Hudson wins!

Jennifer Hudson has won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar! A great lady with great pipes! And she’s giving a great speech. Good girl.

Best Visual Effects

The Best Visual Effects Oscar is supposed to go to….fantastic drug-use-reference joke by Robert Downey! The Visual FX Oscar is supposed to go to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. And the Oscar goes to Pirates! Superb work done by all, and also by the great Bill Nighy as Davy Jones.

Best Cinematography Oscar

The Best Cinematography Oscar is going to go to Emmanuel Lubezki for Children of Men. Oh my goodness….it’s gone to Guillermo Novarro for Pan’s Labyrinth! What’s going on here? “Chivo” was supposed to be a lock. Whatever…not a tragedy. Pan’s Labyrinth was beautifully shot, but I don’t get it. I’m not going to win the Oscar pool.

Interludes

Sherry Lansing….fine. I’m hitting the head. I’m hungry anyway. Ellen and Clint…that’s funny. The digital camera routine with Steven Spielberg….funny. Ellen si a great host. As good as Johnny Carson was in the old days…as good as Billy Crystal in the mid ’90s.

Wes Anderson commercial

That Wes Anderson American Express commercial is still brilliant, especially that moment when Wes starts to talk and suddenly we hear the sound of gunfire — BLAM! — and Wes hesitates for only a second and then keeps going.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Best Adapted Screenpay Oscar presented by Helen Mirren and Tom Hanks, and it goes to Wiliam Monahan for The Departed. Totally expected. The guy needs to cut down on the cheeseburgers and the onion rings and the vodka gimlets, but I really loved/love what he wrote. And he has a soothing gentle voice.

The Al Gore joke

The orchestra cutting off Al Gore as he got out his speech to announce…hilarious! This has been a very witty, very engaging, very nicely produced show thus far. Congrats to Laura Ziskin.

Arkin wins!

Okay, here we go….the Murphy-Arkin moment. Rachel Weisz at the podium going through the speech, and the tension is all but unbearable as the winner of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar hangs in the balance. Here we go, I can take it….the Oscar goes to Alan Arkin! Oh my God! There is a God, there is a God in heaven. Thanks to all the saints and angels. I will say nothing more. The win is the win is the win.The right thing has happened. The Movie Gods have done what they do best. Why should I comment about what Ellen said to Marky-Mark?

Best Sound Editing Oscar

The Best Sound-Editing Oscar, presented by Steve Carell and Greg Kinnear, is supposed to go to Letters From Iwo Jima….and the Oscar goes to the Jima guy! Sasha Stone is forgiven. The Best Sound Mixing Oscar is supposed to go to Dreamgirls, and the Oscar goes to…Dreamgirls! I have nothing to say about this except that anyone following my recommendatons so far isn’t doing half badly!