To review...

This is the last of these columns for this year's season of endless kudos.

In the spirit of a Hollywood awards show, I'd like to start by thanking my agent, except I don't have one.

So instead, I'll tie up some loose ends and offer a handful of random thoughts:

Best missed opportunity for a trade headline: "Oscars get Bird flu'' (had singer-songwriter Kathleen "Bird" York won best song for "In the Deep" from "Crash").

Oscar winning song that will inspire a thousand headlines: "It's Hard Out Here for a (fill in the blank.)"

Awards show that should be put out of its misery: The "People's Choice" awards. This made-for-TV event is as much a relic of the 1970s as "Battle of the Network Stars." This year's show even featured a lame product placement infomercial for a stomach acid pill disguised as a People's Choice viewing party (know anyone who ever had one of those?)

Best tip on how to win your "People's Choice office pool": If stars shows up, they will win. If star are a no-show, they won't.

Democracy, Hollywood style: The People's Choice award nominations are determined by editors at Entertainment Weekly, the production team and a panel of pop culture fans, then subjected to Internet voting.

Best Grammys suggestion: Make Sly Stone the host of next year's awards.

Worst Oscars injustice: Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," the best-reviewed feature documentary last year, not even making the first cut of 15 films to be considered for a nomination.

Personal wish for an upcoming Academy Awards show: That Herzog's next film, "Rescue Dawn" starring Christian Bale of "Batman Begins," wins the Oscar for best picture. I have no idea how good it is, but I'd give anything to see Elton Brand, the Los Angeles Clippers star forward and one of the films' producers, up onstage. He could even thank Clippers' owner Donald Sterling for letting him miss that night's Charlotte Bobcats game to accept his Oscar.

Biggest white lie: That the movies in the running for Oscars speak for themselves. If they did, studios wouldn't spend the money they do on Oscars consultants and trade ads. And "Crash" wouldn't have won.

Biggest mystery: How a movie with the kind of reviews "A History of Violence" got did so poorly in the awards season.

Lamest explanation why "Crash" beat "Brokeback Mountain": Hollywood homophobia.

One of several other explanations: "Capote" was the Ross Perot of this race. It probably helped splinter the vote, which meant it didn't take all that much for "Crash" to win.

Still another of several explanations: Academy members hate being told they should vote a certain way because there is a larger, nobler cause at stake. If people voted for causes, Martin Scorsese would have won an Oscar for directing "Gangs of New York."

Least surprising trend: Oscars ratings are down. The Academy Awards' real enemy is the remote control. It doesn't matter who the host is or how glamorous the presenters are when the show slows to a crawl for an hour or more right in the middle. The Oscars can't commandeer an entire night of television like they once did. The Miss America Pageant was once a national TV event, and back in 1990 finished first in the ratings. Now it's on a cable channel.

Overrated: The influence a host and the presenters play in attracting ratings. There was a time when one would tune into the Oscars to see stars who rarely did TV. Now, if you miss Owen Wilson or Jessica Alba, don't worry. They should be on the talk show circuit soon plugging their next movies.

One of many suggestions: Keep the program to two hours by handing out awards for things like makeup and costumes all at once. The recipients deserve to be honored on stage for their work, but where does it say they must get air time to thank friends and families?

Two of many suggestions: Fast track the show to late January and allow online voting.

Three of many suggestions: Passing an intelligence test should be mandatory for any TV personality working an awards pre-show. The inane questions and embarrassing sucking up makes a viewer cringe, and may cause people to tune out early. A smart show that is both funny and includes stuff like fashion commentary would be better than the mindless fawning that makes the pre-shows unwatchable.

Reality check (Part 1): Ratings will continue to slide before finally bottoming out.

Reality check (Part 2): For all the hand-wringing, it's only the Oscars. It's just entertainment. There's no national crisis. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences not only is solvent, it's flush with money from the telecast — despite the falling ratings — and from smart investments it has made over the years. "Brokeback's" Ang Lee, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are doing fine too.

Reality check (Part 3): In five years, most of us will have to pause to come up with the names of the winners.