The Timekiller: Live Blogging The Oscars

In a first for Whip It Out Comedy, I've decided (as of about 5 minutes before the show's scheduled to start) to liveblog the Oscars. Can you stand the excitement? Refresh this page to get my latest meaningless opinions on these meaningless awards as they happen. And we're off!

(NOTE: This was posted in real-time, so scroll down to read the posts from the bottom up, in the order they were posted.)




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Well kids, that wraps up my first-ever liveblogging of the Oscars. I hope you had as mediocre a time reading it, as I had writing it. But before I call it a night (read: go do some laundry), here's a cliff notes version of what happened on the Oscars tonight:

Big night for Jews, ponytails, strippers, and Wesley Snipes.

Bad night for Iranian animated films, Enchanted haters, people hoping to see something crazy happen, and Regis Philbin.

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A bald Denzel Washington delivers the night's final award. Best Picture goes to No Country For Old Men, which gives us another glimpse at the Coen Brothers and our first look at another bespectacled Jew, producer Scott Rudin. Oh yeah, remember what I said before about the good old days when you could always assume that the Miramax movie would win? Well, guess who distributed No Country For Old Men? And it all comes full circle...


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We're in the home stretch, and Martin Scorcese comes out to prove that there are no small roles, only small directors. He hands out the Best Director award to the Coen Brothers, who relate a slightly amusing story about a movie they made as kids called "Henry Kissinger On The Go."

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Daniel Day Lewis wins Best Actor. There Will Be Boredom.

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Diablo Cody wins Best Screenplay. This is our best chance at a "crazy" Oscar moment. But...instead we get her thanking a bunch of industry people and then starting to cry as she thanks her family for loving her exactly the way she is. What a disappointment. Would it have killed her to give a shout out to all the pervs that put dirty dollar bills in her G-string when she was working the lunch shift years ago?

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Harrison Ford comes out and they play the Indiana Jones theme. What, did the band lose the sheet music to Hollywood Homicide?

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Tom Hanks comes out to introduce a video feed from Baghdad in which a group of soldiers read the nominations for a bunch of films they have never seen or heard of, also known as the Documentary Short Subject nominees. The winners are a pair of weepy women who apparently made a 38-minute movie about the fight for same sex marriage and then promptly thanked their husbands upon receiving the award. That kinda seems like rubbing it in your subject's face, doesn't it?

Taxi to the Dark Side wins the Documentary Feature award. We're not sure, but we believe that documentary is a BET remake of HBO's popular Taxicab Confessions series.

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It's time for the death montage, or as Hilary Swank describes it, a look at "those whose work is done." Personally, that seems a little misleading since Hilary Clinton is nowhere to be found in the montage.

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Cameron Diaz comes out to present the Best Cinematography award, breaking one of the golden rules of Oscar presentation - never have a presenter who can't pronounce the word "cinematography" present the cinematography award. After fumbling the name of the award, Cameron has no trouble with announcing the winner as There Will Be Blood since the title only has one-syllable words.

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Thankfully, the musical performances are all over and John Travolta has come out (so to speak) to present the award for Best Song. It goes to the song from Once, aka Not Enchanted. What can you say? Sometimes, the Academy gets it right.

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Another Enchanted musical performance. Enough already. If I wanted to see a million musical performances from that movie, I would have actually gone to see it. Or been born a girl.

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Best Foreign Film goes to The Counterfeiters from Austria. Apparently, it's a movie that has something to do with the Nazis. Presenter Penelope Cruz tries to get as far away from the filmmaker as possible after handing him the award, which leads me to wonder where the Nazi's stood on Kabbalah? I guess Penelope's probably right - better safe than sorry.

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We're running out of time in this thing for somebody to do something crazy. Britney Spears isn't nominated for anything, is she? I don't suppose Lindsay Lohan's stripper movie got a Best Craft Services nomination, did it? Any chance Jeff Conaway will show up for a special tribute to Grease? Come on, throw us a bone Oscars. There's got to be somebody in that crowd with a few screws loose. Is it too late to add Gary Busey as a presenter?

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The Bourne Ultimatum wins again. This time for Editing. It prompts Jon Stewart to say "Film Editing, wow. Somebody just took the lead in their Oscar pool on a guess."

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It must be late in the show (but not too late), since somebody dusted the cobwebs off Jack Nicholson and sent him out on the stage. He introduces a montage featuring all 79 Best Picture winners to date. It reminds me of a simpler time - when you knew that whatever movie Miramax put out would win the Best Picture honor.

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Marion Cotillard wins Best Actress. She seems genuinely giddy. It's boring. Though she does thank "life," which I believe is French for "my agent."

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Speaking of glasses and Jewfros, here comes Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill. No word on whether or not Judd Apatow is hanging from the rafters, pulling their strings. Anyway, the guys present a sound editing award to a ponytailed guy and a woman who's showing off her chunky arms in a dress with see-through sleeves. Apparently, these two had something to do with the volume of Bourne Ultimatum.

But wait, Rogen and Hill aren't done quite yet. They also give out another sound award nobody cares about to the Bourne Ultimatum. This one is accepted by three different guys, including another one with a ponytail. Take note, wannabe sound tech people, you'll never get anywhere in this business without a ponytail.

