* We give it a C+. See you next year.
* And now, a very special episode of "Fame" as everyone in the audience applauds politely and checks their watches.
* Thanks, Anne and James. You'll never host this show again!
* It's the Best Picture award. Why not let the three producers each have their turn at the mike without trying to play them off with the music? It's not their fault you stuck in that stupid mother/grandmother gag at the top of the show.
* Congratulations, The King's Speech. A very safe, very British, very conventional choice. The Social Network was more important, The Kids Are All Right more emotional.
* An actual timpani roll? Nice.
* How many costume changes has Anne Hathaway undergone tonight? That last one was a doozy.
* Oscar voters also love British actors. So a British actor playing a character with a disability? Slam dunk.
* Colin Firth wins Best Actor. No surprise there. Oscar voters always love characters who are somehow disabled. And a bad stutter certainly counts.
* Whether it's genuine or not, Sandra Bullock always seems so charming and cute, doesn't she?
* Natalie's right. Darren Aronofsky is a visionary.
* As inevitable as it was, we still can't believe Natalie Portman is now an Oscar winner. She was good in Black Swan, yes, but bland and ordinary in so many other movies.
* We appreciate showing longer clips of the nominees, so that we can, you know, see them acting.
* We did sort of like the bit from the last couple of Oscar shows where each acting nominee got a little speech from a past costar or friend. We miss that. Jeff Bridges is sort of halfway doing that now with the Best Actress nominees.
* They make actually end it on time, people.
* Usually they give the Thalberg Award during the show.
* Tom Hooper's mom should get a job as a project scout for the studios.
* Unbelievable. Tom Hooper wins Best Director for The King's Speech. Over Black Swan or The Social Network? This means The King's Speech wins Best Picture, people.
* Still hard to believe that Hilary Swank, of all people, has two Oscars.
* We must be too young to fully appreciate Lena Horne.
* The dead-people montage. And this year, for some reason, we can't hear the audience clapping. The applause usually turns into a kind of weird popularity contest. We don't miss it. Did they decide not to mike the audience or were they told to lay off on the clapping?
* We didn't know that Gwyneth Paltrow was "country music's newest star." Did anyone tell country music that?
* This show is making us dislike James Franco and Anne Hathaway.
* Mrs. Cheese Fry: "Does it end in 20 minutes?" Uh, no.
* Why does David Fincher keep looking so glum and unhappy when the cameras cut to him?
* The rotating hallway scene in Inception is probably 2010's most amazing piece of film. Best Visual Effects pretty much had to go to them.
* Very cool idea, making it look like Bob Hope is there at a podium in the Kodak Theater. But then they blew it by having "Bob Hope" announce Jude Law and Robert Downey, Jr. (As an aside, Sherlock Holmes was a convoluted mess of a movie, redeemed only partially by their chemistry together.)
* Standing ovation for Billy Crystal. We're betting right now that he gets the hosting job next year. We're also betting that he's had some work done - that is one smooth forehead, people.
* ABC is giving us the hard-sell on the new Dana Delany show "Body of Proof." She'll always be hot Army nurse Colleen McMurphy to us.
* Best Documentary Feature winner provides us with the obligatory podium political statement.
* The Auto-Tune fake song bit was funny, but not as funny as it probably looked on paper.
* We're now in the mushy middle of the Oscar-cast, doling out the Best Documentary Short award. An amazing time for the winner, time to refresh your beverage for the rest of us.
* Why is NBC's Chuck singing on my Oscar broadcast?
* Best Song nominee performances, the one thing that really should go, don't you think? Nowadays, movie songs are usually stuck in the end credits and Oscar night is the first time anyone hears them.
* Barack Obama cameo.
* We think Marisa Tomei is underrated, but she was always dogged by a rumor that Jack Palance read the wrong name and she didn't win Best Supporting Actress in 1992.
* And it did. So it doesn't have to always be about Hans Zimmer?
* Best Original Score really should go to The Social Network. Perfectly suited to that technological story.
* The Star Wars theme still gives us goose-bumps. It's like we're five-years-old all over again.
* Super 8: Coach Taylor meets Close Encounters. We're so there.
* Best Supporting Actor goes to Christian Bale, as expected. He is always very good, without question. But it's hard to forget the audio recording of his Terminator Salvation meltdown, isn't it?
* Russell Brand and Helen Mirren starring in the upcoming Arthur remake. We wonder who pulled which string to get them this prime spot.
* Franco in drag. They seem to be trying too hard, don't you think? Hathaway's whole cutesy song insulting Hugh Jackman was rather pointless.
