78th Academy Awards - Opening/Montages/Trivia

Opening/Montages/Trivia

• The opening featured former hosts who pretended to be declining to host again, with film-based settings including a quick parody of the tent scene from Brokeback Mountain, with Billy Crystal and Chris Rock; a family room in a house, with Steve Martin and some lookalike kids; a posh hotel room, with Whoopi Goldberg; David Letterman babysitting Steve Martin's "kids"; Mel Gibson on the set of his latest movie, Apocalypto; and even Mr. Moviefone. Cut to Jon Stewart being wakened (sharing a bed with Halle Berry) and falling asleep again, realizing it's a dream; then awakening again, sharing the bed with George Clooney, who advises Stewart it's not a dream, and to get up and get the show started.
• The montage sequence after the opening shows western films with scenes involving male characters talking emotionally with perceived innuendo, a reference to Brokeback Mountain. Other montages in the ceremony saluted film noir, epic films, biographical films, and political commentary in film (after the latter, Stewart joked "and none of those issues were ever a problem again"). Stewart later joked that there would be a montage on montages.
• This was the first time Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney, Luke Wilson, Steve Carell, Eric Bana, and Jessica Alba had ever presented an award.
• This was the sixth time that Jack Nicholson had presented the award for Best Picture.
• Several spoof advertisements were shown, narrated by Stephen Colbert, a former correspondent from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart who currently hosts The Colbert Report. They attacked the candidacies of various nominees on behalf of other nominees, modeled on famous political ads. For example, in a parody of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, "Dames for Truth" attacked Dame Judi Dench with absurd claims, such as that Dench poked a dame's eye out in a bar fight. The ad was capped with the disclaimer that Dames for Truth was "a shadow organization in no way affiliated with Felicity Huffman". In a parody of the Harry and Louise political ads (1993), an old couple complained about the "foreign" sounding names of the best actress nominees, other than Reese Witherspoon.
• Legendary composer John Williams received his 44th and 45th Oscar nominations, making him the second most nominated person in Academy Awards history, tied with Alfred Newman and behind Walt Disney, who received 59.
• At the beginning of the ceremony, some political remarks were made satirizing and criticizing conservative America and the LBGT taboo (for instance, the montage on "gay" cowboy movies). Host Jon Stewart and winner George Clooney were among those most noted for their somewhat combative political remarks:
  • In Stewart's opening speech, he remarked, "Björk couldn't be here tonight... she was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her." This was reference to the Dick Cheney hunting incident and the dress Björk wore at the 73rd Academy Awards.
  • As Clooney wrapped his acceptance speech upon his win, he remarked: "And finally, I would say that, you know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talk about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people, gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy. Proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch." Commenting on how Hollywood sometimes break social taboos such as racism, homosexuality, and war. Some conservatives were offended by Clooney's remarks calling them rude and absurd (Clooney had earlier made a joke criticizing Jack Abramoff at the Golden Globe Awards). Clooney's acceptance speech, perceived as being smug in tone by the writers of South Park, was lampooned several times in the episode Smug Alert!.
• In her pre-show red carpet interview Jennifer Garner, who presented the award for Best Sound Editing, revealed that she'd had to have her ears pierced specially for the $250,000 diamond chandelier earrings she wore to the ceremony.
• Don Adams, Bob Denver, Paul Winchell, Dana Elcar, James Doohan (was later included in the in memoriam tribute of the following ceremony), and Eddie Guerrero were omitted for the In Memoriam.