It's the Oscars! Tee Em!

George Clooney on why people want to be him and not Cary Grant: "That's because he's dead." No wonder everybody <3 Clooney, including me. Only thing I wish he wouldn't do is keep dogging Batman & Robin -- it's ungracious to everyone who worked on the movie. On the other hand, he's actually entertaining on the red carpet, which is really damn hard to do.

Blah blah, something about Jean Paul Gaultier. And that depressing Edith Piaf movie. Unsubscribe!

Oh shit, John Travolta and Kelly Preston, representin' Xenu! They're trying to paste over the ugliness of that Hairspray monstrosity he did. And we're back to Regis trying to shout over the crowd on the carpet. It's not nice to make an old man exert himself like that.

A little vignette about Javier Bardem. Holy cow does he clean up well -- he looks like Hugh Jackman right now, and I bet the ladies are gonna find him hot even though he's obviously batshit insane. We're secretly hoping that Cormack McCarthy is attending the Oscars. DYSTOPIAN NIGHTMARE LANDSCAPE OF CELEBRITY AWARDS!

Regis and Miley Cyrus... He's, what, a full 60 years older than her? She looks good without being overdone for her age. Here's hoping she doesn't have a musical number. And that Regis doesn't either.

We're back from commercial, and they're exuberantly praising Mickey Rooney for not dying! Oh, and there's Jennifer Garner. Where's Ben? I forgot she was in Juno... odd, since she was one of the biggest names in the film. Helen Mirren's up next... I can't dis, she's good people. There's nowhere negative to go on her.

Oh, Cameron Diaz! Now that she hasn't been with JT for a good while, I think her single claim to fame is as the definitive example of someone who's complexion can't handle the transition to HDTV. And there's Amy Adams, who probably had the most different roles this year. Where the hell did she come from? What was she doing before? A lead role in a Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts movie, a Disney lead, guesting on the Office -- somebody's doing something immoral to get those kinds of roles!

Some weird bullshit with Regis talking about contest winners who got seats from an online drawing. If you have to do these kinds of awards, at least have the dignity not to tell everybody about it.

Hey, there's Ellen Page! I don't really have a strong opinion on her, but I kind of want to shout YOU ARE A BIG OLE SELLOUT just to piss off Stereogum's audience. Aaand they're gonna do a musical number from Enchanted live? Hey, I'd watch that!

Something something, Regis is backstage, talking about how Jon Stewart is getting ready. If I were him, I'd open with a high-concept musical number mocking the various Billy Crystal musical openers. Of course, that's the kind of idea that lost me the gig and got Jon the show in the first place. Oh wait, Regis is winding down and misnaming Javier Bardem as Xavier.

OHHHH SNAP! MICHAEL BAY VERIZON AD! He's mocking himself by presenting his entire house as being rigged for explosions -- Awesome! Love love love Michael Bay! And we're just about ready for the big shoooow!

Weird cheaply-CGIed opening montage consisting of the Governator delivering Oscar statues in a UPS truck. Could have skipped that whole segment and sent 30 kids to college for that much money. And, here's Jon Stewart!

Ugh. Opening with a writer's strike reference. I forget Stewart has to take the writers' side. Did they put any funny in this monologue? That would be a good thing for the writers to do.

Incidentally, do spoiler queens hate the title of "There Will Be Blood"? Starting with a series of requisite nods to the big nominations. Hey, first Norbit joke! He stole my line.

Diablo Cody! Everybody take a drink! There's no dig on her by Jon Stewart that I won't applaud. Requisite political jokes. Pretty obvious stuff so far. And the show gets underway with JGarn. She does look good, but she's got a thankless task here -- Costume Design.

Giving a costume design award to Elizabethan period pics is weak and obvious -- they coulda snuck Norbit into this category too! Best Fat Suit.

Back with George Clooney. Is it fair to assume everybody has a crush on Clooney? Does anybody not love him? Blah blah blah about 80 years of the history of Oscar. Ah, introducing a montage of Oscar highlights. It seems like the whole point of this is "Well, at least we didn't give Milli Vanilli one!"

Wow, surprisingly includes a bit of Rob Lowe's notorious 1988 Oscar medley. Hmm, iPhone joke. Well, they got the Apple logo on screen pretty prominently, so jobs can't fuss too much. Steve Carrell somehow worked his way onstage with Anne Hathaway. Carrell is just doing his usual character, but Hathaway's timing isn't too bad. Doesn't seem like even mighty Persepolis is gonna be able to beat the mighty Pixar machine, tho. Did I mention Ratatouille is overrated? Aaand Pixar gets another one. Brad Bird thinks everybody else can just eat it. "I'd like to thank the new quad-core Intel CPUs!" He's got some boring anecdote about his issues as a young man. Shut up, Brad, you have the whole film to work through your daddy issues.

