It's nice that Oscar voters finally gave an award to a comedic performance, but they must've been drunk to give it to Lee Marvin for falling off his horse pie-eyed in "Cat Ballou." Poor Richard Burton no doubt went out and got blotto that night when he lost that elusive best-actor trophy again, this time for "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold." (He ended up going to his grave as Oscar's biggest loser.) Speaking of death, the only reason Henry Fonda and John Wayne won was because they were croaking. Speaking of old timers: Paul Newman and Al Pacino only won because they were ridiculously overdue; now they're stuck with golden statuettes on their mantles for mediocre movies (OK, one of those flicks was actually awful — guess which one).

Geoffrey Rush wasn't even the lead star of "Shine" — that kid who played his role early in the film really had the most face time and owned that pic — but Rush (like Pacino and Cliff Robertson) had the disability.

If Jack Nicholson had one ounce of human decency he'd give back the Oscar he won for "As Good as It Gets" — he only got it 'cause, well, he's Jack and must be worshipped. (And, come on, he already has two others! Well, maybe one and a half, considering that "Terms of Endearment" jobbie was in supporting.) Academy members didn't feel it was enough that Jack Lemmon merely had that supporting Oscar for "Mr. Roberts," so they gave him one in the lead race for one of the most unwatchably bad movies ever made and that's saying something considering all of the competition starring Dean Martin, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Ronald Reagan .