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"Obviously Angelina Jolie couldn't be with us tonight. It's tough to get 17 babysitters on Oscar night." Nice one, Jon. Way to bounce back from "CabinPatchgate".

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Time for another musical performance. This time it's Kristin Chenoweth doing some song from Enchanted. We find it rather disenchanting.

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The Coen brothers win Best Adapted Screenplay. You've gotta love how they break the mold of what you expect a "Coen" to look like by wearing glasses and rocking Jewfros. Uh...never mind.

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Jessica Alba comes out to present some technical awards, leading to one obvious question -- is she technically a MILF yet or not?

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Tilda Swinton wins Best Supporting Actress. It appears that her dress was made by Hefty. She goes on to make a heartfelt speech about how she owes it all to her agent. Gotta love Hollywood.

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Just when we thought we were finally finished being bombarded by Jerry Seinfeld's Bee Movie character, it surfaces again to present the Animated Short Film award. A moderately cute chick (read: no neck wrinkles) and a guy that for some reason is holding a wooden puppet comes on stage to collect the award.

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Hey, it's Owen Wilson! We heard his cufflinks tonight were made by Gillette, but that might just be a rumor. Too soon?

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Stewart flubs a joke after the musical performance. "You know that was an inspirational song when you've got Hal Holbrook in the aisle doing the cabin patch." Uhh...it's cabbage patch, John. You're attempt to be "down" by referencing popular 1990's hip hop dances failed miserably. But you're still doing a fine job, don't panic.

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Keri Russell introduces a musical performance of some song from some movie she was in called August Rush. This has bathroom break written all over it.

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Jennifer Hudson and her boobs just came on stage to present the Best Supporting Actor award. Javier Bardem wins and thanks the Coen Brothers for giving him the most horrible character ever created to play. Those are big words from Javier - hasn't he ever seen Encino Man? Where's Brendan Fraser's Oscar?

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Best Art Direction goes to a bald guy and another wrinkle-necked woman, both of whom have a lot of vowels in their names and speak broken English. Oh yeah, it's for their work on Sweeney Todd, which we're told is a movie with Johnny Depp.

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Can you smell what Dwayne Johnson is coooking? The artist formerly known as The Rock just came out to present the Visual Effects award. And the winner is...The Golden Compass. Four geeks come on stage and collect the award - they're literally jumping for joy. Should be a big celebratory night on YouPorn for them tonight.

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The Best Makeup Award goes to a French guy with awful hair and a woman with a crooked eye who apparently did the makeup in La Vie En Rose.

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Ratatouille wins the award for Best Animated film. Who would have imagined that a Pixar movie about a cute dreamer of a mouse, would beat out an obscure, subtitled, black and white Iranian film?

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And the first award of the night, Costume Design, goes to some creepy old chick with a wrinkled neck who apparently designed the costumes in Elizabeth. I'm guessing she had an unfair advantage since she looks like she actually lived during the Elizabethan era.

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Wow - a Wesley Snipes sighting, seated next to Spike Lee. You know what it took in order for us to get to see them? A cutaway after Jon Stewart made a Barack Obama joke. Oh Oscar telecast director, you are so cutting-edge. It's a shame we don't have an Asian running for President because it's the only way we'd get to see Lucy Liu and Jackie Chan in the crowd.

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Stewart on his happiness over Norbit's nomination -- "Too often, the Academy ignores movies that aren't any good."

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Jon Stewart's on a roll with his opening monologue. Hopefully, Oprah and Uma aren't in the audience to derail him.

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Heads up - Regis is on the loose! He's mingling with the seated celebs in the theater during the last minute before the show starts. He's basically just pointing at celebrities and saying their names. And...he just called Javier Bardem "Xavier Bardem." Awk-ward. It's been a rough night for Reege already.

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Apparently, ABC doesn't trust Regis to be around celebrities after that Clooney interview. The last few times we've seen him, he was interviewing an 84-year-old woman in the bleachers who claims to be Oscars' oldest fan, a kid from Ohio who won some contest that got him tickets to the Oscars red carpet (and the right to sit out there in the rain since 7 am), and now he's backstage with the Bavarian dancers that are going to be featured in one of the musical performances during the show.

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In the interest of full disclosure, we should probably reveal that we've only seen three of the five Best Picture nominees. We're pretty sure this means we've seen approximately two more nominated films than the average Oscar viewer.

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Regis Philbin's hard-hitting red carpet interview technique consists of asking George Clooney if he remembers when they had dinner together and watched an early screening of Michael Clayton. Clooney's answer is equally puzzling - he replies, "Did Notre Dame win today? They were winning at the half." Can anybody remind me why the whole world watches these awards?

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Seeing Diablo Cody on the red carpet is a real reminder that one out of every 800,000 Midwestern strippers can achieve greatness if they are only given an opportunity.

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Josh Spector is the "mastermind" behind Whip It Out Comedy. His column runs every Monday, assuming he remembers to write it. He has recently written about what it's like to have 40 jobs and Beautiful Babies Week. He can be pestered at whipitoutcomedy@yahoo.com.