith’s name didn’t ring a bell until they showed the clips. The man’s a genius based on The Exorcist alone. #
• Oh, and Rick Baker has awesome hair. I envy his silvery ponytail. #
• Esparanza Spalding singing “What a Wonderful World” — beautiful voice, truly impressive ‘fro. #
• “In Memoriam” segment – nice to recognize some technical people for a change, but what did they work on? We don’t know their names! #
• Natalie Portman grew up well. For my money, the most beautiful woman in the room tonight. Red is her color. #
• Still hate this “butter up the acting nominees” thing. Everyone just looks embarrassed as the presenter gushes scripted praise. #
• Meryl Streep is a surprise. I honestly thought Viola Davis had it. But Meryl is amazing, classy & beautiful. I’d buy her a drink. #
• I guess Tom Cruise finally got on the right meds. #
• And it’s The Artist. No surprise. I need to see that. Except now it will be all trendy and popular… #
• And it’s over. Billy Crystal looks relieved. Poor bastard. #
• Dujardin name-checked D. Fairbanks, Hazanavicius thanked Billy Wilder. The French have always had more respect for film history. #
• Final thought: Where was Jack Nicholson this year? He’s usually right there in front… I knew something was terribly off… #

And there you go, my first live-tweeting experience. Hope it was good for you. It was… amusing… for me, although it’s obviously not a substantive way to communicate.

Oh, before I forget, the TV Guide thing. You see, TV Guide used to print this full-page list of all the nominees in each of the major categories. Throughout the broadcast, Mom kept the Guide close at hand, turned to that page, and she would religiously mark off each winner as it was announced. I don’t know why she did it, and probably neither did she; it just seemed to like something that ought to be done. (I used to do something similar when I listened to Casey Kasem’s or Rick Dees’ weekly top-40 countdown radio shows, writing down each song on the back of an old envelope. Why? Damned if I know.) I kind of wish we’d thought to save those lists. I’m frankly surprised one of us didn’t, given how important it seemed at the time…

(Incidentally, Mark Evanier has a few ideas on how to improve the Oscars, and I think I agree with every single one of them…)