And the Oscars have started with a montage of the 10 Best Picture nominees.
8:32PM
Co-hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco are edited into Inception. Alec Baldwin + Ambien in a juice pouch = hilarious.
8:33PM
Anne and James are still in search of Alec Baldwin to seek hosting tips. From The Social Network to The Fighter to True Grit, this skit is as good as any of Billy Crystal’s opening songs.
8:35PM
Back to Inception, complete with Morgan Freeman narrating, then The King’s Speech and now Black Swan. Worth it to see James Franco in a unitard.
8:37PM
A ride in the time machine from Back to the Future and the skit ends with Anne and James walking onto the stage.
8:40PM
Anne Hathaway’s mom chides her to have better posture. And there’s James Franco’s grandma. Or so he says … Grandma Franco: “I just saw Marky Mark.”
8:41PM
Anne: And it’s been a great year for lesbians.
James: That’s right.
Anne: Not just in general, but in movies.
James: The Kids Are Alright.
Anne: Lesbians.
James: Black Swan.
Anne: Dancing lesbians
James: Toy Story 3.
Anne: Where’s the dad?
8:43PM
Tom Hanks is up as the first presenter.
8:45PM
Art Direction nominees: Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Inception, The King’s Speech, and True Grit. The winner, not surprisingly: Alice in Wonderland.
8:46PM
Nominees for Cinematography: Black Swan, Inception, The King’s Speech, The Social Network, and True Grit. The winner: Wally Pfister for Inception.
8:50PM
Anne and James introduce living legend Kirk Douglas. He gets a standing ovation.
8:53PM
Kirk Douglas introduces the nominees for Best Supporting Actress. Time to see if I guessed this one right.
8:58PM
The Oscar goes to Melissa Leo. So far I’m one for one! I’ve loved her since her days on Homicide: Life on the Street.
8:59PM
… aaaand Melissa Leo becomes the first person to be censored.
9:00PM
James: “Congratu-effing-lations, Melissa.”
9:01PM
Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake come out to present. Justin cops to being Banksy.
9:02PM
Not digging Mila’s dress. It looks, oh, unfinished somehow. She and Justin are going to present Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short.
9:03PM
The Best Animated Short Film Oscar goes to The Lost Thing.
9:04PM
As much as I liked Toy Story 3, I really would like to see How to Train Your Dragon win for Best Animated Feature.
9:06PM
No surprise there: Toy Story 3 won.
9:12PM
I love Anne’s dress. Beautiful. She introduces Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem as presenters.
9:13PM
Penelope Cruz looks remarkable — beautiful and well rested — for a new mom.
9:14PM
I called it: Aaron Sorkin wins Best Adapted Screenplay for The Social Network.
9:15PM
The music starts playing, Aaron Sorkin keeps talking. The music gets louder, he keeps going. It’s like he has his own score playing.
9:16PM
Javier and Josh’s white tuxedo jackets and ties are doing them no favors. They look like waiters who stumbled onto the stage at the Oscars.
9:18PM
David Seidler wins the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for The King’s Speech.
9:19PM
Seidler gives a charming speech, wrapping it up by accepting on behalf of all stutterers: “We have a voice, we have been heard, thanks to you, the Academy.”
9:23PM
Anne’s changed into a tux. She still looks good, mostly because of the very sparkly high heels. She sings about an unnamed Aussie who bailed on her for a planned duet. The camera zooms in on Hugh Jackman, right before Anne sings about having fake retractable claws stuck into her heart.
9:25PM
James comes out dressed as Marilyn Monroe and confesses, “The weird part is I just got a text message from Charlie Sheen.”
9:26PM
Russell Brand and Helen Mirren come out to present the next award. She speaks French, he translates: “Yo, my Oscar-winning performance as a queen was much more realistic than Colin Firth’s as a king.” She speaks French again, clearly calling Russell an idiot. He says he’s flattered, but that he’s a married man.
9:27PM
The Oscar for Foreign Language Film goes to Denmark’s In a Better World.
9:29PM
Reese Witherspoon comes out to present the award for Best Supporting Actor. She looks like a vintage Barbie doll. With a pointy chin.
9:31PM
Well, I finally got one wrong. I thought Geoffrey Rush would win, but the Oscar goes to Christian Bale. I can only hope his beard is for a role.
9:33PM
At least he’s honest: Bale says of his co-star Melissa Leo, “I’m not going to drop the f-bomb like she did, I’ve done that plenty before.”
9:34PM
Bale gives a shoutout to www.dickeklund.com, the site of the trainer he portrayed in The Fighter. The site has already crashed.
9:38PM
The presidents of AMPAS and Disney ABC Television Group come out to talk. Mentally tuning out … now.
9:39PM
OK, so now we know ABC will be home to the Oscars through at least 2020.
9:40PM
Anne’s in a new, gray dress. I don’t like this one as much as the white one she had on earlier. She introduces Hugh Jackman as “once again the Wolver to my Ine” since they made up backstage.
9:41PM
Hugh and Nicole Kidman’s intro about music in movies leads to a live symphony that starts out with — what else — the theme from Star Wars.
9:43PM
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross win the Oscar for Original Score the The Social Network.
9:45PM
Scarlett Johansson and Matthew McConacrazy come out to introduce the award for Sound Mixing.
