Oscar Liveblogging: And the Winner of Best Picture Is ...

Welcome to Cinematical's official liveblogging of the 79th Annual Academy Awards! Erik will be your host for the first hour; Monika will bat second and Kim will clean things up. Who will win? Who will lose? Who will get stuck in the bathroom? Let's find out ...

Best Picture: The Departed

Diane Keaton and (a bald!) Jack Nicholson come out to present Best Picture. There's some weird vibe or inside joke thing going on between Keaton and Nicholson. Anyhow, the Oscar goes to ... The Departed. Ah, well. I was really pulling for Little Miss Sunshine, but what're you gonna do?

So that wraps up our live Oscar coverage, folks. Now you talk back to us! What award are you most happy about? Who should have won that didn't? What winner can you not believe? And what did you think of Ellen as the Oscar host? She didn't really do it for me ... she's likable enough, and she had a couple funny moments, but she seemed to be really holding back and afraid of offending. Who would you like to see as Oscar host next year?


Best Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Cut right to the chase: Martin Scorsese wins it. He finally has his Oscar. He gets a standing ovation, everyone's whistling and cheering and crying. He gives a gracious speech, thanking everyone under the sun. He hopes to make movies with Leo DiCaprio for many more years, which is fine by me.


Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Here's Reese Witherspoon to present for Best Actor. She looks fantastic -- divorce has been good for her, at least physically. She's obviously been working out, her arms are buff. Love the long hair with short bangs, and the dress is stunning. Too bad for Ryan Phillippe. In my heart I'm rooting for Ryan Gosling, but all these performances are so strong, it's hard to be upset no matter who wins. And it goes to ... Forest Whitaker. Wow. I feel kind of bad for Peter O'Toole, who just can't get a break when it comes to actually winning one of those. They'd better give him an honorary one next year, before it's too late. (Note: Er, make that, anOTHER honorary one, since he won one in 2003, duh. Thanks, Kristie, Jason and Fezman88, for reminding me of that.)

Whitaker gives a moving speech. His wife is crying, Will Smith is crying, James McAvoy is crying, his ancestors are crying. We're all crying. No, seriously. Whitaker deserves the win, his performance was powerful and, like Mirren's in The Queen, carried the film. I met him at Telluride, and he was so nice; we'd both just come from Little Children, and he was blown away by that film, as I was. Good for him for the win.


Best Actress: Helen Mirren, The Queen

Okay, now we're getting serious. We're down to Best Actress. What the hell happened to Philip Seymour Hoffman's hair? He looks like he used too much product and then decided at the last second to go for "artfully mussed-up." Oh, another upset. It's Helen Mirren with the win. Okay, much as I would have really liked to have seen Kate Winslet win, or maybe Penelope Cruz, we all knew Mirren had this locked, and I'm not going to begrudge her the naked gold man. Her performance totally made The Queen, and she looks absolutely stunning tonight in this lovely silver gown. She salutes Queen Elizabeth II, I'm sure Her Royal Majesty appreciates it.

The Tribute

Jodie Foster intros the tribute to all those from film who died in the last year. Jodie is looking very buff, and dang, the girl cleans up good. I've seen pics in the tabloids where she's a Normal Person, just schlepping around with her boys, and she looks kind of plain. But put her in a gorgeous dress that matches her eyes, give her a haircut and some highlights, and she looks great.

Best Film Editing: The Departed

Kate Winslet is presenting the award for Best Film Editing. She looks lovely, and film editing is very important, but this late into the awards, I'm kinda ready for some more exciting awards. We see the clips, and the Oscar goes to The Departed. Once again, Children of Men gets the big phhhhhbbbbttt from the Academy. I'm seriously irritated that Alfonso Cuaron's film didn't get more nods. Winner Thelma Schoonmaker gives a gracious speech, though.

The We're Really Loyal Americans Even Though We Love Al Gore Montage

Will Smith intros a sequence about American in films, or something. He looks great in a really nice tux that his wife probably picked out. You just know she makes the fashion decisions in that family. He looks great, and not all all nervous about that Best Actor Award ...

