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.

Sweet Land on DVD today: Check it out

I posted earlier about how I thought Ali Selim's Sweet Land was last year's best film not to be nominated for an Oscar.

The independently produced and distributed film scored a DVD distribution deal with Fox, and the DVD hits stores today.

The film, starring Elizabeth Reaser (left) and Tim Guinee, was met with near-universal critical acclaim and won Selim the Best First Feature award at the Independent Spirit Awards. On the other hand, a reviewer in this week's Entertainment Weekly gives the DVD a C-plus, calling it "a treacly story" (and, in the same issue, Red Dawn gets a B).

Check out Sweet Land on DVD and decide for yourself.

Knocked Up: A bundle of joy

During the past decade, writer-director Judd Apatow has assembled a sort of repertory company of his own actors, who reappear in projects such as the TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and the film The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Now, Seth Rogen, who played wise-cracking supporting players in Freaks and Virgin, steps into the lead role in Apatow's latest film, Knocked Up -- which is, by the way, the funniest movie I've seen in a long time.

Rogen plays Ben, a guy in his early 20s living with his buddies whose main interests are smoking a lot of weed and launching a Web site about movie nude scenes. At a club, he meets Alison (Katherine Heigl of Grey's Anatomy), and despite his social haplessness beyond his circle of stoner dudes, they end up in a one-night stand and, wouldn't you know it, a few weeks later the stick turns pink. Unlike in a lot of films, in Knocked Up everyone pretty much Does the Right Thing -- Alison tells Ben about the baby and lets him be a part of the pregnancy; Ben agrees ("I'm on board") and stays by Alison side, at least most of the time. In other words, Ben got lucky -- but so did Alison in that Ben actually turns out to be a decent guy.

Along the way, there are laughs -- a lot of them. Many of the jokes are of the gross-out variety, and and a lot of the resulting laughs are the I-can't-believe-I'm-laughing-at-this kind. But the film and its characters are so irresistibly likable that you can't help yourself. They may be childish, but their hearts are in the right place. A lot of the best lines belong to the supporting cast -- Jason Segel, Martin Starr, Jay Baruchel and Jonah Hill as Ben's friends; Leslie Mann (Apatow's wife, who, one suspects, had a lot to do with this being more than just a guy movie) as Alison's sister, Debbie; and the pitch-perfect Paul Rudd as Debbie's husband, Pete. Apatow alumni James Franco (Freaks) and Steve Carell (Virgin) have cameos as themselves.

If the film has a weakness, it's Alison, although this is no fault of Heigl's. Alison is essentially the film's straight man, and we never really gain much insight into why she makes the choices she does. And if she has any friends other than her sister, we never meet them.

But this is a comedy, after all, and as a comedy it's a smashing success. Comedies don't do so well at the Oscars, but last year Little Miss Sunshine snagged best original screenplay. Knocked Up -- written as well as directed by Apatow -- just might crash the party this year.

Waitress: A colorful slice of life

For a few months after the Oscars, there just wasn't much out there at the ol' cineplex. That changed when Waitress came along. Initially released just in New York and L.A., it got good buzz and quickly got a national release later in May. It's got a great cast: Keri Russell, who we liked in the late '90s TV series "Felicity"; Nathan Fillion ("Firefly"); Jeremy Sisto ("Six Feet Under"); and Cheryl Hines ("Curb Your Enthusiasm").

The premise isn't a shockingly original one. Russell plays Jenna, a waitress at a Southern diner married to an abusive nightmare of a husband (Sisto). She finds out she's pregnant -- news that she receives with horror because it means she's tied to her husband forever. In desperation, she launches into an affair with the town's hunky OB/GYN, Dr. Pomatter (Fillion, whose wide-eyed earnestness successfully defuses the inherent ick factor here).

What elevates the film beyond Lifetime chick-flick status are the sharp script and stylized (I'm trying not to say "quirky") direction of Adrienne Shelly, who also appears in the film as one of Jenna's fellow waitresses. Jenna's specialty is pies, and each pie she makes (which we see in sped-up video as if through Jenna's imagination) sheds light on her emotional state (I Don't Want Earl's Baby Pie). There's also an irresistible sequence where Russell walks through her day in a starry-eyed, lovestruck reverie, set to the tune of "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake. It's a great scene, and one that makes subversive use of Russell's cutie-pie image. Andy Griffith also appears in a small but important role.

The end of the film has some added emotional resonance because of the knowledge that Shelly, in real life, was murdered in New York City shortly after completing the film. It leaves you wondering what might have been, but it also leaves you grateful that we have this heartfelt diamond in the rough to remember her by.