9:47PM
The team from Inception wins the Oscar for Sound Mixing.
9:49PM
Inception wins again, this time for Sound Editing.
9:54PM
Marisa Tomei could smuggle a family of five under that dress of hers. It’s huge!
9:55PM
Cate Blanchett’s dress wins the award for What the Hell? Dress.
9:56PM
The Wolfman wins the Oscar for Makeup.
9:59PM
Collen Atwood wins another Oscar for Costume Design for Alice in Wonderland. Fancy costumes or not, that movie was BORING.
10:00PM
You’d think an Oscar-winning costume designer would know those gloves are a huge fashion mistake.
10:02PM
Kevin Spacey introduces himself as George Clooney. He introduces the first nominee for Best Original Song, Randy Newman singing “We Belong Together” from Toy Story 3.
10:05PM
Next up: Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi performing “I See the Light” from Tangled. I never knew Chuck could sing. Love the color of Mandy’s gown, even if the bottom half of it looks like 100 Muppets were skinned to make it.
10:11PM
Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal present the nominees for Best Documentary Short Subject.
10:13PM
Strangers No More wins the Oscar for Documentary Short Subject.
10:15PM
God of Love wins the Oscar for Live Action Short Film. The first thing out of the winner, Luke Matheny’s, mouth: “I should’ve gotten a haircut.”
10:16PM
Luke Matheny gets a cheer for thanking his mother, who did craft services for the film. He gets a collective “aww” for thanking his composer/love of his life.
10:17PM
James Franco: “NYU, what’s up?”
10:18PM
Anne is now wearing a pretty gold, one-shouldered flapper-fringe-style dress. They introduce a fake video for “Tiny Ball of Light,” purportedly a duet between Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1. It’s autotune at its finest. A couple more fake videos/songs leads us to Edward Cullen singing “He Doesn’t Own a Shirt” from Twilight: Eclipse.
10:19PM
Oprah Winfrey’s a presenter? Of course she is.
10:21PM
The winner for Documentary Feature is Inside Job. Sadly, Oprah does not pronounce it “Inside Jo-OB!”
10:26PM
Anne introduces Billy Crystal. Any chance he’ll sing one of his songs? Look at that — standing ovation.
10:29PM
No song, but an introduction to a clip of Bob Hope hosting the Oscars.
10:31PM
Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr. come out to present the Visual Effects Oscar.
10:32PM
Jude to Robert about visual effects teams: “If it wasn’t for them, your closest association with a superhero would’ve been in 2001, when you got busted in a cheap hotel with a woman dressed as Batgirl.” Uncomfortable laughs all around. Robert’s retort: “OK, first of all that cheap hotel room cost $1250 a night with a corporate discount. Secondly, it was 2000, not 2001. And most importantly she was dressed as Wonder Woman.” Wonder if Ricky Gervais wrote this joke.
10:33PM
Inception wins again, this time for Visual Effects. Rightly so, I might add.
10:35PM
The Social Network wins for Film Editing.
10:41PM
Anne’s now wearing a beautiful ruby-red strapless dress.
10:42PM
Jennifer Hudson comes out to present the final two nominees for Original Song. First up: “If I Rise” from 127 Hours, performed by A.R. Rahman and Florence Welch of Florence + the Machine. Yay!
10:44PM
I’m officially on the Go Away Gwyneth Paltrow train. Enough already.
10:46PM
Randy Newman wins for Original Song, his second Oscar.
10:48PM
Randy turns out to be very self deprecating, pointing out he’s been nominated 20 times and only won twice. He thinks a chicken dish has been named in his honor at the Academy luncheon.
10:52PM
Celine Dion begins to sing “Smile” for the In Memoriam segment. Cue the tears.
10:55PM
After a nice, understated (for her) performance by Celine Dion, Halle Berry comes out to introduce a tribute to Lena Horne.
10:59PM
The Oscars are really underwhelming this year. I’m multitasking and uploading photos to my Flickr account as I’m liveblogging.
11:01PM
I want Anne’s shiny blue dress.
11:02PM
Hilary Swank introduces Kathryn Bigelow to introduce the nominees for Directing. Tom Hooper wins for The King’s Speech.
11:05PM
Loved Tom Hooper’s heartfelt acceptance speech, especially how he thanked his mom for suggesting he make an unknown little play into his next movie: “The moral of the story is listen to your mother.”
11:06PM
Annette Bening introduces a clip for the 2nd Annual Governor’s Awards honoring lifetime achievements in film.
11:10PM
I think Anne’s done changing outfits for the night.
11:12
Jeff Bridges introduces the nominees for Best Actress.
11:16PM
Another non-surprise: Natalie Portman wins for Black Swan.
11:19PM
Anne flubs while introducing Sandra Bullock, who comes out to introduce the Best Actor nominees.
11:25PM
Way to go, Colin Firth. “I have a feeling my career has just peaked.” Not by a long shot.
11:31PM
I was wrong. Anne changed again. She and James introduce Steven Spielberg to introduce the Best Picture nominees.
11:36PM
And now I need to make the time to see this year’s Best Picture, The King’s Speech.
11:38PM
The choir from P.S. 22 in Staten Island, N.Y., comes out to perform and close the ceremony. They sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” The kids are joined by Anne, James, and all the night’s winners. Fitting end to the evening.
And now it’s off to bed.
