Mercury - On Fire "Hello, I'm Seabiscuit, your Best Picture winner for 2004. Don't you think it was fitting that the movie about a long-shot racehorse who defied the odds and won over the hearts and minds of Depression-era Americans should have come from behind to capture the hearts and minds of Recession-era Americans and taken the year's top movie prize? It was poetic! There was one significant respect in which Seabiscuit's win different from Seabiscuit's wins, however: none of the races the original Seabiscuit won led to full-scale riots around the world. I guess those Lord of the Rings fans were really counting on a Return of the King Best Picture win as an acknowledgement of the entire trilogy, and when that didn't happen, they got pretty pissed off and took to the streets in their elf ears and hobbit feet and Gandalf hair extensions in cities all over the world, and started overturning cars and setting newspaper boxes on fire and surfing on bus roofs like they did on elephants in that one really fake-looking scene in...sorry! Didn't want to add insult to injury! If by 'injury,' you mean 'a reported $3.7 million in damages that my Oscar win indirectly caused.' So, thanks! And, sorry."

Venus - Burnt
"Hi, I'm Sofia Coppola. I can't tell you what a thrill it was for me to have been the first woman ever to win a Best Director Oscar. Sure, there was that rumour floating around that Academy members would give it to me just to stick it to non-nominee Barbra Streisand, but I don't mind; it's not like that's the first time in my career that my professional success was ascribed to someone else. You know -- my dad. Or my soon-to-be-ex-husband. That's the best by-product of my win, actually: if I couldn't earn credibility by writing and directing two critically acclaimed films before the age of 35, then at least it's nice that a bunch of strangers can bestow credibility upon me. Now maybe I can crawl out from the shadow of the brilliant, uncompromising auteur who brought the world such timeless film classics as Peggy Sue Got Married and Jack."

Earth - Charred
"Hi, I'm Renée Zellweger. Thank you for awarding me the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for my work in Cold Mountain; it really means a lot to me. Not just because it's my first Oscar win after dozens of apparently un-predictive Golden Globes. No: winning for Cold Mountain is so special to me because Nicole Kidman didn't. You see, two years ago we were both nominated for Best Actress -- Nicole for Moulin Rouge!, a movie I'd unsuccessfully auditioned for. We both lost. The next year, we faced off again in the same category -- and this time, I was recognized for my own musical role. Nicole won. This year, getting bumped down to Supporting Actress was a bit of a bummer, until Nicole didn't get nominated at all! In any category! And after she gave all those patronizing interviews about how 'cute' I am! Hey, Nicole. The first time we were put together, I got an Oscar, and you got ignored. How cute am I now?"

Mars - Smoked
"Hi, I'm Alec Baldwin. You know, I was really trying to tell myself that this little run of non-leading-man roles I'd been having lately -- like narrating The Royal Tenenbaums and being a fourth fiddle in The Cat in the Hat and ignoring men's room etiquette in Along Came Polly -- was just a temporary career setback. And then, you had to go and give me an Oscar nomination for a role where I'm not only supporting the leading man...but the leading man is William H. Macy! Now, he's a great actor and a nice guy, but he's a funny-looking character actor, and I was The Shadow! Has the world gone mad? Aren't you interested in hirsute Long Islanders anymore? Ah, well."

Jupiter - Toasted
"Hi, I'm Fog Of War, about Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Thanks for awarding me Best Documentary over the category's favourite, Capturing the Friedmans. It's a tremendous victory for octogenarian arguable mass murderers over arguable child molesters. Cheers!"

Saturn - Room-Temperature
"Hi, I'm Diane Keaton. I really appreciate this latest Best Actress Oscar, but I just can't help wondering whether this means you expect me to keep taking more roles as neurotic, uptight weirdos who flap their hands and shriek and generally embody WASPishness, do you? Becase I actually can play parts other than Annie Hall -- I just haven't had occasion to. In a while."

Uranus - Refrigerated
"Hi, we're Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole. It's wonderful to be recognized for 'A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow,' the song we wrote for A Mighty Wind. Yeah, fair enough, we're not real songwriters. But judging by what he coughed up for Cold Mountain, neither is Sting. And we kicked his tantric-sex-proselytizing ass. Suck it, Sumner!"

Neptune - Icy
"Hi, we're Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, and David Reynolds, authors of the Finding Nemo screenplay. It's so cool that you picked ours as the best movie script of the year -- over several that revolved around the activities and concerns of human beings. Don't get us wrong -- people are all right and everything -- but doesn't it seem like you've seen just about every possible variation of a human story? Yawn!"

Pluto - Permafrost
"Hi, I'm Johnny Depp. Thank you for this honour, which I care nothing about, acknowledging my effortless achievement in a film that was entirely beneath me. Please know that I take this award as a mandate to give up making entertaining movies people like to watch. Just to be contrary, as is my wont, I am to report tomorrow to the set of The Man Who Cried 2: Cry Harder."