And the (yawn) Oscar goes to…

They said it couldn’t be done, but somehow this year’s Academy Awards telecast managed to be longer and more boring than anything in memory. This despite the added thrill of a five-second broadcast delay that would allow censors to cut away to a commercial in case anyone did anything naughty like baring a breast or speaking out of turn;

This despite it being an election year in America, a time when political speech is usually up for grabs, especially among ego-driven actors;

This despite the typically tireless host Billy Crystal pulling out all the stops in his opening movie clip montage and song medley.

Yes, the 76th Oscar ceremony was a milestone of decorum and stone-cold boredom, with most people’s predictions so on the money that bookies couldn’t even make a decent living.

And yet conditions were actually ripe for trouble, despite the network’s decision to delay the usually "live" broadcast by five seconds in the aftermath of Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s "performance" at the Super Bowl halftime show. After that brief breast exposure, you’d think that most of America hadn’t already seen Ms. Jackson’s boobs plenty of times before – on her CD covers, in her videos, in magazines, on the Net.

But the real reason for the time delay, one suspects, was to avoid an embarrassing speech such as last year’s by Best Documentary winner Michael Moore, who used his minute and a half to tut-tut President George W. Bush, calling him a "fictitious president" who had started a "fictitious war" with Iraq.

True, there’s nothing quite as frightening as watching an overpaid actor (or documentary filmmaker) having a meltdown on live TV – except, of course, having them share their thoughts with you. So one can imagine that a nervous control-room technician had a finger poised over the "CUT TO COMMERCIAL" button all night long in the event that any of the following occurred:

• Susan Sarandon’s dress being playfully yanked off by longtime partner Tim Robbins, revealing her "Free Saddam Hussein" nipple caps.

• Susan Sarandon opening her mouth for any reason.

• America critic (and Paris resident) Johnny Depp suddenly turning surly and urinating on the red carpet.

• Mel Gibson’s father showing up, eager to talk about the Holocaust.

• Michael Moore slipping through security long enough to proclaim that this was a "fictitious Oscar ceremony."

• Outspoken liberal and Best Actor nominee Alec Baldwin taking a few token swings at a cameraman, "for old times’ sake."

• Best Actor nominee Sean Penn making a rare appearance, only to show up horribly drunk, rambling on about weapons of mass destruction during his acceptance speech.

As it turned out, Penn did actually sneak in a reference to WMDs during his speech, but most people failed to notice, or else chose to overlook it. The Sarandon couple even eschewed their usual gallery of liberal pins and ribbons, keeping mum in a town that has been so good to them.

And far from crashing the party, Moore appeared only during the opening film clip montage, parodying last year’s concern about the "fictitious war" before being flattened by a CGI-created Oliphaunt. So much for political speeches.

You can’t really blame the show’s producers and this year’s nominees for trying to tone things down a bit. Most actresses chose safe, rather sedate attire, the predominant color being beige, while men’s fashion was the usual boring black tuxedo. There just wasn’t much room for adventure this year, almost as though a somber mood had gripped Hollywood.

Musical numbers were flat and lengthy, with Annie Lennox drowned out by a full orchestra, Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara going on much too long as boring folkies, and Sting putting most of his cherished Baby Boomers to sleep as Elvis Costello plunked a guitar in the background.

Predictably, Lord of the Rings won everything in sight, which surprised absolutely no one. The Best Supporting winners (Tim Robbins, Renee Zellweger) had been telegraphed months ahead through Industry talk, so nobody was the least bit astonished. Everyone knew, as soon as they saw Sean Penn actually sitting in a seat, that he was going to walk away with the Best Actor trophy. And with her role as a serial killer in Monster, Charlize Theron carried on a recent Oscar trend of winning through self-uglification.

The restless crowd got so tired of seeing the same Lord of the Rings troupe file up on stage that host Crystal quipped: "There’s nobody left in New Zealand to thank."

The few "surprises" and moments of spontaneity were provided by Sofia Coppola’s win for Best Screenplay (Lost In Translation), though many now recognize this consolation prize as the "Quentin Tarantino Award."

And last year’s Best Actor winner Adrien Brody got some deserved chuckles when he gave himself a Binaca blast before reading the Best Actress winner (a reference to his facial mauling of presenter Halle Berry last year).

But it was up to presenters Will Ferrell and Jack Black to put things in perspective, offering the following lyrics to the bit of music that rudely swells up when a winner’s speech has gone on too long:

This is it, your time is through,
You’re boring;
You’re rambling on, no end in sight,
You’re boring;
No need to thank your parakeet,
You’re boring;
Look at Catherine Zeta-Jones,
She’s snoring;
You could have rushed up to the stage
But you were lollygagging;
They’re turning off your microphone
And cutting to a commercial

For Del Taco…

At three-and-a-half hours (extended to five hours locally with commercials), this year’s Oscars show could have used a few more nudges like the one above. Or else the awardees should have used the threat of censorship to speed things up a bit. After all, Susan Sarandon’s breasts? Sean Penn’s belligerent speech? Those could have shaved a good 45 minutes off the show right there.