Sunday night’s Oscar show, heavy on music from hit movies, was a winner. I would have enjoyed it more had it not run so long. KITV started screening red-carpet arrivals at 6 and began the awards show at 7:30 p.m. It ran until shortly past 11. Oscars should be given to winners in some of the lesser categories off-camera.
Host Seth MacFarlane did well. He sang, danced and cracked jokes. Ben Affleck‘s "Argo" won best picture and he should have won for best director, too, but he didn’t even get nominated in that category. That’s shameful. 
Michelle Obama, appearing via satellite on a huge screen, was a surprise and helped Jack Nicholson present the best-picture award. Jennifer Lawrence received just as much media coverage, if not more, than the first lady in Oscar wrap-ups for falling on the stairs on her way to accept her best-actress award for "Silver Linings Playbook." And the late Harold Sakata of Hawaii was in the snazzy "James Bond" segment in his Oddjob role, throwing his deadly steel-brimmed hat in a clip from "Goldfinger" …
JUDGING FROM the emails about my Feb. 22 column on "Downton Abbey" and actor Dan Stevens, many viewers were unaware he had given notice to leave the show after season 3 to take on other acting projects, so his much-admired Matthew Crawley character was killed in a traffic accident in the finale shown Feb. 17.
Many viewers were shocked when Matthew died. One was KHON anchor Joe Moore, who emailed me a thank you for explaining why Matthew was knocked off. Joe wrote: "Thanks for your column in today’s Star-Advertiser. Your revelation that Dan Stevens (Matthew Crawley) did not renew his contract for a fourth season saved me from writing what would have been an embarrassing letter to ‘Downton’ creator and writer Julian Fellowes. My wife and I, like millions of ‘Downton’ devotees, were indeed stunned by Matthew’s shocking demise at the end of the Season 3 finale, coming on the heels of the shocking death of Jessica Brown Findlay‘s character,Lady Sybil, several weeks earlier. I’d made up my mind to write Fellowes and accuse him of being irresponsible and totally uncaring of viewers’ feelings in killing off likable ‘Downton’ characters apparently for no reason other than the shock value of it. Thanks to you, as Paul Harvey used to say, now I know‘the rest of the story’" …
HAWAII SWIM great Bill Smith, 88, who captained the 1948 U.S. Olympic swim team and won two gold medals, died Feb. 8. Bill swam for legendary coach Soichi Sakamoto‘s club in Maui irrigation ditches before going to Ohio State University, where he set world records. The tall, well-built, humble Hawaiian was married to Moana "Peaches" Smith for 61 years. Condolences to Peaches and the rest of his family …
Condolences also to Hawaii writer Lynn Cook over the Feb. 18 death of her daughter, Elizabeth Cook Allen, 45, in Bremerton, Wash., after a long illness. A celebration of Elizabeth’s life will be held Saturday at the Kahala Hotel, downstairs in the Kahala o Ke Kai room, 12:30 to 3 p.m. …
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Ben Wood, who sold newspapers on Honolulu streets in World War II, writes of people, places and things. Email him at bwood@staradvertiser.com.
