Jonah Hill and Seth Rogen (not Judi Dench or Halle Berry) handing out the Best Sound Editing and Sound Mixing Oscars. The Bourne Ultimatum wins the Best Sound Editing Oscar. (HE reader Zay Tonday who predicted No Country to win today at 02:41 PM was wrong! Big mouth!) The Best Sound Mixing Oscar goes to The Bourne Ultimatum again. Mildly surprising. Somewhat.

The Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, presented by James McAvoy and Josh Brolin, is presented to Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men. They’re going to win Best Director also (of course), and of course Best Picture. (Right?) Three Oscars for sure. Those dark horse notions about Clayton or Juno…forget ’em. I think.

Alan Arkin handing out the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Cate Blanchett should get it for I’m Not There, but I’ll be at peace with Michael Clayton‘s Tilda Swinton taking it. And Swinton wins! As predicted over the last four or five days! She didn’t expect it, obviously. Beautiful acceptance speech. Unexpectedly moving. Tony Gilroy‘s eyes were watering over.

The Best Best Live-Action Oscar should go The Substitute, which I’ve seen and praised. But the Oscar has gone to Le Mozart de Pickpockets, the most sentimental of the bunch. Sap sentiment! The Best Animated Short Oscar should go to I Met The Walrus, I believe, and the winner is…Peter and the Wolf! I give up.

Javier Bardem, naturally, universally expected, wins the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for No Country for Old Men. Loved his expression when he heard his name called. He was on edge, wasn’t sure. I loved his Spanish-spoken words for his mom, which a friend just translated.

Sweeney Todd wins Best Art Direction Oscar, which I had on my sheet. Deserved. Dante Ferreti‘s soft, delicate Italian accent.

Dwayne Johnson delivering the Best Visual Effects Oscar, which moves me not. The cool effects are the ones you don’t notice. The team behind The Golden Compass, the bomb that rocked New Line Cinema, wins. Who cares? Nobody. Not me anyway. I hate blatant CGI.

Late start with live-blog (indecision at the liquor store), but the makeup Oscar going to the La Vie En Rose guys is a favorable indication of Marion Cotillard winning Best Actress….no?

I’ve never understood the difference between sound editing and sound mixing, even if someone writes in and explains it all in Jack-and-Jill terms, like I’m an idiot. I’ll certainly never understand things in a way that will help me decide which No Country For Old Men sound nomination to mark on my ballot — Skip Lievsay for Sound Editing, or Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland for Sound Mixing. And don’t tell me I’m slow or stupid. Nobody understand this stuff.

Among Nikki Finke‘s list of tips about the content of tonight’s Oscar show: “Queen Latifah, one of the scheduled presenters, had a family emergency and had to drop out.”

That’s an uptick in my book. I respect the fact that downmarket award presenters tend to raise viewership levels, but Queen Latifah fans are probably among that broad sector of the public that wouldn’t watch There Will Be Blood at the point of a knife so who needs’ em?
Sooner or later it’s going to sink in among Academy officials and Oscar producers that more and more this show is attracting a sizable, profitable (in terms of ad dollars) but diminished viewership. The chances of the ratings being at March 1998 levels (when Titanic was the big winner) are slim to none. Those days are over. Most people out there are too thick to get with the program — it’s a fact. Cut ’em loose, I say. Life is short.

“The Oscars maintain the capacity to surprise,” N.Y. Times Oscar blogger David Carr reminded this morning. “This year it is writ that No Country will win best picture, that Javier Bardem is a lock for best supporting actor and that Daniel Day-Lewis‘s name will be announced when they open the envelope for best actor. But chances are, at least one of those things won’t happen.

“Two years ago we were all humming the Brokeback Mountain music at the end of the show when Jack Nicholson surprised everyone, including himself, by saying the word Crash. It is that moment we all wait for.”
Last licks — what will the big surprises be this evening? Is it fair at this stage to call Michael Clayton‘s Tilda Swinton winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar a surprise? Are we far enough along in this game to call Swinton not winning tonight a surprise?
If the charming Ellen Page, a first-rate actress, wins the Best Actress Oscar for Juno it won’t be as bad as if Eddie Murphy had won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year for Dreamgirls, but it sure won’t be cause for celebration. What it will be, plain and simple, will be “wrong.” If it happens, I will light a candle for Marion Cotillard, and my soul will become a living embodiment of Mudville.