the chutry experiment

So, I just saw the "best picture" montage showing a short clip from Sideways. Now tell me one more time why Paul Giamatti wasn't nominated for best actor?

If I weren't, you know, running the restaurant by myself tonight, I'd TOTALLY be here with you guys... since I know you are liveblogging it now, though, I'm going to have to avoid your site like the plague until I can get home and watch the show on Tivo delay.

Aww, come on, Dylan. It's not like your customers *need* the food or anything.

Chris Rock's best line so far: "We have four black nominees tonight. It's like Def Oscar Jam tonight"

Chris Rock is on fire! I love it.

Very much enjoying Rock's anti-Bush monologue: "Just imagine you work at the Gap...and you start a war with Banana Republic." Good digs on Michael moore, too.

Weird: They're putting all the art direction nominees on stage. Aviator wins. A good omen for Scorsese.

So was Morgan Freeman gunning for the shortest speech of the night?

Re Freeman: Yeah, really.

I loved the Bush jokes too. That bit was a derivative of earlier material from one of Rock's HBO specials, "Bring the Pain," about Marion Barry's crack habit.

Robin Williams makes a Viagra joke. Has he been asleep since 2002?

Some good lines about "gay" cartoon characters, though. Guess this is the watered down version of his rejected musical number.

Yay! The Incredibles wins best animated feature!

Do you know if that HBO special is on DVD?

So why is Cate Blanchett presenting an Academy Award in the audience? I understand that it's supposed to liven up the show, but it's just not that interesting....

Also, how is it possible that Lemony Snicket now has more Academy Awards than Fahrenheit 9/11?

The Magic Johnson Theater bit fell a little flat in my opinion. A bunch of people in a multiplex haven't seen Sideways? Shocker!

Yeah, it's on DVD. I also recommend Bigger and Blacker, the second one. I've got his latest one, Never Scared, next on my Neflix queue. I watched Life and Debt, by the way. Excellent, but the interviews with the farmers broke my heart. :-(

Scarlett Johansen is this year's Jennifer Garner, announcing the winners of the technical awards. Fortunately the writers managed to skip most of the "Gee whiz, what's a hot actress like me doing presenting awards to a bunch of tech geeks?" jokes.

Second Aviator win (costume design), so things are looking good for Marty.

Third Academy win for Aviator. Third thank you for Martin Scorsese. Maybe if enough people thank Scorsese, he'll skip that bad idea of making a sequel to Taxi Driver.

Weird Blanchett line, "I hope my son marries your daughter."

Good for Born Into Brothels! I've heard it's a fantastic documentary.

The flight of The Aviator continues. Marty gets thanked yet again.

Say what?! Mike Myers quotes Andre Bazin and Jean-Luc Godard.

So will anyone remember the nominated songs five minutes after the show's over?

I'm going to try my best to forget, ugh. Especially that last "accidentally in love" one. What treacle.

Re: Bush Bashing in Rock's Speech

I thought the audience's laughter sounded a little forced. Not to mention, Gap would never attack Banana Republic since they already own them.

Yeah, after watching that, I'm a little embarassed that I once liked Counting Crowes.

Jen, you may be right about the forced laughter, but I still enjoyed most of the jokes.

And you're certainly right about the Gap-Banana Republic joke....

Sideways wins the "consolation prize" for best screenplay. I still wish Before Sunset had won here....

In other news, Jake Gyllenhaal looks a lot better with hair.

Did Frank Pierson really just describe the audience as a "tabernacle of talent?" Okay, the Honorary Oscar for Sideny Lumet is a cool choice.

Meanwhile the camera cuts to Marty Scorsese who may be next in line for an Honorary Oscar if he doesn't win this year....

You know, Lumet made lots of good films, but I think I would have left The Wiz out of the career highlight montage.

And the award for the least offensive award ceremony in my lifetime goes to....

Chris Rock makes a Janet Jackson joke followed by a steroids joke. Polite laughter ensues.

Robert Richardson wins best cinematographer for The Aviator, the first winner for that film not to thank Marty Scorsese. I still think that the cinematography for Million Dollar Baby should have won.

So why are they playing The Terminator music at this point? Does it mean that the show "will be back" after these commercial messages?

Did he just say "four presenters" when introducing Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz?

I was wondering why they were playing the Star Trek: The Next Generation theme a while ago.

Hey, Sartre really way nominated for an Oscar! It was for best screenplay in 1956, here's the link:
http://www.answers.com/topic/academy-award-for-best-story

Sienna, that's just strange. Hard to imagine someone like him getting nominated now.

Loved the "sound" guy defending his award as a "creative" award not a "technical" one. As if there's something wrong with a technical achievement.

So why are they playing The Terminator music at this point?

I was wondering that too. I kept thinking Linda Hamilton or Ahnold was going to come out.

My kids were at least excited that The Incredibles won for Best Animated Feature... it's weird to watch the Oscars when you haven't had time to see almost any of the films. Weird year, I just haven't had the time. But it's a lot less exciting when you're not rooting for anything. Happy to see Payne and Taylor win for Sideways just because I think they're so talented. Really hoping Scorsese wins Director this year because he has deserved it so many times... other than that, not a whole lot holding my interest.... what's with Natalie Portman's hyper-seriousness? "And I applaud them." And I really hate the nominees all on the stage or the presenters out in the audience.

Yes, the idea to put all the nominees on stage is very strange. Maybe the idea is that all of these "invisible" people deserve to be honored?

Portman pulls the hyper-serious thing a lot, but yeah, "I applaud them?!"

Roger Mayer wins a well-deserved humanitarian award. Meanwhile couch potatoes across the country go to the refrigerator and get another beer....

Mayer thanks "Ted Turner and his cohorts in Atlanta." Thousands of Atlanta residents and CNN employees look up briefly before returning to their conversations....