* Best Original Screenplay goes to The King's Speech, a script David Seidler wrote many, many years ago. We would have voted for The Kids Are All Right, but no one asked us.
* The Social Network and Aaron Sorkin win Best Adapted Screenplay. Well deserved. A smart, literate, crackling script.
* We're big fans, Josh Brolin. Big fans.
* Predictable: "Toy Story 3" wins Best Animated Feature. It was pretty good, no question.
* The nominated animated shorts always look so brilliant and genius.
* "I'm Banksy." Funny line, J.T.
* Melissa Leo is annoying Mrs. Cheese Fry. Then she dropped the F-bomb. She's great, but she pushes the blue-collar, rough-around-the-edges thing a little too much.
* Guess Melissa Leo's "tacky" for-your-consideration ads didn't undermine her appeal after all. She's still Detective Kay Howard to us.
* First genuinely funny moment: Kirk Douglas delaying the delivery of the Oscar to Melissa Leo.
* First standing ovation: Kirk Douglas.
* Again, Roger Deakins loses the Best Cinematography Oscar. He's the Susan Lucci of DPs.
* Tim Burton's best movies remain two of his earliest - Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Beetlejuice.
* Winner of Best Art Direction goes to Alice in Wonderland (which was a very strange movie, even for Tim Burton). Interesting. Could mean no big sweep for The King's Speech.
* The Oscars run three hours plus and we're wasting time on Hathaway/Franco mom/grandmom bits? Seriously?
* Yeah, so the Hathaway/Franco hosting decision? Big mistake so far. Awkward.
* Opening bit putting Hathaway and Franco into the Best Picture nominees... pretty lame. Alec Baldwin scored the best lines. And a completely random and unmotivated Back to the Future spoof.
* Minutes away now.
* Source Code seems kind of cool, but we remain unconvinced about Jake Gyllenhaal.
* ABC had to go and remind us about Roberto Benigni's embarrassingly over-the-top, aren't-I-a-funny-Frenchman-who-no-speak-much-English acceptance shenanigans for Life Is Beautiful. Some things are better left unremembered.
* James Franco will always be Daniel Desario to us.
* Oscar-related celebrity interaction #1: delivering script to Silver Pictures, we caught a look at Robert Downey Jr., slouching on the sofa in the office of his soon-to-be wife Susan Levin.
* Reese Witherspoon looks like Carrie Underwood, or is it the other way around?
* 45 minutes to show time and our first indication if the unconventional recruitment of James Franco and Anne Hathaway to be hosts was brilliant or misguided.
* Our predictions: Best Picture - The King's Speech, Best Actor - Colin Firth, Best Actress - Natalie Portman, Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale, Best Supporting Actress - Hailie Steinfeld, Best Director - David Fincher.
* Why doesn't Warren Beatty make movies anymore?
* For a truly snarky, bitter take on the Oscars, keep an eye on Nikki Finke's real-time blogging at Deadline.com.
* Another future ex-Mrs. Cheese Fry: Scarlett Johansson.
* We also wonder about the origins of this deplorable practice in which commentators critique red carpet dresses. And "critique" is being generous. What really happens is that a panel of snarky, self-styled fashionistas rip apart the actresses like they're filling the pages of some middle-school slam book. It usually feels more about scoring the best line than really examining the fashion. It's even stranger when the attacks come on the same network as those that carry the events. So Ryan Seacrest on E! asks about the dresses and marvels at how great everyone looks, while two days later another show on E! happily attacks everyone with a snotty "what were they thinking" condescension.
* Dear ABC, I'm here to look at movie stars, not inner city kids who sing. Is that so terrible?
* Why wouldn't E! broadcast their red carpet show in high-definition?
* We liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but no way is Russell Brand Oscar-show-worthy,
* Maria Menounos is, quite literally, too cute for words, people.
* It always seems that the bigger stars show up right before the show starts, while the lesser stars, like Winter's Bone's Jennifer Lawrence show up 2 hours ahead of time. Is that just an unwritten Oscar etiquette rule or do the Oscar handlers issue arrival times to everyone?
* 90 minutes to showtime.
* We usually don't have sympathy for Ryan Seacrest, but Michelle Williams did him no favors in their red carpet interview. It was like pulling teeth to get her to say more than two words at a time. If you don't want to talk to him, keep walking.
* Where and when did this irritating practice begin in which celebrities get asked about their clothing on the red carpet? This is a relatively new phenomenon. We wonder if it was Joan Rivers when she started this whole red carpet marathons on E!. Seriously, aside from the designers and fashion geeks, does anyone care? We wouldn't know a Donna Karan from a Versace if you held a gun to our head.
ALL HAIL THE CHEESE FRY! :-)
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