Academy Awards

Another parade of previous-winner clips. Forest Whitaker presents.
Marion Cotillard wins. Ick. Yuck. As I have said before, I would give this to anyone else in the category, including Laura Linney, and I haven't even seen her performance. Cotillard is way excited. "Thank you, life, thank you, love. It is true there are angels in this [...]

Clips from previous winners. Alan Arkin to present.
Tilda Swinton wins. Akh. She's in some Harry Potter-ish dress. As you know from my "Oscar Watch" posts, she's not my choice. Not even close. I've got some people I would have nominated before her. And among the nominees, I would have gone with two or three before [...]

Clips of former winners, capped by Cuba Gooding Jr. shouting off his finish-up music.
Presenter: Jennifer Hudson. Reads her lines with little emotion.
Clips of nominees. Hal Holbrook is killing me in his clip.
Javier Bardem wins. (Or "Harvier," as Hudson says it.) No upset here.
Bardem says "this is pretty amazing" and "I have to speak fast, man." [...]

Here's how it will work tonight: I'll be posting notes here while the Oscars telecasts are in progress. I'll take a break around 11 to write something for tomorrow's Beacon Journal, then return here until the telecast is over, when I'll have to write an update for the paper. Then I'll sum up here. So [...]

Regular blog readers have seen my notes on some of the Oscar nominees, including "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood." But there were quite a few nominees I have not seen yet. So my plan over the coming weeks is to see them and post notes, especially about whether they strike [...]

Since my notes from earlier appear to have disappeared — and thanks for the tip, George, but I haven't found anything — I'm just going to post from here on (just after Little Miss Sunshine got original screenplay) and revisit the earlier stuff later.