OSCAR NIGHT RECAP

HEATH LEDGER WON . . . BUT BEN STILLER WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE OSCARS:

I'm going to do you a favor. I'm going to release you. Every year, on a Sunday evening, the Oscars go down. And every year, on the following Monday morning, we act like we care who won what.

The thing is, we almost universally DON'T. And that's OKAY. I know the media makes you think you have to care about this garbage, but YOU ARE UNDER NO OBLIGATION. As I said, I release you.

Instead of counting beans, I'm just going to give you the IMPORTANT stuff that happened. And when you subtract HUGH JACKMAN'S song-and-dance numbers, there's not much. What most people probably want to know is, did HEATH LEDGER win Best Supporting Actor? He did. His father, mother and sister accepted the award on behalf of Heath . . . and his daughter MATILDA. Everybody cried.

Here's video . . . http://www.tmz.com/videos?autoplay=true&mediaKey=f3d59f08-2553-4753-b1d6-39b5fa7929ed

Heath is only the second actor to win posthumously. The first was PETER FINCH, who won Best Actor for "Network" in 1977 . . . two months after his death.

"Slumdog Millionaire" won Best Picture, Best Director and SIX other awards . . . meaning it won eight of the 10 it was nominated for.

In the other major categories, KATE WINSLET won Best Actress, PENELOPE CRUZ won Best Supporting Actress and SEAN PENN won Best Actor for "Milk" . . . the true story of one of the first openly-gay politicians in U.S. history.

THE greatest moment of the night was when BEN STILLER presented an award in character as JOAQUIN PHOENIX from his insane "Letterman" appearance. Check out that chaos here . . .

--And here's the original Joaquin Phoenix / David Letterman debacle . . . http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/11/joaquin-phoenixs-bizarre_n_166229.html

One last note . . . and I guess this will matter to some of you: JENNIFER ANISTON presented an award . . . on a night when BRAD PITT and ANGELINA JOLIE were nominated for Best Actor and Actress. The camera even panned to Angelina at one point, and she was laughing at the lame, award show banter between Jennifer and JACK BLACK. (--Jack and Angelina "co-starred", if you recall, in "Kung Fu Panda".) Aniston was also shown in the audience a few times during the night, sitting next to boyfriend JOHN MAYER. (--Check out video of Jennifer and Jack here . . .) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=demKJP8lxqo