Katherine Heigl is nervous! That's really kinda cute. Or I'm a sucker for believing it. Whee, makeup. This is where everybody gets to beat on Norbit, but I hope the movie wins and they tell everybody to go screw themselves. IT also seems like it's got a good shot, because if you could vote, wouldn't you pick Norbit?

D'oh, La Vie wins. Boooring. And French. And no fat suit. They're gonna cut these folks short on their speeches because they're not pretty. Threatening the musical nominees showing up. Oh wow, Amy Adams gonna perform live! Them other dudes must hate Alan Mencken, world's most greedy Oscar grabber. "That fucker got a tropy for the mermaid movie, he should quit while he's ahead."

Pretty game of them to mock themselves with the Enchanted stuff, but I don't know if the song works without the visuals. Wow! You can see how incredibly old Michael Douglas is! That dude's rockin' the paleolithic shit next to Zeta-Jones, and he don't give a damn. Somehow I feel like all those creepy guys he played in the 80s were basically glimpses into his actual self. I'm glad his career is over.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, The Rock! Whom I inexplicably like. I even liked that horrible surprise daughter adoption movie he did. But yay, best effects -- I love the montages of scenes going from wireframe to rendering to finals. But then I'm a DVD extras whore. Give it to my Transformers, homeboys!

NOOO! YOu gave it to the goddamn bear-in-armor-hates-jesus movie! Whatever, Transformers could kick that bear's ass.

Oooh, segue to Cate Blanchett. Swooon. Is she doing cinematography? No, art direction. I appreciate art direction, but I wish they'd show more of the work and less of the people who do it. Is that not nice to say? One of the nominees is "There Will Be Blood" OMG, dude, spoilers!

Huh, "Sweeney Todd" wins -- do you really think anybody's working very hard if they do a Tim Burton movie and end up with a baroque, detailed dark whimsical set? This woman's accent is charming -- she just thanked "Tom Barton". And yay, some nods to Cate. We can talk about her as much as we need.

Montage of Best Supporting winners. Let's just agree that montages should start when the footage turns to color, skip the black and white stuff. It's disappointing to see the Cuba Gooding winning footage because it just reminds us how far he's falllen. Although GQ or one of them magazines did a story on him and he seems to be doing okay these days.

Oh hey, Jennifer Hudson. Think this'll be the last year she gets invited? :\

Javier Bardem! He should win, he was just in a different league than anybody else's performance this year. Scariest dood ever! They show the coin-flip scene from No Country, but there's no context. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was great in Charlie Wilson's War, but should have to wait for another year.

Wow I bet Dixie Carter's glad her husband got nominated -- no other way she was gonna get into the theater otherwise. Javier takes it! Hooray! Aw, his mom's his date and he thanked her in Spanish. I love this guy, and I'm glad he got the award he deserved.

Okay, a parody montage! That's what I like to see. Quality humor. Jon Stewart's got a good feel for such things. Hmm, Keri Russell, I forgot about her. Introing another musical number? Yaawn. A song called Raise It Up should be a Lil' Jon number from a bad dance-off movie, not an overdone choir piece.

Uh oh, the oversinging child prodigy soloist! Will this hell never end? I think I find these things especially depressing because I can't help but think this little girl is gonna spend the rest of her life saying "Yeah, well, I was on the Oscars when I was 11, you know."

Whoa, Owen Wilson! I guess this is his "hey, I'm okay" appearance. But he ends up presenting Shorts. Can't win 'em all! One good thing comes from the shorts winner, we have another multilingual acceptance speech.

OH CHRIST JERRY SEINFELD'S HORRIBLE BEE IS INFLICTED ON US AGAIN! God I thought our long national nightmare had ended. How does he have the power to get away with this crap? You're no Pixar, Seinfeld. Some British folks won for Peter and the Wolf -- maybe they'll end their acceptance speech with a little thank-you in English!

Montage of supporting actresses -- you really gonna remind us that Whoopi got one? What was that shit for, Ghost? Skip the black and white shit, peoples. Whoa, Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan -- I hadn't seen any footage, but that's some good stuff. Ruby Dee seems good, but I sadly don't think she can win this one. I hope they don't give the Atonement kid the award, they have a tendency to do that with the stunt performances by tween girls. And then what's-her-face from The Wire, whom I like, too. I haven't seen Michael Clayton, but hey Tilda Swinton won, and she already seems genuinely excited, which is great. Not a very flattering dress, but I'm kind of charmed by how off-kilter and non-Hollywood her thank-you is, by promising to give her statue to her agent, and mocking (second time tonight!) Clooney in Batman & Robin. That schtick even showed up in Time magazine -- do you think Val Kilmer is pissed?

