A new home, a familiar old feeling

Sunday's telecast of the 74th annual Academy Awards marked yet another step in the ongoing convergence of television and the movies. The academy moved into a new theater with a boxy stage tailor-made for TV. Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz clowned around as if they were on "Saturday Night Live." And the showiest entertainment of the night was provided by Cirque de Soleil, an act many viewers would know only from watching Bravo. With a moviemaker behind the camera - first-time producer Laura Ziskin - and four-time host Whoopi Goldberg in front of it, the Oscars felt like one of those really good all-star "spectaculars" from the 1970s in which A-list movie stars canoodled with TV celebrities. The telecast did not open as previous ones had - outside, with a dozen or so snapshots of stars stepping onto the red carpet. (The academy now has a half-hour "pre-show" for that.) Instead, viewers saw the stars inside, mindlessly applauding, looking like David Letterman's audience when it claps and stares up at the monitors. Then came an inspired shot. As Tom Cruise stepped onstage, the camera pulled back, way back, calling the viewer's attention not to Cruise but to the backdrop of the Kodak Theatre. Draped in deep muted reds and vibrant coppers, it looked great. Its proscenium arch appeared to be held up by thousands of threads of tightly strung piano wire. Cruise's speech didn't come off a prompter. It appeared instead to come from the heart. Recalling how the movies were a constant companion in his youth, as his family moved from town to town, Cruise called the theater "my safe haven." The speech struck the right balance, acknowledging the residual effects of Sept. 11 without wallowing in them. After that, you knew Goldberg was not going to enter quietly. Sure enough, she was lowered by trapeze from the rafters, wearing a suit that made her look like a peacock - more precisely, a peacock trying to do Nicole Kidman's scene from "Moulin Rouge." Goldberg did not exactly reinvent the monologue. Her jokes had a certain Bob Hope quality to them, as when she declared that security was "tighter than some of the faces," although it's unlikely Hope could have gotten away with joking that after the mud-slinging of the Oscar campaign, "all the nominees look black." There was a jokey quality to the whole evening. Stiller and Owen Wilson did a comedy routine dressed up in preposterous-looking costumes. Roberto Benigni recalled, hilariously, watching "Ben-Hur" backward at an outdoor theater. But the best line of the night may have been spoken by Woody Allen, making a rare if not unprecedented appearance in Hollywood to introduce a tribute to New York City. As he stepped onstage, the academy members leaped to their feet with an enthusiastic ovation. "Thank you very much," Allen said. "That makes up for the strip search." Inviting Allen to attend the Oscars was a gracious gesture. And so was asking documentarian Errol Morris to make a film of people, famous and not so famous, talking about their favorite movie moments. What made it gracious was that Morris, one of the most creative and celebrated documentary filmmakers, has been overlooked for Academy Awards more times than Ron Howard. To reach Aaron Barnhart, phone (816) 234-4790 or visit the TV Barn Web site at www.tvbarn.com. USELESS OSCAR FACT The length of the red carpet leading into the Academy Awards auditorium was 500 feet. Speaking at Oscars "Thank you very much. That makes up for the strip search." - Woody Allen acknowledging the audience's standing ovation before he introduced a special film tribute to New York. "Mine doesn't. I think they do with age, but what doesn't?" - Dame Maggie Smith answering Joan Rivers' question about whether her two Oscars tarnish. "I think that beast is in all of us. Because we're civilized we keep it in check, but we know it can come out at anytime. We are not angels. We have to work at being angels very hard." - Ben Kingsley on E! about playing "Sexy Beast." "I panicked because I thought they wanted their Oscars back (and) the pawn shop has been out of business for ages." - Allen again, on his response when the academy called him about doing the tribute. "I had fun when I went through the metal detector." - Sally Kirkland, who wore a metal-alloy dress with ruffles, which she had to adjust to get through security. "My jewelry keeps getting stuck, and I'm constantly adjusting to make sure everything's covered," - Kirsten Dunst telling CNN about her problems with her outfit. "I can't feel my legs. I'm so excited." - Renee Zellweger telling ABC about problems with her outfit. "I didn't know what they were calling for because my movie, "Curse of the Jade Scorpion," wasn't nominated for anything. Then it suddenly hit me. Maybe they're calling to apologize." - Allen one last time. Berry days At about the same time Halle Berry was speaking live to Joan Rivers on E! during the red carpet affairs, she was being interviewed on tape by Barbara Walters on ABC. Before that segment ended, Phillip Bloch, her stylist, was telling CNN live how it took days to bead the dress she was wearing and put the flowers "in the right place so everything was covered." He also said Berry was wearing a pumpkin diamond from Harry Winston worth $3.5 million. For all that, she got an 8.5 final score on E!'s fashion counter, but at least that was better than self-proclaimed "fashionista" Jennifer Lopez. Lopez, who confirmed to Joan Rivers that yes, those are her real teeth, got a 6.5. Tight fits For security reasons, only 400 spots were available in the fan bleachers this year to watch the red carpet walk-ins and 5,000 applications were taken for them. By the time the stars started arriving, 2,500 more fans were gathered outside of the areas leading up to the theater, along with a small army of police that included SWAT teams on the roof. "It's very L.A. - it's too crowded," said Anouchka Van Riel, who just moved to Los Angeles from Paris. "I'm going home to watch it on TV." We should be hearing more about how it was inside the theater this week. Though the new Kodak Theatre in Hollywood is larger than the Shrine, where the Oscars were held for 25 years, it has almost 900 fewer seats to accommodate camera angles for TV. A lottery determined what academy members got in and almost 300 who wanted to go did not. "Those who fail at the lottery get a priority for the following year," academy director Bruce Davis said. "It's as fair as we can make it." @ART CAPTION:Allen; Goldberg @ART CAPTION:A spectator outside the Kodak Theatre @ART:Photos (4, color, one uncaptioned)