The morning after

Here's what critics had to say about last night's Oscarcast:

Newsweek: An "unusually warm and fuzzy Oscarcast."

New York Times: "For all the red carpet gowns and glitter, inside the Kodak Theater the evening was molded to DeGeneres’ low-key comic style."

Washington Post: The show was "a bore and a horror," but DeGeneres was "crisp and unpretentious."

Philadelphia Inquirer: "The pacing was off, and the intentional padding seemed egregious. It's not what people tune in to watch."

San Francisco Chronicle: "It was long. It was flat. And it was bloated. Worst of all, it was boring."

Chicago Tribune: "DeGeneres’ light approach made what can be a long night more enjoyable."

Roger Ebert: "The most elegant and somehow gentle Oscarcast I can remember."

Los Angeles Times: "Gospel singers, interpretive dance troupes, a sound effects choir . . . after being glued to the tube for nearly four hours, it felt more like we'd just watched a PBS pledge drive, not the 79th annual Oscar ceremony."

The scorecard

No dominant film this year -- but then we knew that going in. This year's multiple Oscar winners:

The Departed: 4
Pan's Labyrinth: 3
Little Miss Sunshine: 2
Dreamgirls: 2
An Inconvenient Truth: 2

On my Oscar ballot, I got 15 correct out of the 24 awards. I was 8 for 8 in the big awards, but there were too many upsets in the smaller categories. I'll get 'em next year!

Wrap-up: Winners and losers

The big winners at the Academy Awards:

The Departed: Four Oscars, the most of any film, out of five nominations. (The only loser: supporting actor Mark Wahlberg.)
Martin Scorsese: If you saw the surge of excitement when his name was announced showed, pretty much everyone in Hollywood wanted this guy to win this year. It was Marty's party.
Pan's Labyrinth: Five nominations, three wins -- although it did not, as expected, win best foreign film. That went to ...
The Lives of Others: Pan's was more widely known, but this critically acclaimed but little-seen German film benefited from the rule that voters in this category must see all five films.
Ellen DeGeneres: Not many killer jokes that got big laughs, but overall she did a fine job filling the shoes of Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg. She'll be back.

The losers:

Babel: Seven nominations, only one Oscar, for Guillermo Santaolalla's score.
Children of Men: Three nominations, zero Oscars.
Dreamgirls: Eight nominations, two Oscars, for supporting actress and sound mixing. Shut out for original song.

And a couple of mixed bags:

Little Miss Sunshine: It got best original screenplay and Alan Arkin scored a mild upset as best supporting actor, but it missed out on the biggest prize of the night.
The show itself: Producer Laura Ziskin's offbeat opening worked well, as did the decision to push the supporting actor awards further back into the show. The show was short on the pomposity that has marked many Oscars in the past. But: The show really seemed to lose steam in the second half -- and some of the later pieces, like Michael Mann's montage about what movies say about America, seemed pointless.

Best picture: The Departed

There wasn't really a favorite this year, but this was the safe pick. Compared with the electricity that would have run through the Kodak Theater with a win by Babel or Little Miss Sunshine, The Departed's victory seemed almost anticlimactic. but it completed a victorious night for Martin Scorsese.

The show's final running time was under four hours after all: 3 hours 50 minutes.

Best director: Martin Scorsese

It's the moment he's been waiting for ... for 30 years. He got a standing O from the house. He thanked all the people who had wished this for him over the years, "even strangers ... in elevators!" Congrats, Marty.

Best actor: Forest Whitaker

Wow. His speech on what acting means to him is the most powerful acceptance speech so far: Lots of tears in the audience, not just Whitaker's wife Keisha but also fellow nominee Will Smith.

Best actress: Helen Mirren

No upset here: "This is the biggest and the best gold star that I've ever had in my life." She also saluted QEII herself, ending with a topper that may or may not have been an homage to James Cameron as she held the Oscar aloft: "Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the queen."

Philip Seymour Hoffman looks like he needs a nap.

Push comes to shove

Now we get down to brass tacks: the Big Four awards.

R.I.P.

OK, I'll admit it; I have a soft spot for every year's montage of recently deceased film figures. Jodie Foster, who introduced it, lent some unexpected poignance to it this year when she said (while choking up) that she lost a good friend herself recently.

No upset in this year's Applause-O-Meter winner: Robert Altman.

