Also, did he get mostly booed?

You know I have never understood main stream Hollywood's loyalties to the democratic party. The last election Gore traveled the country telling parents that he was going to lead the fight for cenorship in movies, tv, and video games. How does that benefit people like the Baldwins, Martin Sheen, and Susan Sarandan?

You mostly heard gasps and ohhs (like when someone on a sitcom says something bad about anohter character)

Susan supported Nader last time.

Actually, the mix of boos and cheers you heard almost entirely came from the 'public' in the balcony....if you look at footage of the crowd, the celebrities are all just kind of sitting their, not sure what to do. Pretty lame really.....they give him a standing ovation ten seconds earlier for doing exactly what he did on stage in a film, but when he does it there, they fall silent and just sit on their hands. Hypocrites.

• Quoth brizz •<HR SIZE=1>Hypocrites. <HR SIZE=1>

There's a distinct difference between making a very good documentary film based on your agenda and abusing an award ceremony to push your agenda at the inappropriate time. The award wasn't for Best Agenda; it was for Best Documentary: Feature. What's hypocritical is to defend his right to abuse that platform and then criticize the crowd for exercising their own right not to play along, knowing the difference between appreciating his film and approving of his predictable rant.

I wonder what people would have thought if Nicole Kidman had used her speech time to make fun of Tom Cruise being gay (even if he's not). Or maybe someone used his speech time to say, "did you see Halle Berry's speech last year? What a self-absorbed bitch!" True or not, popular or not, it's not appropriate, and if Moore wants to be a jackass, that's his deal ... it's unfair to criticize the rest of the audience for showing the class not to cheer or boo him.

das

I wouldn't have especially enjoyed Nicole talking about Tom (in that or any context), but such a speech would have had the simple virtue of being coherent, something she couldn't manage in the rambling blather she did give.

Didn't Harvey tell her it was in the bag? Couldn't she have written something ? Bad enough she had to win. She added insult to injury by giving that "speech".

And brizz is dead-on. It was the people getting paid $4.50 an hour to keep the seats warm who went all Marat/Sade when Moore spoke. That's clear from the tape.

Harrison Ford was amused.

Yeah, the celebrities in the crowd ranged from quiet amusement to quiet disgust to quiet shock, but it was all pretty quiet. Of course, the mere fact that anyone could be shocked at his speech shows how truly detached some celebrities are from reality. You could definitely tell that some were very pleased and amused with the whole thing.

das

But, in fairness to Nicole, her Oscar was not certainly "in the bag" due to the Chicago hype machine, which made Renee Zellwegger a definite possibility for the statuette. So Nicole could have been really really surprised, or the moment simply overwhelmed her. It happens.

All I know is, if I were ever nominated for a major award, I'd come prepared with a speech. Even if I were considered the "dark horse."

Michael Moore is the person responsible for "Short Circuit." (I think.)

Nicole kind of reminded me of Mr. Mackey: "Uh, folks...violence is bad..."

I beg to differ...the fact of the matter is that they stood up en masse and gave him a standing o for precisely the kind of thing that he then did on stage....it's fine for him to do so elsewhere, but apparently when confronted with it head on they just fell silent and uncomfortably sat there like a bunch of PC CEOs afraid of offending someone. It was hypocritical given the tremendous reception his win got initially....I don't attribute their silence to class, i attribute it to a mix of shocked bemusement and a fear of the cameras all over them.

I thought it was rather amusing, too. They celebrate the man and then he confronts the world w/ his issues in an over-the-top way and they look scared s**tless. They definitely were aware of the cameras on them and their image in front of said cameras.

You're linking two different things. Applauding his documentary is different from applauding his speech. You're overshadowing his talent by assuming that people only appreciated his work because he's a loudmouth publicity whore. He raises good questions with his work and has produced some very good material, and you don't have to agree with his agenda to appreciate that and/or vote for him to win awards for it. Whether it was class or fear or confusion or whatever, the two situations are significantly different, and doing one does not directly follow the other. People are capable of having complex opinions like appreciating his talent and still thinking he's a jackass.

das