Ceremony fever

I watched the "Independent Spirit Awards" last night, mostly to see my favorite movie of this season, "Sideways," get some of the love I'm pretty sure it's not going to get at the Oscars tonight. (Alright, it's not just my favorite movie of this season, it's the only movie up for anything I've actually seen. So sue me. We go with what we know.) It was a pretty amusing ceremony, sort of the anti-Oscars in terms of glamour but certainly not lacking in self-seriousness. I was a little shocked to see that even here there were cheesy musical numbers -- irreverent send-ups of each of the movies nominated for the top spot, in the style of Billy Crystal's Oscar send-ups but not, alas, with that much style. It's hard to know what was worse; listening to the lame attempts at musical comedy or looking at the interspersed shots of the movies' stars trying to hide their horror in the name of good sportsmanship. Now that's acting.