No Marty curse here

Thelma Schoonmaker, Martin Scorsese's longtime editor, just won her third Oscar for film editing; her first two were for Raging Bull and The Aviator.

'Wake Up' wins it

The big question with original song was whether the Dreamgirls vote would be split among its three nominated songs. I guess the answer was yes -- Melissa Etheridge's "I Need to Wake Up" took the Oscar. One more loss in my pool.

'Ewwww' moment

The announcer guy just called Jennifer Lopez an "excellent reason for high-definition television." Stay classy, Oscars!

J-Lo: Bad choice in dress, by the way.

It's Jennifer Hudson singing "Love You I Do." Gotta watch.

EDIT: Is it me or did we just come dangerously close to a wardrobe malfunction there?

No. 2 for Little Miss Sunshine

But everyone already thought Michael Arndt's screenplay would win, so it looks like best picture is still up for grabs.

First Oscar for Babel

I almost picked Gustavo Santaolalla's score in my pool, but went with the favorite The Queen instead. My bad.

You got that right

Clint Eastwood, after flubbing the introduction for honorary Oscar recipient Ennio Morricone: "Shoulda worn my glasses."

Uh oh ... it's Celine Dion. Good time for a bathroom break.

Most emotional acceptance so far

... goes to Davis Guggenheim of An Inconvenient Truth, who also waved Al Gore up to the podium with them -- which Al was maybe a little too happy to accept.

Supporting actress: Jennifer Hudson

Well, all is right with the world: Jennifer Hudson won, just as we all thought. But, you know, can the orchestra be not quite so strict about cutting off the winners' speeches? After all, it's why we watch. Even if it's not a great speech. She did squeeze in a shout-out to Jennifer Holliday, who was the original Dreamgirls' Effie White on Broadway.

I jinxed it

Well, no sooner do I say Pan's Labyrinth is on a roll than The Lives of Others just upsets it for foreign language film!

Pan's Labyrinth's night?

Pan's Guillermo Navarro just upset Children of Men's Emmanuel Lubezki in cinematography. I think it's won every award it's been up for so far. In a year with no blockbuster, it could end up with the most Oscars tonight.

Midterm report: The host

Ellen DeGeneres: I think she's doing a great job so far. Even when she's doing those goofy found-comedy bits with people and things don't go as planned, like just now with Clint Eastwood, she pulls it off -- largely, I think, because like Billy Crystal, she seems to be having a good time herself.

Score one for The Departed

Cryptic acceptance comment by screenwriter William Monahan: "Valium does work." Well OK then.

Best unscripted moment so far: Monahan with presenters Helen Mirren and Tom Hanks blundering behind Chris Connelly during a pre-commercial bumper. Chris: "... and there's more fun to come ... right Tom?" Tom, appreciating the surreal banality of the moment: "That's right, Chris! More fun!"

My wife nailed it: "Robert Altman would have liked it." Altman said that in mistakes you can find truth. Not sure what kind of truth this would be, though.

Animated feature: Happy Feet

Wow, a Pixar movie loses in this category! I didn't know it was possible.

But can we please dispense with the animated-characters-in-the-stands gag? It's getting old.

FIrst cheesy moment of the night

Well, we already knew from "Saturday Night Live" that Al Gore wasn't much of a comedian. Maybe that's why they kept cutting to Jerry Seinfeld -- once in mid-half-yawn. But that Leo DiCaprio looked maybe a little starstruck next to the ex-veep.

And perfect timing for a green/recycled-joke joke from Ellen -- and she actually carries it off.

Supporting actor: Alan Arkin

... well, not too far back in the show. First win of the night for Little Miss Sunshine! Bodes well for best picture, perhaps?

Wooden speech by Arkin, but you could sense he was just holding it together underneath. Congrats.

The sound effects choir

OK, that was pretty cool, and an original idea. This is shaping up to be a quirky show -- in a good way.

And non-traditional; it looks like they are moving the supporting-actor awards further back in the show. Traditionally they're at the front.

First upset of the night

Did anyone predict The Danish Poet would win for animated short? Me neither. Sorry, Little Matchgirl.

And West Bank Story was the most slick of the live-action short films, but not the best. Oh well. Classy acceptance speech, though. And the orchestra didn't even play him off -- that's tough to do in these minor categories.

Pan's Labyrinth 2, world 0

... and I'm no Will Farrell fan, but that musical number about the woes of comedy actors was actually more funny than campy!

... and they're off!

