I know the telecast will be in HD. But what will it be 720p or 1081i. I think because it is ABC, it will probably be 720p. I will be glad when it is over so I can stop hearing about the overblown, overlong, overhyped and much overrated Lord of the Rings crap! Mystic River is an immensely more important film that deals with actual human beings in realistic situations and is far more deserving of the statue! It is also a film that lingers with you for days after seeing it. Lets hope it can pull off the upset. Sorry, had to get that out.

The telecast will be 720P, just like it was last year. It looked and sounded great upconverted to 1080I and DD 5.1.

One's opinion of a film is subjective at best. I too liked Mystic River, a whole bunch, actually. However, LOTR is a masterpiece, IMHO. Not just Return of the King, but the entire trilogy. It will win the award based on all three films which were each nominated for Best Picture.

it always happens that when a movie is released early, and receives high acclaim, it is forgotten when the last days of the year arrivals hit the theatres....this year the performance of Robert Duvall in open range was a guarrenteed Winner when the movie came out...but now no one even mentions it.instead we have Jonny Depp.....I liked Pirates...but AW nominated performance......

anyway....for those of you that have not seen it..check out OPEN RANGE.....a fantastic western with the best gun fight you will see or hear...it had me jumping in the movies and the gunshots are just as great in my HT.....awesome cinemagotraphy.....and even Kevin Costner shines as a former gun hand....that goes back to gun fighting .....talk about a ruthless killer!

I also liked Open Range a great deal. I thought Annette Bening stood out as the female foil. Duvall was great as the old grizzled buffalo skinner. The final gunfight was, as you say, something to behold. It rivals the opening scenes of Heat from 1995.

Same complaint here regarding the Golden Globes. Only one movie released prior to October won an award, and it was released in August. What a sham.

Always happens; the Academy voters have extremely short memories. That is why there was such a fuss when they threatened to cease letting screeners be sent out to potential voters. Most of the those films were small independents and/or early in the year releases. Doesn't bode well for Passion of the Christ either. I agree that Open Range was a good film, but not without flaws. I think Costner tried to hard to reinvent the western as Eastwood did with Unforgiven in 1992. (Good guys not so good, bad guys not so bad). I felt that Costner's character brought the movie down a few notches with his uncovincingly brooding persona as Duvalls sidekick. I really could not see Benning's character falling for him in any way. It seemed forced and made the film difficult for me to enjoy. Plus, the supporting cast seemed to be mailing in their performances. The cinematography and music were inspiring however, which saved the whole thing for me.

I disagree with the previous post....I thought Costner's performance was very good..He and Duvall worked together perfectly.....but I agree that I did not care for Annette Bennings character and the happy love story ending....... a good reason for this is that the story was written by a woman..my girlfriend liked the ending , but I did not..granted it is not a perfect movie, and has it's flaws.....but it is a very entertaining film.....my first post was meant for Duvall, how he was touted as a sure thing for an academy award, but now his performance has been swept under the rug....as far as the rest of the casts performance....you get what you pay for..as this film was made in Canada to keep costs down, and most of the other cast memmbers were Canadian and low budget types...except maybe James Russo

Duvall is always a treat to watch, no matter the film. Costner, on the other hand, is basically a one note actor. He seems to have difficulty digging inside himself to find the right pitch for his characters. Most of the time he comes off as obnoxious and unsympathetic...IMHO. I am trying to remember a film with him in which I truly empathized with his character. As I look at his body of work, it seems as if he never becomes the character, basically just playing himself in his roles. Some actors can get away with this (Harrison Ford, but not as of late, Tom Cruise and Adam Sandler, except for Punch-Drunk Love which he took a big chance with a great directot who pulled something special out of him).

For the past 3 days, I have not had the HD side for ABC in Los Angeles. Shows a good signal strength, show info, etc., but no picture. Anyone else have this problem or is is just something with my equip?

ABC gets 4 stars from me for last evening HDTV telecast of the Oscars. I thought the picture and surround sound quality was superb! Everthing from the "Count Down to the Oscars", to Billy Crystal's opening with the films, to all the film clips was all 16:9 HDTV. Thanks ABC!

