The Oscars? Well, you just had to be there

Entertainment editor RUSSELL BAILLIE went to the Oscars and came away perplexed by the experience.

Midnight on Oscar Sunday, and having packed up my laptop and taken leave of the backstage press room, which has been the often surreal scene of my Academy Awards experience (of which, more later), it's time to find a cab.

Instead, I find Russell Crowe.

With his big bodyguard in front and hand in hand with Danielle Spencer, Crowe comes up the sidewalk in search of their limo.

He looks grim. Like a man who, well, just lost an Oscar. He's just left the Governor's Ball, the official awards after-party next to the Kodak Theatre where the ceremony finished two hours ago, taking four hours and 23 minutes to give out 40 little gold statues.

"Hard luck, mate," I proffer, thinking the combination of familiar accent and blokey sentiment will convince him to stop and talk about his unfortunate night.

It is, of course, wishful thinking and he just keeps right on going - forgoing any of the A-list after-parties to head back to his hotel to celebrate with A Beautiful Mind's four Oscar winners and rack up, according to one report, a $66,000 bill.

Meanwhile, about the same time a few blocks away at the Hollywood Athletic Club - a pool hall to the stars - most of the contingent from The Lord of the Rings and their four Oscars have also departed the Governor's Ball and skipped the other exclusive bashes, turning up for a party organised by the Tolkien fans website TheOneRing.Net, which was co-founded by Aucklander Erica Challis.

Hundreds of the site's members from all over the United States have bought tickets to attend "The One Party To Rule Them All", watching the ceremony on a big screen.

While miffed that "their" picture lost out on the big prizes, the mood lifts with the arrival of double winner Richard Taylor, nominees Peter Jackson, Sir Ian McKellen, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, winning composer Howard Shore and New Line executive Mark Ordesky, among others.

He might have missed out on the best supporting actor gong, but Sir Ian is in good spirits.

Taking a microphone, he offers a variation on Gandalf's most famous line: "You ... shall ... not ... win!" It brings the house down.

The film's four Oscars - as yet unengraved - end up sitting on a pool table as fans queue for photos with the film-makers.

Meanwhile, outside the Kodak Theatre, they're rolling up the red carpet, taking away the big Oscar statues. By morning the theatre's entrance will have regained its everyday status as yet another Los Angeles shopping mall. And Hollywood Boulevard will return to its normal role as a trashy tourist-trap where the homeless push their trolleys over the stars on the Walk of Fame.

Not that they were to be seen earlier that day as the stars began arriving about 4pm - they had all been moved on. And all the businesses had been forced closed for the day as part of the strenuous security surrounding the event. Even the Hollywood Wax Museum, which is full of shiny life-size effigies of the famous, can't compete with the mass arrival of the real thing.

The heavy security concerns also mean that only 400 fans, who had to submit to background checks, have been allowed into the traditional bleacher seats to watch the arrivals.

One bleacher looks half full with Ned Flanders lookalikes in matching zip jackets, who cheer loudly when Moulin Rouge is mentioned. There's just enough of them to create the required background cheering to add to the many strobe lights set up to give the effect of a thousand flash bulbs.

The Lord of the Rings team had wanted to perform a haka on the red carpet. Oscar security said no, perhaps conscious that mass shouting in a foreign language might not be taken in the spirit it was intended, especially by all those burly blokes with earpieces and interesting bulges under their suit jackets.

There's a pecking order to the arrivals - first are the Academy members themselves, many of whom seem to be guys in their 50s and 60s with wives a fraction of their age; then come the nominees in anything but the acting categories, then come the stars with the real stars of the show: the frocks.

After a while the famous faces start blending into one endless, perfect pearly grin atop yet another fabulous creation.

It's soon time to head backstage. Which actually means another building - the adjacent Pacific Renaissance Hotel - where in one of many rooms set aside as a media centre you sit elbow to elbow, laptop to laptop at long tables with a few hundred other journalists watching the ceremony on overhead monitors and headphones. When you are accredited to the Oscars, this is as close as you get. For this you are required to wear a tux. You are number 213 in what looks and feels like a battery farm of penguins.

As the night progresses every so often the winners are brought in to respond to your rapid-fire questions, while at the same time you keep one eye on the show and a running tally of who's won what. It's hard to concentrate, especially as the momentum builds and then wanes for The Lord of the Rings.

Strange juxtapositions abound. Like when honorary Oscar-getter Robert Redford drops in for a chat and is interrupted by a roar that goes up as Denzel Washington wins the best actor award. There's the notoriously travel-phobic Woody Allen, who has never come to an Oscars before, even when he's been nominated, talking about why the evening's tribute to New York was a good enough reason to get him on a plane.

Another special guest, Sidney Poitier, gets his second standing ovation as he enters and then goes on to elaborate on Hollywood's progress on race issues, but he, too, is interrupted as another upset causes a cheer.

"It's like a bookie's in here," he quips.

All the while your mind is on the results coming in your other ear. It's positively schizophrenic, as is the winning movie.

The night has become one long congratulatory session, though the very cool Denzel Washington is a highlight, coming across as funny and erudite and scoring a few points in explaining why his win isn't necessarily a race thing. Halle Berry has collected herself by the time she's brought in but after that acceptance speech, what more is there to say, really?

The only time it gets remotely heated is when A Beautiful Mind's winning screenplay writer Akiva Goldsman doesn't want to comment on the fuss over the accuracy of his script, based on the life of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Nash.

Later the film's director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer are briefly stumped when they're asked why they think that despite its four above-the-line Oscars, Russell Crowe didn't win.

And then it's over, which means you get two hours to finish and file before they throw you out. A journalist for the Australian and I are the last ones left because of our similar time zones and deadlines.

I pass Crowe outside, keep walking and, after 50m, get shouted at by one of the vagrants, for no reason other than I'm wearing a tuxedo and therefore I'm responsible for doing them out of their favourite warm doorway.

Hurray for Hollywood.

Oscar nominees and winners (full list)

nzherald.co.nz/oscars