Oscar Liveblog

I'll be watching and blogging the Oscars this year.

720pm: The FP Gal and I are talking about seat-fillers. I always thought they were hired to make the theater look more full. She thinks they just fill in while the seats are empty. She also wants to know if there is any kind of intermission there and/or if they show the commercials in the theater. Color me ignorant.
725pm: Predictions? Haven't seen many of the movies but I may as well throw something out there. I'll go with 'Blood' for Best Picture and the Best Actor award to Daniel Day Lewis. Best Original Screenplay to Diablo Cody for 'Juno'. Also, all of the dance numbers will suck.
734pm: The opening montage featured a UPS truck and random (and I do mean random) cutouts from old movies. The effort looked incredibly cheesy. Turns out that Ahnold was driving the truck. Very underwhelming.
739pm: Year two of the Jon Stewart experiment. Not that impressed. He seems both starstruck and unprepared. Honestly, bring back Billy Crystal. Steve Martin would also be acceptable.
742pm: And now the political stuff. Seriously, even the audience looks pained. (Good joke about asteroids and the Statue of Liberty, though.)
746pm: Thought they opened with Best Actress. Either I'm wrong or they mixed it up this year. Jennifer Garner looks pretty good. And the first Oscar...goes to an Elizabethan period piece. Do you think 400 years from now they'll make period pieces about our times?
Yikes, it's a movie moment with Streisand. They should warn us before her closeups.
753pm: Montage of old Oscar moments. Very nicely done. The FP Gal and I were both amazed by Charlie Chaplin not as the the Tramp.
757pm: 'Ratatouille' (or however it's spelled) wins for Best Animated. Didn't see any of these so I don't have a strong opinion. 'Rat' got (easily) the best reviews, maybe the best reviewed movie of the year. 'Surfs Up' looked absolutely dreadful and I'm surprised it was nominated.
759pm: I like that the make-up award is for 'Achievement in Make-Up'. That just might be a bit of title inflation.
802pm: First song nominee aka bathroom break time.
824pm: Had to hold the baby. Couple of montage jokes from Jon Stewart. He just doesn't know how to sell these jokes.
I heard nothing but amazing stuff about Javier Bardem in 'Country' so that award really wasn't a surprise.
831pm: Jerry Seinfeld from Bee Movie and we have our 12th montage in just over an hour. For those scoring at home, about three of them were worthwhile. And I like well done montage.
841pm: The FP Gal thinks Tilda Swinton looked deathly. I thought she looked pretty nice. We have different tastes in women I guess. This Oscar production is incredibly unpolished and I'm prepared to blame all of that on the writer's strike. I think the winners are trying to make up for that by making their acceptance speeches memorable (the acting ones at least).
846pm: Every year I ask this, why don't they add the make up and special effect awards into the Technical Award Oscar show?
854pm: Lengthy bit about how the voting process is done. Apparently it's done in secret. Who knew? One request from data freaks like myself? Publish the voting results afterwards. I can't be the only one who is curious about which movies just missed the cutoff.
922pm: (Baby again.) I've liked exactly one Oscar telecast song in the years I've been watching. Enjoy.
925pm: Man, Jack looks old. And then the Best Picture montage (forty-third of the show if you're scoring at home). Very good montage (if bare). About sixty wonderful movies and it made me want to plug it into my Netflix list.
942pm: Penelope Cruz? Seriously? Where is Selma Hayek? Are they saving her for later? Did she have a conflict? Do we know the answer???
1016pm: Ok, Relia is going for Best Depiction of an Air Raid Siren tonight. Lots of fast forwarding through songs and commercials. And the occasional acceptance speech.
1021pm: Nice to have soldiers in Baghdad announce for a category.
1025pm: And then a follow up reminding us that documentaries are meant to show us how bad those soldiers and America at large are. Thanks Hollywood! (More on that here.)
1040pm: (I'm in DVR time so your mileage may vary.) Daniel Day Lewis wins for best actor so I'm two for two in predictions with one left to go.
1049pm: And 'Country' wins Best Picture. I heard tremendous things about this so it certainly sounds worthy. Actually, it sounded like a strong group of movies this year all around.

Yes, the telecast wasn't very good but they have a pretty obvious excuse for that. Jon Stewart has had two swings at this and it just isn't his element. He got better through the night but that just got him up to 'ok'. Let's try someone else next year, please.
Thanks for reading!