I was hypothesizing that the nominees on the stage thing was a time-saving device... no need to make someone trek all the way up to the stage. This way, he or she is already there. Though the 'honoring the invisible' concept is a lot more charitable a theory.

The "Dead People" montage is still the strangest part of the night for me.

But I'll really miss Ossie Davis.

Terminal MFA, you're probably right. There seems to be a major imperative to keep things swimming along tonight.

Prince is presenting an Academy Award? And I'd already forgotten at least 3 out of the 5 songs, so the memory refresher is very helpful.

The "best song" category here is actually worse than the Grammys. At least the Motorcycle Diaries guy won...

Keeping things moving is not a bad idea... but they could try cutting some of the speeches and numbers rather than handing out oscars in the audience. It starts to feel like a David Letterman sketch...

...and then he sings his acceptance speech!?

Best song is always awful -- I never really like the songs they nominate. They're almost universally awful. Can't say I hated the Motorcycle Diaries song, but it didn't do anything for me either.

Hilary Swank -- not at all surprised. Was hoping for Kate Winslet...

Chad Lowe kisses Hilary Swank, and wonders whatever happened to his career. Hilary manages to thank her husband this time around...

And what's with the factoid that Swank is the first woman to be nominated for playing a boxer? Shocking!

Was hoping for Winslet, too. Eternal Sunshine was one of the most underrated films of the year. But Swank's not a bad call. Liked that she thanked lots of behind-the-camera folks. I've been repeating this ad nauseum, but Tom Stern's cinematography in that film was excellent.

Yeah, that's a little like the stats they put up during baseball games... "he's excellent in situations like this, where he's facing left-handed batters who haven't eaten on the day they last batted and whose mothers died unexpectedly before their time."

Of course she's first woman nominated for playing a boxer. How many woman boxer movies have their been?

There's always Girlfight, but the list isn't that long. IMDB shows a grand total of nine movies with "female boxer" as a keyword.

Girlfight was the only other one I could even think of. I figured there had been a few. But Girlfight is probably more typical of the 'female boxer' movie -- not exactly Oscar material.

Amenabar wins for foreign film. Not a bad call in a pretty weak field this year. Ousmane Sembene's Moolaade should have been among the nominees.

So has there been a single interesting acceptance speech tonight?

Not a speech I've enjoyed.

Writing -- Eternal Sunshine is truly the BEST ORIGINAL screenplay (or should I say MOST original)... and the winner is: YES -- Kauffman!!

Charlie Kaufman and the gang win!! Hooray!

Charlie focuses on the countdown instead of just giving his speech -- somehow, that seems about right. Amazingly pedestrian speech for such a great writer, but still...

Hey-- can I just say how nice it is to watch this in another time zone, where it's not so frickin' late when the show ends?

Kauffman and Winslet, I just realized, were the only nominees I was actually rooting for other than Scorsese... kaufman is truly among the most deserving. His writing has changed the way people look at films... there is a willingness to take chances... it's a small change, but it's a change...

Paul Giamatti wins for best actor! Oh wait, he wasn't even nominated....

Seriously, Foxx deserves it. Glad he won, even if Don Cheadle would have been my top choice.

Jamie Foxx!!! I heart him! Why did they play the "Designing Women" theme, though...?

Jamie Foxx for Best Actor -- not a surprise there either... amazing to see someone from In Living Color winning an Oscar... but he's gotten steadily better as an actor and has taken more and more challenging and dramatic roles.

LOL -- I thought the same thing when I heard the music... I was thinking how sometimes great music can be cheapened by its association with something like a rather silly sitcom...

You know, I'm such a night owl that I don't really think it's late when the show ends. Yeah, I think Kaufman has really made it possible for more creative screenwriters to get their work done. Kaufman's speech makes sense, especially given his obsessive tendencies....

I have to say: Foxx's tribute to his late grandmother is really nice.

I appreciated the heartfelt nature of Foxx's speech much more than the seemingly-forced emotionalism of Halle Berry a few years ago...

Now I just have to go out and see some of these films... the one I really wish I saw on the big screen was The Aviator, since it seems like a 'big screen' sort of film...

I didn't even notice that it was the Designing Women theme. It was Georgia on my Mind, no? I always associate that song with the laser show at Stone Mountain....

Best Director... will it finally be Scorsese? I think this is his night...

Holy shit! I can't believe that Marty lost.

WTF is the academy's problem?

That's just cold.

Amazing upset!! I can't believe Eastwood beat out Scorsese... I can't believe Scorsese didn't win AGAIN! It almost seems vindictive or something... like they don't want him to win...

Man, they just so don't get it. How can they not finally give him this award. Really -- for someone who so adores Hollywood as Scorsese does, it must be hard to be gracious - but he no doubt will be.

Yeah, it's really weird. I get the fact that his '70s films were pretty threatening. Wow, guess he'll get the Lumet treatment in a few years....

I hate that. He's deserved it on so many occasions, especially for Taxi Driver and Goodfellas.

Call me stunned. After so many early awards for Aviator, I thought it would be a sweep.

Wow, I'm genuinely surprised. Not that Million Dollar Baby was a bad film or anything....

Another Oscar night over. Nice blogging with you, Chuck.

Yeah, Terminal MFA, it was fun. Too bad for Scorsese. I feel like there should be a post-Oscar wrap-up show, kind of like the post-game show after the Super Bowl, with interviews of the losing contestants, that sort of thing....

How wonderful it is! Today, I had seen the film - "The Incredibles" this afternoon, My father also had seen this film in this evening. This cartoon movie is powered by Disney-Pixar.
In this film, I love the people's sensation, scene, bugbears. The scene is so sublime.
With the great imagination.