Randy Newman, who performed Saturday in Chicago but flew to Los Angeles in time for Sunday night’s Academy Awards, took shots at himself and the Academy when accepting the Oscar for Best Song.
He noted his low Oscar batting average — the trophy for “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3” was his second win in 20 nominations — before saying it was odd there were only four songs up for the award. “Cinematography has five. What? They couldn’t find a fifth song?,” he said to laughter from the audience, without getting into the Academy’s unique rules for the category.
On second thought, he cautioned, given his Oscar track record, if there were five nominees, the fifth one would have defeated him.
The other Best Song nominees were “If I Rise” from “127 Hours,” “I See the Light” from “Tangled” and “Coming Home” from “Country Strong.”