The show: a post-mortem

I'll say right off the bat that Jon Stewart did a good job: much better than his uncomfortable first stint a few years ago and better than Ellen DeGeneres last year. The opening monologue was sharp even though some other jokes fell flat (the Yom Kippur-Atonement joke was the worst).

It was a taut, well-produced show, clocking in at about three and a half hours.

The biggest problem: A lack of drama. Marion Cotillard was a surprise, Tilda Swinton somewhat less so. But the last three awards (Daniel Day-Lewis, the Coens and No Country) were more or less anticlimactic. Day-Lewis was gracious but not very memorable; the Coens seemed detached and betrayed no emotion at all; by best picture I was ready to wrap it up.

The show has settled into a formula the past several years: a few montages, the best-song nominees performed, yada yada. The show needs a shake-up, but how to shake it up without flirting with disaster? There's the rub. Maybe we'll find out next year. What's Billy Crystal up to?

My picks: How did I do?

I got seven of the Big Eight correct (only miss: Tilda Swinton for best supporting actress) and 15 of 24 overall. That was the same I got right last year, but I don't think it'll be enough to win my office pool. Somebody had to have gone with Bourne for the sound categories, and they're two up on me right there.

Although ... I just went through Entertainment Weekly's picks and saw that they also got 15 right. So, who knows.

The scorecard

This year's multiple winners:

No Country for Old Men: 4
The Bourne Ultimatum: 3
There Will Be Blood: 2
La Vie en Rose: 2

The winners:
No Country for Old Men: The most Oscars, so by definition the big winner.
The Bourne Ultimatum: Three nominations, three Oscars.
La Vie en Rose: Two for three, with a surprise best actress win.

The losers:
Atonement: Seven nominations, just one Oscar (for original score).
Transformers: Three nominations but goes home empty-handed.

Best picture: No Country for Old Men

Kind of an anticlimactic ending with No Country taking the big prize as expected. Although Scott Rudin's more emotional speech was an antidote to the detached intellectual Coens, it was nothing like Scorsese's triumph last year. Just kind of like, OK, it's over, let's go home.

Best director: Joel and Ethan Coen

Joel's speech made it clear they're still a couple of kids making movies with their Super 8 camera. Which is how it should be. Congrats.

Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

The guy is almost too well-spoken; an elegant acceptance speech. It's a good thing he works only once every few years, or he'd have a lock on the best-actor Oscar. Next up: best director.

A tearful Diablo

An emotional, courteous acceptance speech from Diablo Cody: She thanked the Academy, her fellow nominees, Ellen Page, Jason Reitman and "my family for loving me just the way I am." She then stammered "sorry" as she began to lose her composure and abruptly walked off stage with a mortified look on her face. No worries, Diablo; you were great.

We're down to the Final Four

The preliminaries are over. Now it gets serious: Original screenplay, best actor, best director and best picture. Diablo Cody, are you ready for your close-up?

A documentary upset

No End in Sight was the big favorite here, and a few thought Michael Moore's Sicko might win, but Taxi to the Dark Side pulls it out.

It still gets me every time

The "In Memoriam" montage. Ingmar Bergman ... Suzanne Pleshette ... Heath Ledger.

Now THAT was a great moment

Kudos to Jon Stewart (and to the producer who presumably made the decision) for bringing the "Falling Slowly" songwriter back out on stage after the break to say her thank-yous.

The honorary Oscar

Robert F. Boyle. Strangely moving. Sometimes it's good to remember that there are artists in the motion picture industry who have excelled at their craft for decades -- but we've never heard of them.

Sorry, Roderick Jaynes

We don't get to see what happens if the pseudonym for the Coen brothers gets called to the stage.

Scoreboard: Bourne 3, No Country 2. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The best pictures, made boring

Montage time ... I believe ... I think ... yes, they actually are going to show all 79 best-picture winners, at two seconds apiece. Wake me when it's over.

Best actress: Marion Cotillard

What I said about never picking an upset? Forget it.

And a great emotional acceptance speech: "Thank you life, thank you love, and it is true there are angels in this city! Thank you so much!"

A division of opinion here about her dress. The wife: "I still think the mermaid dress is unfortunate." I didn't mind it.

Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill

Funny in Knocked Up. Funny in Superbad. Not funny on the Oscars.

And Transformers is officially an Oscars oh-fer. Not many predicted that. Good for Bourne, though. Great flick.

Best actress up next. If it's not Marion, I'm toast.

Oops

It was "That's How You Know" that Kristin Chenoweth sang, not "So Close." (Did I mention I haven't seen the movie?) She was good, but I think Amy Adams would have been better. Still, two numbers in one show would have been a lot.

After a strong start, the show is starting to settle into the zzzzz zone. Hey, only two and a half more hours to go!

Yay Minnesota!

The Coens win for adapted screenplay. No Country for Old Men is the first double winner of the night.

It's Sid Ganis. Time for a bathroom break.

The toss-up category: It's Tilda Swinton

Great sense of humor in the speech. But is she really going to give the Oscar to her agent? I say no.

Four right, five wrong so far for me. Looks like no repeat victory for me in the office pool.

Ugh: Bee Movie presenter

Why? Why? Shoulda had a caption on the screen: NOT NOMINATED FOR BEST ANIMATED FEATURE.

Missed both the short films. Oh well.

Now that's a production number

"Raise It Up" from August Rush ... only problem is it was too short.

No surprise: It's Javier

Everyone said he was a lock, and everyone was right. I don't know Spanish, but I think that was a garden-variety audio glitch at the end of his speech and not the five-second delay being invoked.

Sweeney Todd for art direction

Got lucky with that one. I'm 3 for 5. Now, finally, the first acting award.

First upset of the night?

