LASKIN: He was the obvious frontrunner. He knew that he might win. He had the time -- a month -- to prepare, for chrissake.
He read it like it was a script rehearsal and then, at the end, I was cringing. I was at home watching, thinking, "Oh, my god, make it through. Hold on!"
The end, the last five seconds was triumphant -- you know, "for here, for now, for the future" -- that was nice, but it wasn't enough to save this speech.
GIBBONS: Forest had been fairly intermittent in his ability to express himself at the podium at past award shows. I thought Forest really hit it out of the park this time.
Yes, points taken off for pulling out the cheat sheet, but he wasn't an actor who failed to memorize his lines.
He was playing the part of nervous Oscar winner standing before his peers at perhaps the most emotional moment in his professional life. That's really hard. You could imagine him writing those words with tears in his eyes.
If you knew nothing about Forest Whitaker as a person before that moment, you understood 100 percent who he was when he finished. Good speakers will take the audience with them by making it personal and making it universal and I think Forest managed to do that.
I love his moment of holding up his statuette in a swell of gratitude and saying it will take him into the next lifetime.
HAMMOND: Pointed criticism of his earlier Globe and SAG acceptance speeches must have hit home as his Oscar thank-you was not just a vast improvement over those, but a truly moving and heartfelt speech that was a highlight of the show.
Whitaker is a perfect example of how those precursor awards shows can be beneficial in working out the kinks before stepping in front of a billion viewers and embarrassing yourself. He didn't embarrass himself in any way this time. In fact he did himself proud.
Next: Alan Arkin
