Oscars Consensus: Bland, Boring, and Nobody Watched

The Oscars are a ratings dud. Nielsen Media Research says preliminary ratings for the 80th annual Academy Awards telecast are 14 percent lower than the least-watched ceremony ever.

Nielsen said Monday that overnight ratings are also 21 percent lower than last year, when "The Departed" was named best picture.

Everything just seemed so bland...from the dull selection in dresses, to Jon Stewart's safe hosting duties...to the expected wins. There was nothing shocking or gasp-inducing. Even Marion Cotillard's win for Best Actress had been presaged by her Golden Globe, BAFTA and Cesar wins. Not such a huge surprise when you think about it. Her performance as Edith Piaf relied on a complete physical transformation....and Oscar loves a young pretty actress getting ugly for her art. Think of Charlize Theron for Monster...or Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry.

“This year’s Oscars were funereal,” says one top LA agent. “Only it was the kind of funeral where nobody really cares about the bloke who died.” [...] It was all so dour. Where was the elegance of Helen Mirren’s win last year, the unpredictability of Roberto Benigni’s acceptance speech? And where, most importantly, were those wonderful car-crash moments we sit through 210 minutes of sycophancy for? The Gwyneth Paltrow breakdown, the Tom Hanks “angels” speech? Nowhere. It was dull, dull, dull.

The show, with Jon Stewart as host, seemed less polished than usual but not much more spontaneous. If anything, the evening was weighed down by insecurity: the producers, worried that the strike would not be over in time, commissioned many montages of acceptance speeches and odd moments of Oscar ceremonies past — a streaker, Cher — and then, even after the strike was settled, kept them in as filler.

It was as if they felt they needed an insurance policy against dullness. Yet for the most part, those flashbacks reminded viewers of what they were missing. And showing other actors' memorable acceptance speeches — especially Cuba Gooding Jr.'s — seemed to leave the new winners self-conscious and subdued.

Why was late actor Brad Renfro cut from the video tribute at Sunday's Oscars?

"It was really an editing decision because we can't fit everyone in," a rep for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tells Usmagazine.com. "There was no specific reason."

The montage featured footage of late actors, including Heath Ledger, who passed away a week after Renfro.

Renfro died of a heroin overdose in his L.A. home January 15.