It's not one of the big categories, but pretty much everyone thought Transformers would win for visual effects. Instead, The Golden Compass takes it.

That girl can sing

Amy Adams -- she got rave reviews for Enchanted -- utterly charming singing "Happy Working Song." There was a bit of controversy that she won't get to sing the other nominated song from the movie, "So Close" -- Kristin Chenoweth will stand in.

Jon Stewart: really good so far. The iPhone bit was pretty good (even if a free ad for Apple).

I'm afraid these interviews with past Oscar winners could get old, but I'll reserve judgment for now.

I'm on the board

With Ratatouille -- one of the movies I actually saw this year.

That 80th anniversary montage was great -- reminded us why we love Oscar.

Welcome back, Jon

Jon Stewart seemed MUCH more at ease than his first time around a few years ago, when he seemed to shrink on stage. Pretty funny monologue, much of it political, as you might expect. (Did they REALLY have to cut to Spike Lee and Wesley Snipes after the black-president joke? At least they thought it was funny.)

Diablo Cody stripper reference: Check.

Was I the only one utterly confused by the opening animation? I think I recognized 5 percent of the characters that flew by at the rate of about 10 per second.

First award: Costume design to Elizabeth: the Golden Age. I'm 0 for 1. Ugh.

Bring on the show

One flub from Reege: Say hello to "Xavier Bardem." Oops. Gotta love Jack, though -- front and center as usual.

Jon Stewart: Here's your cue.

The red carpet: Red is in

As usual, I forget that the ceremony starts at 7:30, and ABC's red-carpet coverage starts at 7. At least Regis Philbin is a light-years better host than Chris Connelly last year.

And if Helen Mirren and Katherine Heigl are any sign, red is definitely in this year.

The big day arrives

Just made the mistake of tuning in to the E! channel's pre-pre-show (which runs an astounding six hours, until Ryan Seacrest takes the baton for the regular pre-show at 5). The host-bot was talking to one of the stars of "Miami Ink" (or was it "L.A. Ink"? Who can tell?) about the tattoos Viggo Mortensen wore in "Eastern Promises." Ummmm ... no thanks.

In this morning's New York Times, film critic A.O. Scott and media columnist (and Carpetbagger blogger) David Carr debate whether the Oscars really are worth all the fuss. Well, it's posed as a debate, but they're really not directly disagreeing with each other; Scott's main beef is that the entire movie industry is now geared toward the Oscars, releasing all their good stuff between September and December and dropping the good films that don't get nominated like yesterday's garbage. At any rate, they're both good reads.

OK. I know it's just three hours to showtime and I still owe you my picks -- which aren't really worth the paper they're written on since I haven't seen most of the movies and instead am relying almost entirely on the experts' picks. But here they are anyway.

First, the stone-cold locks among the top awards:

Best picture: No Country for Old Men
Best director: Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men
Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Best supporting actor: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Original screenplay: Diablo Cody, Juno
Adapted screenplay: Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country for Old Men

If you didn't pick those six on your ballot, you're nuts, because the first rule of Oscar picks is DO NOT PICK UPSETS.

Now the two races that are a little more up in the air.

Best actress: Julie Christie (Away From Her) remains the solid favorite here, but there's been a lot of buzz building for Marion Cotillard of La Vie en Rose, with a few big shots like the NYT's Carr picking Cotillard to win the prize. So, just after telling you not to pick any upsets, I'm picking an upset: Marion Cotillard.

Best supporting actress: This one is completely up in the air, with Cate Blanchett being perhaps the narrow favorite for I'm Not There. But plenty of folks are picking Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone), Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton) and Ruby Dee (American Gangster). With the votes being so badly split, I'm going with the Lifetime Achievement Award factor -- which can never be underestimated among old-skewing Oscar voters -- and picking Dee.

Now my picks for the other awards. Take them with a Dead Sea-sized grain of salt.

Animated feature: Ratatouille
Foreign-language film: The Counterfeiters
Cinematography: There Will Be Blood
Film editing: No Country for Old Men
Art direction: Sweeney Todd
Costume design: Atonement
Makeup: La Vie en Rose
Visual effects: Transformers
Sound mixing: Transformers
Sound editing: Transformers
Original score: Atonement
Original song: "Falling Slowly," Once
Documentary feature: No End in Sight
Documentary short: Freeheld
Animated short film: I Met the Walrus
Live-action short film: Tanghi Argentini

That's it. Now bring on the show.

Long time no see

Surprise! I'm back, after (gulp) seven months. The explanation for my absence is simple: This year I've been a total loser when it comes to get out to the movie theaters. Part of it was the crop of movies just wasn't as appealing as last year's. But I was also just lazy. I meant to get out to see No Country for Old Men ... didn't. I wanted to see Michael Clayton ... didn't. I ordered No End in Sight from Netflix ... it's been sitting on my TV stand for two months. So, I hereby relinquish the title of "movie buff."

The number of Oscar-worthy movies I did get out to see this year totaled ... two.

Ratatouille: Amazing, amazing animation. Good story, and good voice-acting as we've come to expect from our friends at Pixar. Only thing I didn't like was none of the characters endeared themselves to me as much as in other Pixar films, especially the Toy Story films. But still, it's deserving of the Oscar for best animated film.

Juno: Yes, the dialogue can be a little too cute by half, but who really talks they way they do in Coen brothers or David Mamet movies either? Yes, it's not a realistic depiction of the perils of teen pregnancy, but it's not supposed to be an ABC After-School Special. So what? It's a great film. My only quibble: As a Minnesota native, I wish the movie (which is set in Minnesota but filmed in Vancouver) had a little more sense of place about it.

I considered just dropping this blog entirely and not live-blogging the Oscars, but what the heck? Let's do it. As Jack Buck once said: We'll see you tomorrow night.