By Michael Quinn

With the quick-witted Billy Crystal at the helm, this year's Academy Awards didn't drag on from here to eternity. But in the course of three hours and 33 minutes, a few awards seem to have been overlooked:

-- The Um-Um-Uh Porky Uh-Uh Pig Um-Um Award for Uh-Uh-Uh Elocution. No, that was not Mel Tillis accepting the Oscar for Best Director. That was Jonathan Demme, who lensed Oscar sweeper The Silence of the Lambs. Number of ums and uhs in his acceptance speech: 94. Clarice wouldn't have been this nervous taking Hannibal Lecter to a restaurant with an all-you-can-eat special.

-- The Elsa Lanchester Bride of Frankenstein Award for Original Hairstyle. Best Supporting Actress nominee Juliette Lewis (Cape Fear), who won for her queer coiffure, soon to be featured in White Women Can't Wear Cornrows.

-- The George Jessel Droner's Distinction. Fortunately, the worst speech was the first speech: Karl Malden's treacly ode to "the pure joy of movies." He should have left home without it. In telling contrast to such inane Oscarspeak was bedridden Lifetime Achievement honoree Satyajit Ray's truly joyful reminiscences of his youth, when the future Indian auteur was bedazzled by American moviemakers--from master director Billy Wilder to perky ingenue songstress Deanna Durbin.

-- The Cher Dress-for-Excess Medal. This year was notable for a refreshingly retro emphasis on class over cleavage. Among the appalling exceptions: Sylvester Stallone steady Jennifer Flavin, basically adorned in buckles and other people's averted glances.

-- The Robert Fulghum Pseudo-Intellectual Depth Charge. The winner: a bespectacled Stallone, who forked over the Foreign Film Oscar after some indecipherable babble about "the nature of man, nature in the wild, which is too often the nature of man." The band wasn't fooled--it played the theme from Rocky as Sly strode to the podium.