10:13 pm: And here we go with the official Lily Gladstone celebration — the Best identity Oscar campaign for Best Actress. And…holy shit, Emma Stone wins for Best Actress! Justice, truth, radiance!! The Movie Godz approve!! The Academy actually voted to support a performance and not a politically woke proclamation!! Merit prevailed over progressive instruction!!

10:07 pm: Chris Nolan wins the Best Director Oscar for Oppenheimer. A locked-down win for months. Congrats to a first-rate filmmaker. I found Oppenheimer a difficult sit and will probably never see it again, but Nolan did a “good” job. He’s a class act, although his version of 2001: A Space Odyssey was not a good thing.

10 pm: The Best Actor moment arrives, and may we please, please see emotional justice done by giving the Oscar to The Holdovers‘ Paul Giamatti? Can we pleaase tell those SAG-AFTRA mouth-breathers to take a hike? Please? No — the Oscar goes to Cillian Murphy, which gives me further trepidation about Gladstone (another SAG-AFTRA favorite) winning in her category. A nice-guy British actor wins for playing a cold-eyed space alien.

9:45 pm: As expected Ludwig Goransson‘s Oppenheimer music takes the Oscar for Best Score. Billie Eilish takes Best Song Oscar for Barbie. Neither creative effort knocked me out. Congrats to all but…

9:33 pm: Great camerawork and dynamic editing on Ryan Gosling‘s Barbie song, “I’m Ken” or “I”m Just Ken” or whatever it’s called. Nice overhead Busby Berkeley shot. Excellent color design, great lighting and choreography. First-rate all the way. Hats off.

9:30 pm: The Zone of Interest wins Best Sound Oscar. That eerie humming sound, right?….subtle design, absolute malevolence.

9:20 pm: The show has been underway for two hours, 25 minutes so far. And Best Actor presentation is just around the corner. And congrats to Wes Anderson winning his very first Oscar for anything. (i.e., Henry Sugar).

9:17 pm: Best Cinematography goes to Oppenheimer and the brilliant Hoyte van Hoytema.

9:03 pm: Best Documentary Short and Feature presentation. I have no passionate dogs in these hunts. The Last Repair Shop…congrats! 20 Days in Mariupol (as expected) wins Best Feature Doc Oscar!

8:50 pm: The low-budgeted Godzilla Minus One wins the Visual Effects Oscar! HE approves!! Wait…clumsy, sloppy acceptance speech…taking too long…get it together! Play them off! And now the Film Editing Oscar…Oppenheimer! Honestly? I didn’t think the editing in that film was knock-out level…did anyone? Another coat-tail thing.

8:37 pm: And now the Best Supporting Actor presentation, obviously going to Oppenheimer‘s Robert Downey, Jr. Nice tributes given to all five nominees. Classy, well-written…perfectly handled. RDJ: “I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order. Downey thanking his entertainment lawyer for helping him out during his unfortunate druggy period in the late ’90s (“bailing me out of the hoosegow”) was especially good.

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8:29 pm: Tribute to the stunt community but no specific Oscar handed out. All hail the stunt work of the great Buster keaton!

8:27 pm: To no one’s surprise, The Zone of Interest wins Best Int’l Feature Oscar. Director Jonathan Glazer is calling out the horror of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

8:16 pm: Poor Things wins a third Oscar!! For costumes! Three in a row! Lily Gladstone is sweating bullets right now. John Cena‘s mostly nude walk-on was pretty good.

8:07 pm: Maestro‘s suoerb makeup doesn’t win the Oscar….Poor Things does instead. Willem Dafoe‘s facial prosthetics did the trick. And Poor Things wins the production design Oscar! Is this an indication that Emma Stone might take the Best Actress Oscar? is it possible that the Acadeemy might actually give that Oscar to the giver of the greatest performance? Is there a chance that Lily Gladstone‘s identiity play might not pan out?

8:02 pm: Billie Eilish‘s singing is fragile and breathy. But at least she looks nice for a change.

7:51 pm: Time for the Best Screenplay Oscars, Original and Adapted! And the winner of the Original category is Anatomy of a Fall. A political gender thing. The Holdovers should have won. Please give the Adapted Sceenplay Oscar to American Fiction….yes! As expected. Cord Jefferson! The first 45 to 50 minutes of this film are really satisfying. Excellent speech by Jefferson….”this has changed my life!”

7:40 pm: How many have seen War Is Over, winner of the Best Animated Short film? Will The Boy and the Heron win the Best Animated Feature Oscar? Yes!

7:25 pm: The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine joy Randolph is about th win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and good for her. Each nominee is receiving a special tribute from a past BSA winner….nice touch. All hail Rita Moreno, America Ferrara, Danielle Brooks, Jamie Lee Curtis/strong>! Da’Vine supreme!! All hail Alexander Payne for casting her. Da’Vine gives a tearful and passionate shout-out to her publicist, but doesn’t mention the publicist’s name. Paul Giamatti crying for her.

7:17 pm: I’m sorry but Cillian Murphy is a rather odd-looking person. For a change, Robert Downey, Jr.‘s evening apparel isn’t offensive. All hail Kimmel’s Killers of the Flower Moon-is-too-effing-long jokes. Kimmel’s simple black tux is very attractive, but the tie is too big. Dwayne Johnson‘s gray metallic tux is fairly awful. I love the below-the-line crew people taking a bow…”a ton of of overtime”!!

7:12 pm: Margot Robbie to Jimmy Kimmel on a bench: “You’re so beautiful.” Kimmel to Robbie: “I know. I haven’t eaten in three weeks. I’m so hungry.”

6:58 pm: The red carpet fashion show is too fast, fizzy and frothy…all hail the gray-haired, well-dressed Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)! HE is the opposite of fast, frizzy and frothy…and that, for better or worse, is the brand.
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6:47 pm Brendan Fraser looks good, considering that he’s well past his glammy peak. All hail Sterling K. Brown! All hail Holdovers hotshot great PauL Giamatti, whose Best Actor chances are under threat by Oppie‘s Cillian Murphy, whose prpminence is entirely due to the SAG-AFTRa community coasting along on the Oppie bandwagon….those reliable Chris Nolan coat-tails…Eugene Lee Yang appears in a stunning red ball gown…reminding us all that asserting one’s sexuality is extremely important in the overall scheme of things.

6:33 pm: Why did Billie Eilish decide to switcch strategy by trying to look attractive tonight?? She looked like a dressed-down dishrag at the Globe and SAG awards. Caitlin Wells reply: “To keep you on your toes.”