We are grateful to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Good morn­ing. This even­ing’s Oscar activ­it­ies will include me abandon­ing my ExtAngel per­sona on Twitter —but not, neces­sar­ily, his honey-badgeresque undeni­ably poor attitude—and “live-tweeting” the Oscars from the more professional-seeming Twitter feed of Nomad WIde Screen. Do by all means fol­low me if you like (it’s @nomadwidescreen, but you could prob­ably fig­ure that out), and see how I can churn out high-quality wise­cracks bet­ter and faster than all the oth­er mor­ons out there tweet­ing. And if you’re into fol­low­ing “live blogs,” by all means fol­low my delight­ful and wise col­league Kim Morgan’s rumin­a­tions, from the red car­pet to stuff that hap­pens after the red car­pet, over at MSN Movies, where I’ll be writ­ing a wrapup best of/worst of essay to be pos­ted in the ruin­ous, rue­ful after­math of the shame­fully self-congratulatory event. In terms of Oscar picks: you know me, I’m ter­rible at them, and so, or so he claims, is Alicublog’s Roy Edroso, although I cred­it his logic, good sense, and super­i­or wise­crack­ing abil­it­ies. His imper­son­a­tion of a Magic 8 Ball is here. 

Update: Commenter Mike Grost asks if the above frame is from Two Weeks in Another Town. Well, what else? Actually, there are two films one could name right off the bat that con­tain sim­il­ar thank-yous: Minnelli’s pri­or The Bad and the Beautiful and Tashlin’s Susan Slept Here. It’s been a while since I saw the delight­fully godaw­ful The Oscar; I won­der if the Academy saw fit to sully itself with such sen­sa­tion­al­ist trash. I won­der, too, about the Pia Zadora great The Lonely Lady, which cli­maxes with…oh, nev­er mind. Here’s Eddie G. cradling a memento of glor­ies past in the deli­ri­ous Two Weeks.