The first hour of the 82nd Annual Academy Awards

8:27:Okay, I just ali­en­ated every­body in the room by utter­ing the words “Gabourey Sidibe” and “unhinged jaw” in the same sentence. 

8:30: Some unseen voice is intro­du­cing all the lead act­ing nom­in­ees. Is this what’s called a cold open?

Colleen: “And now, their young­er ver­sions.” Someone else: “Standing in for George Clooney, Zac Efron.”

And now Neil Patrick Harris has sung the lines “drop the soap.” Last piece of music I heard that phrase in was by Spoonie G. Times done changed.

“Matthew Broderick is angry that it”s not him up there,” MLW astutely observes.

And here are Vladimir and Estragon. Steve Martin’s “most losses” line is funny…but would have been fun­ni­er delivered solo. I sense trouble. 

Is it me, or does Precious dir­ect­or Lee Daniels look kinda like…Dave Matthews?

I dunno, I think these guys are a little stiff. Their riff­ing on the EPK of It’s Complicated was more spontaneous. 

“Who does­n’t love Sandra Bullock?” “Well tonight we may find out!” Well played. They’re loosen­ing up. 

Okay. Here’s P‑Lope. Best Supporting Actor. I’m root­ing for Matt Damon, or, “Matt Damon!”

Seems like the clips is longer. We’re just on Harrelson now. Could he be…the sleeper…?

I’m sorry, but I’m gonna say it now. I was bet­ter in The Girlfriend Experience than Stanl…

Oh, nev­er mind: The win­ner is Waltz. Everybody in the room is in first place in the Oscar pool. Waltz is artic­u­late and charm­ing and obvi­ously sin­cerely emo­tion­al. Nice moment. 

Ryan Reynolds plug­ging The Blind Side. That’s five levels of “whatever” at once. If you’re some kind of com­mie, I mean. I cer­tainly don’t think that. No sirree.

Commercials. Hey, those JC Penney chicks are hot…The Bounty Hunter looks awe­some…that Jimmy Kimmel/Ben Affleck joke nev­er gets old…

ABC7 and Cablevision have made sig­ni­fic­ant progress…

Ooh, Animated Feature. I picked…Fantastic Mr. Fox. I am now second, and last, in the Oscar pool. I love Up, but I’m per­verse. That Docter fel­low clearly has been get­ting heav­ily involved in the res­tor­a­tion of Dumbo. 

It’s Miley! And the Seyfried. Did Cyrus raid Grace Jones’ closet?

Randy Newman would like you off of his lawn, please.

Once again I am reminded of what I found tol­er­able about Nine, and am deeply ashamed. 

All right, T‑Bone Burnett gets an Oscar. I hung out with him a bit half a cen­tury or so ago, when he was with the Golden Palominos with my pal Peter Blegvad and people could­n’t tell ’em apart. Good man, great talent.

Commercials. Mmm. Diet Coke. Makes child­birth, film­mak­ing, and attend­ing awards cere­mony more tolerable. 

I see some com­menters have asked about George Clooney. I don’t know what to tell you. I’m too dis­trac­ted by his hair, which looks like a salt-and-pepper ver­sion of a ‘do that Paul McCartney had around Band on the Run…but I can­’t quite place it…and until I can, I won’t be able to think about any­thing else rel­at­ive to him.

Three awards in 45 minutes. I’m going to have second-degree burns on my lap before this is done.

Okay. Best Original Screenplay. I’ll say it: Go Quentin! Still. Maybe the strongest categor…

And it’s Boal, for Hurt Locker. Gregory Fieger is work­ing a cal­cu­lat­or furi­ously at the moment. You know, Boal looks a little like Jason Reitman…have they ever been pho­to­graphed together…

MLW’s the­ory re Clooney is that he’s play­ing along with the Martin/Baldwin gag and shoot­ing back death rays at them. I but it.

John Hughes trib­ute. Time to plug my pal Susannah Gora’s new book about Hughes and com­pany pic­tures, You Couldn’t Ignore Me If You Tried. Mario, fiend­ing for a par­tic­u­lar clip, is chant­ing “Curly Sue! Curly Sue!” What a card. 

Judd Nelson. Rulage.

Look. All the Brat Pack act­ors are adults now. That means their hearts are dead. It’s inevitable. 

Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner look like they’re wait­ing to get called in for colono­scop­ies. Nice.

And now, on to hour the second…