I think Batman jokes are in bad taste this soon after the Joker's death.

Diet Coke keeps running ads about women's heart problems -- is caffeine a factor? And what woman wants to win a dress that fits Heidi Klum? "You're not fucking Seal, and you're fatter than her. Enjoy your Coke!"

Jessica Alba is introduced as "always fantastic". She hosted the scientific/technical awards, and I'm picturing a roomful of Unix nerds plotzing continuously for 5 hours. "Wait until the guys on Digg hear about this!" They just introduced Josh Brolin and James McEvoy. I know the latter's name, but know nothing of what he's done.

Hmm, they've done the throw-to-Nicholson humor twice in 3 minutes... when he kicks, are they gonna have to go back to Oprah-Uma jokes? Ooh, adaptation script nominations -- is Cormack gonna show up here? Yay, Coens win! McCarthy's there with his son, that's sweet.

Uh oh, the suits have showed up. Do we talk about accounting now? "Some people ask me, why do we give out Oscars?" No, nobody has ever asked you that. You schmuck. Yep, here comes the accounting talk. I'm hoping there's a fake film vignette about the Price Waterhouse process, but probably not. Have the winners ever leaked out in the past? That would be the best Oscars ever. They have some of the most valuable screen time of the year, and they use it to show accountants at work. :|!

Miley Cyrus is getting more and more creepy to me. But hey, another Enchanted song, this one's supposed to be the big number methinks. Ho hum. Was that guy the lobster in the Little Mermaid? Aaand commercial break. Get me a drink while you're up.

"What would you do if Oprah handed you a big bundle of cash?" I think I'd shriek and jump up and down and wail. We're back! They're doing a pregnancy infographic. Lolz. Jolie adoption joke.

Sound editing -- No Country rocks the diegetics, so they should probably get it, but I'd be happy to see Transformers get it. Oh, huh -- Bourne. Forgot about that one. The Americans are awful at this acceptance stuff; Let's stick to Europeans. More schtick, and then sound mixing. Give one to No Country, people!

Nope, Bourne again -- Hollywood loves the editing and technical work on that film. Even Spielberg has mentioned it.

Hmm, we're into best actress montage. Surprisingly boring. Hmm, let's see who our nominees are. I liked that first Elizabeth movie, Cate should be sharp in this one, but I ain't seen it. I've heard good things about Julie Christie's performance, too, but didn't see it either. I like Laura Linney, I won't mind if she gets one of these things. And Ellen Page. She can get a Most Affected Performance honorary one, right? Oh hey, Cate actually looked excited for Marion Cotillard. (I don't know how to spell her name, because I am a dirty American.)

"It is true there is some angels in this city." That's probably the sweetest line of the night. Good for her.

Oh sweet, a Wii cameo! They still let Colin Ferrell show up at these things? I think he's drubk. He is also chuffed, apparently. I used to like that word until he sullied it with his dirty dirty self.

Folks have a seemingly endless appetite for twee plink-plonk guitar songs. It's kind of charming, really. This song could easily be 25 years old and nobody would know. I suppose the nice way to say that is "timeless", but what I really mean is "old". They do look happy to be at the Oscars and onstage, though, so that counts for something. A nice little moment for these folks.

LOLOL they're gonna try and hit 80 winners in a 3 minute montage. I think that's 2.5 seconds per film. We're not even at 1950 yet and they've trotted out the Overdone Film Trailer Song from Dragonheart. Do people still feel okay about "Ordinary People" winning in 1980? Here's Renee Zellwegger. Her dress has a train that's as long as she is tall. I'm betting Bourne wins editing, since it's cleaning up on technicals.

Right now, they're doing pretty good on timing for the show -- there's a chance this thing ends nearly on time. Bourne dude doesn't seem that excited, but Bourne is really cleaning up on technicals. This must be the "award the third in the trilogy" thing working on their behalf. Poor Pirates, ending with a whimper.

Poor Nicole Kidman, ruined herself. Used to be fetching. I'm just saying. I do like her brave choice to wear a chandelier. And, round of applause for old dude not dying. I'm sure he deserves the award, but he's made a lot of clunkers. Good for him on the honorary Oscar, tho. And his family gets their own box at Oscars. His grandkids are bored silly, sadly. It's nice they're not truncating him with music -- let the man speak.

