FIRST, THE GOOD NEWS: At the Academy Awards last night Chad Lowe wore a yellow ribbon on his lapel. Going a step further, Jon Voight wore an American flag pin. And Adrien Brody, after a shaky, relativistic start to his speech accepting the Best Actor award, finished by saying, “I have a friend from Queens who’s a soldier in Kuwait right now, Tommy Szarabinski, and I hope you and your boys make it back real soon and God bless you guys, I love you.” At the close of the show, the nimble Steve Martin signed off by saying “To our young men and women overseas, we are thinking of you!”

There ends the good news.