The opening montage featuring all the nominees -- famous or not -- was a nice, non-elitist way to start the show. (And if it reminded you of Apple Computer's "Switch" ads from a few years ago, that's no coincidence -- those were also made by documentary filmmaker Errol Morris.)

And wow, Ellen DeGeneres is a lot more at ease as host than Jon Stewart was last year. And funnier, too.

And Jennifer Hudson: thanks for losing the jacket.

First award: Pan's Labyrinth for art direction. I'm 1 for 1 so far!

Just bring out Ellen already

At 7 p.m., a cute little montage sequence segued into ... another half-hour of preshow babble, which is reminding me how much I'm not a fan of the cloying Chris Connelly. Apparently the REAL show begins at 7:30. I say again: Bring it on!

Little Miss Synergy

I've seen it twice in the past hour: A new ad (or at least this is the first I've seen of it) for HP printers starring Little Miss Sunshine star Abigail Breslin. It's online here.

Since she's only in the fifth grade, is it fair to ask whether becoming a corporate spokesactress will damage her indie cred? (Oops, just did.)

The interminable preshow babble

I'm not a fan of the red-carpet coverage, but of course I watch it anyway. I stuck with E! for the first hour -- Ryan Seacrest is watchable enough, but I can't stand the fashion chitchat -- then flipped over to the Barbara Walters special on ABC. (Joan and Melissa? No thank you.)

Ryan's flub of the night: asking Babel star Gael Garcia Bernal whether he knew Brad Pitt was one of the producers when he signed on. If Garcia seemed kind of confused in his response, it may have been because Pitt has a producer credit on The Departed, not Babel.

As far as the fashions: Penelope Cruz and Maggie Gyllenhaal looked great. Jennifer Hudson ... not so much. Lose the jacket, honey.

Bring on the show!

A white carpet for Oscar day

The big day has arrived, and to celebrate, we got about a foot of snow here in the Twin Cities overnight. As much as 13.4 inches was reported in St. Paul, but here at Oscar Central it looks more like 9 or 10. Hard to tell with all that blowing and drifting, dontcha know.

We're still shoveling our way out, but that's not to say we won't be ready for The Big Show. Let's go over the preflight checklist:

Sony LCD widescreen HDTV: Check.

Comcast/Motorola DVR, key for rewinding after those "Oh no you didn't!" moments: Check.

Remote control with two fresh AA batteries: Check.

12-inch PowerBook with Wi-Fi for live in-front-of-the-TV blogging: Check.

OK. Good to go. Check back here about 6:30 p.m. and we'll get it cranked up. See you then!

Now back to shoveling...

United 93: A powerful experience

Stayed up late last night to watch United 93 on DVD. It's a riveting film and a courageous film on the part of director Paul Greengrass in that it's shot almost cinema verite style -- no Hollywood-style character back stories, no overwrought climax. You just see what happened, as it happened (Greengrass acknowledges on the DVD commentary that they don't know the whole truth about what happened up there; he just wanted to construct what he called a "believable truth.") In most cases you don't even know the characters' names -- and it doesn't really matter. What matters is what they did.

If you saw United 93 in the theaters, rent the DVD anyway. It's worth if just for an hourlong extra feature that deals with the families of the victims, what they went through, and how they felt about the making of the movie. For many of them, this movie wasn't made "too soon" -- it wasn't soon enough.

If the best-director Oscar doesn't go to Martin Scorsese, I hope it goes to Paul Greengrass.

Life on the red carpet (or next to it)

The Sunday New York Times has a nice piece by David Carr about the surrealness of the red carpet. At one New York awards event he encountered Garrison Keillor:

Garrison Keillor, hardly a usual suspect, was there too, to honor Robert Altman, the recently departed director of A Prairie Home Companion. Spotting a familiar face — we are both from Minnesota — I buttonholed him.

“There seems to be a rope between us,” Mr. Keillor said dolefully, pointing down to the velvet barrier. “What is the purpose of that?”

Borat's Azamat speaks

The L.A. Times interviews Ken Davitian, the actor behind Borat's (mostly) loyal sidekick, Azamat. Little-known fact: He and Sacha Baron Cohen often had no idea what they were yelling at each other because Davitian was speaking Armenian and Cohen Hebrew.

On his infamous nude-wrestling scene: "You are in a room with what you consider geniuses, and if the genius is gonna get naked, I am following the genius."

Borat is up for best original screenplay tonight.