They're still threatening us with John Travolta. I don't want to see his creepy reanimated ass. I have to walk the dog, you guys wait right here. Okay, back -- I'm gonna skip the foreign films. Is that racist?

Finally, a musical number from Enchanted! Also, worst song intro of the night. Somewhere, Julia Allison is getting teary at this song. Phew! So glad I walked the dog -- we had enough buffer on the DVR to skip that tediousness. Whoa! Corpse of John Travolta shows up at the end of the number! Music award doesn't go to Enchanted -- that's sweet. They got a movie and an Oscar out of four notes or so, but I am charmed by his incoherent brogue. "It took us tree weeks to make."

Weird camera angle backstage showed 10 guys backstage in tuxes... I wonder what they were doing. They cut that sweet Irish woman off so they could do a plane joke with Travolta? Damn you all to hell. Mike trouble for Jon Stewart -- did they just realize they're putting the Oscars on? Yay! They brought the Irish girl back! Now just undo the Travolta gag and all's forgiven.

Please somebody make a Cameron Diaz is not hot enough for HDTV joke! Oh I just did. She can pronounce "cinematography" -- way to put those "she is as dumb as a rock" rumors to sleep, Cam. If No Country doesn't win this one, everybody in the academy should get a cattle airgun to the head. OMG There's Gon' Be Blood wins. Guess it's gonna get bets picture, too. :\!!

Hillary Swank always seems like a really plausible drag queen to me. What bet did she lose to have to introduce the Parade of Corpses? I want to see who gets the least timid smattering of applause. Again, skip the black and white folks; All their fans are dead. Do you think Jack Valenti knows that there's a whole generation that doesn't know him for his work with JFK or the Academy, but rather as a DRM proponent?

Suggestion for next year: An applause-o-meter next to each dead person's name, so we can see explicitly who was loved. When they applaud an agent who was dead, is it cheering for the person or their death? Aaand closing with Heath Ledger. Guess who the biggest star is! Do you think they put the Cymbalta anti-depression ad right after the Parade of Dead People on purpose? Smart use of ad inventory!

Amy Adams is trotted back out. At least she gets to dress like a grownup instead of a Disney character this time. Guess she's gonna do music. A little too giddy and grin-filled for her gig here. No Country can't win this one; No music. So let's say they give this to one of the Michael Clayton - Yuma films that didn't get nothin' else. Atonement, okay fine. Music nominees have to sit in the cheap seats, so it'll give us time to hear his work before he gets to stage.

It's America's most beloved object of Peter Scholari's resentment, Tom Hanks! Ah, yes, Tom is the official Hollywood representative of NASA and the military, so why not throw to Baghdad? These folks are a lot better at reading cuecards than actors are. Man, it's gonna take these people 30 minutes to get to the stage from their nosebleed seats. But hey, a heartfelt acceptance speech is a great thing. "Even a 38-minute movie can change minds." Tom Hanks is happy he helped get those women on stage.

Iraq, health care, torture.... documentaries sound like the worst of a presidential debate. "Taxi to the Dark Side" sounds like a sequel to Saw III, but I guess it's not. Ever notice how every time a male-female filmmaking couple get an Oscar, the guy does all the speaking? Shocking, that. Even with the indies and doc makers.

Hey, it's Indiana Jones. I like this Harrison Ford guy. They gonna make him do script now? OMG It's Diablo Cody, world's most annoying person ever. Oh no, she won! This isn't going to go well. Here comes the waterworks. I called it. Meh, no point beating up on her, I think it's unlikely we'll have to encounter her again in our Oscar travels.

Okay, best actor montage. Still not that impressive in montage format, but I like the nominees at least. In Depp's clip, they actually showed him singing! Surprising they let that sneak through. I forgot Tommie Lee Jones got nominated for a movie that's not No Country. Dude was on a roll this year. Viggo was good in Eastern Promises, but holy hell did I hate that movie.

And Daniel Day Lewis gets it. Coulda called that one. Ugh, don't camp it up on stage, dude. Lewis has some sort of overwrought manner to accepting this award which is kinda creepy. This also bodes poorly for No Country in the best picture category, and it'll really be a shame if that gets shut out.

Yay! Coens win! Totally right. And Scorsese is like a charming old uncle delivering it. Let's see what they say. Very short and sweet.

Oooh, bald-headed Denzel! Very hot. Almost ready for the big prize. No Country takes it! Yippeee! A very thoughtful acceptance speech, and this is the first year in ages where I'm pretty confident that the best picture won Best Picture. A quick wrap by Stewart, and we're out.

Thank you everbody, goodnight!