Yep, Avatar deserved the technical awards, Hurt Locker and other films deserved the creative excellence awards. All fair wins in my opinion, and the best speech of the night came from Sandra Bullock. Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were hideous and the show was a total mess, what relevance a horror montage had to do with any of the ceremony is beyond me...should have let people have more time to make speeches, especially those in the smaller categories who got shunted off stage - awkward!!

I would be more impressd if Kathryn Bigelow wasn't the first woman to win. I think there have been others who deserved it in the past - but she was the current choice du jour. Avatar deserved to win the technical awards of course - but District 9 could have also been a great Best Film choice.

Avatar deseved it's technological awards but did not deserve anything to do with Best Picture or Director and I'm glad The Hurt Locker took it, although I was rooting for Inglorious Basterds...I am just glad Avatar didn't win

It was a boring ceremoney. Baldwin and Martin were boring. The starting sing-song was crap. It was also way over long, despite winners being told to reduce the time they take for their winning comments. The wrong film won best picture - Avator will be remembered in 10 years time, The Hurt Locker won't. The wrong director won too - it appeared to be PC to vote for Biglow rather than Cameron or any of the other Directors. The ending was rushed - I nearly missed who won best picture. The best positive were the awards the Weta guys got and again NZ continues to roll in the Oscars (since Paquin's win, NZer's have reguarly been collecting Oscars).

Was mad that Streisand said Bigelow was first woman nominated for Best Director Oscar. Ummm, Jane Campion anyone?

I think Hurt Locker won for the wrong reasons. I think it won so that Avatar wouldn't. This is because film snobs (not dissimilar to the writer of this blog) love to shun popular movies and dismiss them to make themselves sound above the masses under the pretense of being a film connoisseur. Its really stating to annoy me actually. The Hurt Locker simply wasn't as good as everyone says it is. Good don't get me wrong, but by no means one of the greats.

The bottom line is if it wasn't running against Avatar it wouldn't have won.

I agree, the ceremony was really really boring. But I liked the bit before the Best Animated Feature award with the characters at a junket. There were a few jokes that was good, but Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin didn't work. I haven't seen the Hurt Locker so don't know if it deserved Best Picture.

The Hurt what? I'd never heard of it until the awards were coming up, and I don't recall ever seeing it in the cinema screening ads.

At least I finally managed to make it to Blue Pocohontas. There is no way that film would take out best picture. Technically brilliant, yes (congratulations Weta!) but it was too long and with a very simplistic plot.

District 9 I thought had an outside chance, but historically its not the sort of film that wins. Odd enough that it even got nominated.

As for the rest (both films and awards) YAWN. Its been a pretty ho hum year really.

When oh when oh when are people going to get it!!!???

When James Cameron said "I'm the king of the world!" he was QUOTING FROM THE FILM THAT HE HAD DIRECTED (and Yes, I am shouting because it seems to be the only way to get through to the pundits and critcis). I am sure he was not "crowing" but was (IMHO) making a reasonable witty and relevant comment. Poor chap - he may be difficult to work with, he may have a bad rep - but please stop vilifying him and give him some appreciation for actually directing entertaining and successful movies. (p.s. I enjoy his movies and think they do deserve awards for ground-breaking effects, but he does have a tin ear for dialogue and, I don't believe the movies themselves are necessarily Oscar worthy for Best Picture. But if Oscars are awarded for ability to manage a huge logistical nightmane, having vision, and capability to organise actors and technicians and bring a vision to the screen, then he deserves nominations for Best Director).

Dr Cameron - everyone knows that and it was not witty, merely facile. your 'shouting' just displays your own ignorance of subtlety.