Tonite's Oscars - who's going to win?

Alan Arkin won !!! Hooray!!

Jennifer Hudson just won for Dreamgirls (I guess it was best supporting actress).

Hoowah!!! Gore won!!!!

Will that turn the Democratic field around?

Jennifer won? That's great! Take that Simon!

Forrest Whitaker!!!! Wonderful!!!

Loved Helen Mirrens outfit!

Well, let's see:

-- Once again, the academy voters decided to turn the "best original screenplay" award into the "best comedy" award. Since, for some strange reason, the voters never cast their best picture ballots for a comedy (the last one to win was Shakespeare in Love in 1999: before that it was Annie Hall in 1978, unless you want to call Forrest Gump (1995) a comedy) they tend to give comedies the consolation award of best original or adapted screenplay. In contrast to the dearth of best picture Oscars, comedies regularly get best screenplay Oscars (e.g. Sideways in 2004; Lost in Translation in 2003).

-- Peter O'Toole did not get the lifetime achievement Oscar in the best actor category. Instead, Alan Arkin got it for best supporting actor and Martin Scorsese got it for best director. In both cases, the winners clearly took home the award not for their work in that one particular film but for their entire body of work.

-- Al Gore was pretty funny. So was Ellen Degeneres.

-- The biggest surprise of the night: the victory of The Lives of Others in the foreign language film category. After Pan's Labyrinth had been heavily favored coming into the ceremony, and after it won several technical awards, it seemed like a sure thing to win the best foreign language film Oscar. But it was a very strong group of nominees this year: Days of Glory would have also been a worthy choice.

Good points there, joe. Particularly about Pan's Labyrinth - I was certain it would win. Guess I need to see Lives of Others now!

I'm just glad that Helen Mirren and Forrest Whitaker won. They both deserved to win. All the other categories were tossups for me.

What did he win. Sweatiest actor?

What surprised me most was that with Lives of Others a MA thesis/work got the Oscar.

(Mine was only re-printed -as a shortened version and without asking me- in a broschure.)

Take you ass to Africa and see how dry you'll be.

I like Ellen and her brand of humor but she didn't impress me last night. Bring back Billy Crystal!!

don't they have deserts in Africa? that's pretty dry isn't it?

Best actor in a sweaty situation--or dry--or any other.

Yay, Forrest!!

I watched the first couple of hours (well, half an hour of preshow, 1.5 hrs of the actual show). It was OK. I kept waiting for Ellen to do some sort of breakout laugh-out-loud moment, I never saw it if there was one. The screenplay for Scorcese was a chuckle, but it was all kind of cozy and cute and not quite intense enough for the Oscars, I don't think.

Jaden Smith flubbing the cues and getting flustered was cute (and Will Smith's evident pride, too).

Gore did pretty well with the "announcement" funny business.

Everything is so stilted and scripted, that's always the case though isn't it.

Were there any really good accepance speeches?


Meanwhile, slightly different topic, I went to the Oscars' own "Worst dressed" list... what is their PROBLEM?! Gwyneth's dress was really cool, she looked great. Jennifer Hudson too. (OK she looked better without the jacket thingie, but still.) Kirsten Dunst's dress was nice. Meryl Streep's big coral jewelry was great, lots of personality. Naomi Watts?! Totally classy. (She looked kind of short and squat next to Nicole Kidman but who doesn't. Does that woman eat?) Jada Pinkett looked fabulous.

OK I won't go through every single one but I thought it was ridiculous. The only ones I agreed on were Eva Green (whomever she is -- bad hair, but points for standing out), Anne Hathaway (boring boring boring, she's young and pretty and should be going for something more WOW) and Shaun Robinson (just didn't quite work, too 80's in the wrong way).

eoe, I didn't watch the Oscars last night all that closely, but I agree; bring back Billy Cristal.

I was happy to see Jennifer and Whitaker win!

It was first a thesis? Interesting. I read that he started from a single image/idea: that of a surveillance person in a dark room having to listen music he didn't want to hear.

Well, I look forward to watching that film and also The Last King of Scotland. That was the second biggest surprise for me after Pan's Labyrinth not getting honors for best foreign language film. I thought they'd hand it to Peter O'Toole.

The best speech, I thought, was from Ennio Morricone as translated by Clint Eastwood, who said he ad libbed most of the speech because, (as a veteran of spaghetti westerns), "I can speak Italian."

Here's the line I liked best:
(I'm) thinking of fellow artists "who never received this honor. I wish they could all be recognized along with me."

The script, not the film. (But he had studied Russian in St. Peterburg and philosophy, poltical sciences and economics in Oxford before he began his studies at the University of Television and Film Munich.)

Thanks, Walter. It's interesting that relative newcomers did so well last night -- this German filmmaker (probably the most experienced of the three), Ari Sandel for West Bank Story & Jennifer Hudson.