As for the Awards themselves, too bad Clint Eastwood was up against Lord of the Rings. He is a great director and I hope he is awarded for his efforts before too long. I cannot wait for "Mystic River" to come out on DVD.

Yes, I enjoy Robert Duvall's performances as well, including "Open Range". I saw him in a delightful film on the weekend, "Secondhand Lions".

HiDefBob

Actually Clint received an Oscar for Best Director with UNFORGIVEN which also was also Best Picture (he got one for that as well) in 1993.

I was hoping Mystic River would pull the upset, but not the case. I really thought the Academy would give LOTR all the tech awards and Jackson the director honor (which they did). However, I really felt they would actually give the statue to Mystic River for best picture since it was immensely better than LOTR. But the Oscars are very political and the best picture does not always win; think Born on the 4th of July losing to Driving Miss Daisy, Color Purple losing to Out of Africa, etc... Every time I see a shot or frame or scene from LOTR, it always shows one of the characters with a painfully distraught look on their faces, mostly Elijah Wood. I am surprised he does not have wrinkles on his forehead burned in by now. It also says something when none of the actors in the film were nominated for anything! LOTR was all plot; the plight of that confounded ring! Lets hope we can now stop hearing about this film! LOTR was not even Peter Jackson's best film. Has anyone seen The Frighteners with Michael J. Fox? I am looking forward to his remake of King Kong though. All of this IMHO of course.

Ron.... I also could not get HD ABC OTA.... I don't know if it was a low signal or what.... I got Everything ELSE OTA (CBS..NBC..WB..Fox.. PBS.. KCAL ...and all the Spanish Digitals..)

Ended up watching KABC HD over COX Cable.... but they have no 5.1 audio!!! (Only stereo!!!)

>> It also says something when none of the actors in the film were nominated for anything!<<

I guess the same could be said for "The Last Emperor" and "Braveheart" both of which won Best Picture with no acting nominations....

I thought ABC's telecast of the OSCARS last nite was excellent...colors were vibrant, detail was terrific,....sound could have been better as it was dd 5.1 but the sound was mainly confined to front 3 speakers..the only HD commercial was for Voom....what a shame since Tiger Wood's hilarious performance of Bill Murray's character , Karl, in Caddyshack was one I was waiting to see.....

as to the award themselves, well certainly the awards given to THE LORD OF THE RINGS were more based on the complete trilogy than THE RETURN OF THE KING in itself....I realy enjoyed this trilogy but hands down the best of the 3 was THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS....the last 2 were really good but slow on story and high on special effects and action, not to mention extremely violent sans the gore ....they could have and should have been combined into one film instead of 2 teadiously long movies that were saved only by the CGI and phenominal sound.....i'm not so sure even Tolkien himself could have sit through them more than once

Congrats to all the winners...and also those who did not win as there were no losers.......all were deserving of recognition

p.s

since I started this Duvall thing...check out his performance alongside the late Richard Harris, in WRESTELING ERNEST HEMINGWAY....another one of his great performances in a buddy type role that will have you applauding

MY SPELLING HAS BEEN GETTING WORSE
that's "WRESTLEING ERNEST HEMMINGWAY"..hope that's right this time

To each his own, I guess. I thought Return of the King was the best one - it did not seem as long as it was. When I looked at my watch I couldn't believe it. Sorry you didn't like it.

Why was it whenever LOTR won an award about 10 people
would head up on stage and thank everyone to the point
of naseau? When it won best picture even the not
even nominated cast was up there thanking and thanking.

Just glad it's over. May they never make another.

Carl

"To each his own, I guess. I thought Return of the King was the best one - it did not seem as long as it was. When I looked at my watch I couldn't believe it."

ROTK was the worst one. It was good, but by far it wasn't even worthy of a best picture nomination.

No movie can be best picture if the audience is ready to leave before the movie is over. That dang movie ended 3 times before it was over. The audience actually sighed when the movie didn't end and just kept going. Of all the LOTR movies, that was the only one where I was waiting for it to end. The other two I was sadden that it was over.

Like I said, to each his own. My reaction and the reaction of everyone else in the theatre was the direct opposite that you described.