Best Song: An Inconvenient Truth, "I Want to Wake Up," Melissa Etheridge

Queen Latifah and John Travola are here with us now to present the award for Best Song. Queen Latifah looks fantastic as usual. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say the Dreamgirls songs will cancel each other out. And ... YES! It goes to Melissa Etheridge for "I Need to Wake Up," An Inconvenient Truth. Etheridge looks really good, and very healthy. That's great to see.

The Big Dreamgirls Performance

Jennifer Lopez comes out to introduce the Dreamgirls performance. And how sweet is it to hear, "Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson." I feel sorry for her, though, having to perform right after winning an Oscar. Give the girl a chance to breathe! She looks absolutely fantastic in that red dress. Now here comes Beyoncé, and you can be damn sure she's gonna show that just because Hudson has an Oscar now, doesn't mean she's better than Beyoncé, dammit. I'm loving Beyoncé's dress -- it's much better than that awful seafoamy mermaid get-up she had on earlier. Watching this, I'm reminded of seeing Jennifer Hudson as a nervous American Idol hopeful a couple years ago. Wow. She's come a long way. Anika Noni Rose joins them in another fab red dress, and a gospel choir backs them up. Nice performance.




Best Writing, Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine

Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst come out. That dress Kirsten is wearing, good grief! It looks like she's being attacked by pigeons. Somehow, neither of them bring quite the class to reading the scripts that Helen Mirren did earlier with Borat. And ... holy cow! Little Miss Sunshine takes the Oscar -- yay for Michael Arndt! Erik and Ryan called it. I'm so glad to see it win, but I think it's less likely now that it will win for Best Picture.

Best Original Score: Babel, Gustavo Santaolalla

Penelope Cruz and Hugh Jackman are here to present the award for Best Original Score. I have to say again, Cruz just looks stunning in that dress, and I love it when she wears her hair back like that. Jackman looks fine, he's breaking with the trend and wearing a tux. And Babel wins for Best Score. Hm. Now we have one for The Departed for screenplay, one for Babel for score, one for Sunshine for Alan Arkin. Best Picture is just a toss-up this year, it's too hard to predict, and I can't make a better guess based on the awards thus far.

Honorary Oscar to Ennio Morricone

Here's Clint Eastwood to present Ennio Morricone's honorary Oscar . He's up here rambling. I wonder if he got into the Valium that other guy was talking about earlier. Ah, now we get to the music ... and appreciate the impact that really great composing has on a film. The man composed the scores for over 500 -- 500! -- films, including The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, The Untouchables, Once Upon a Time in America, and The Thing. He talks for a while in Italian. Eastwood translates. Very boring.

Best Documentary: An Inconvenient Truth

Jerry Seinfeld comes out to present the Best Doc to one of five "incredibly depressing movies." I wonder if he's jealous that Ellen was asked to host the Oscars and he wasn't. Oh, the tension. And, no shock here, it goes to An Inconvenient Truth. I was so not shocked by this one, I had the title already typed up there before Seinfeld announced it. Honestly, when I sat in the Prospector Theater at Sundance in 2006 at 8:30AM watching this film for the first time, I didn't think it would get an Oscar. Everyone SO wants Gore to announce his candidacy for President, but it's not gonna happen.

Best Documentary Short Subject: The Blood of the Yingzhou District

Time for the Best Short Doc award, presented by Gael and Eva Green. I haven't seen any of these, so can't speak to which I liked, unfortunately. The winners are happy to be there, though, so good for them.

Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

George Clooney is on deck to present. He's looking exceptionally dapper this evening. No shocker here -- Jennifer Hudson takes it. She looks absolutely stunning, she's humble, she's crying, she's everything an Oscar winner should be. Earlier on the red carpet, American Idol's Simon Cowell had a nice supportive video for her. Who knew he could be so sweet? Now that American Idol has an Oscar winner, it will probably get really popular and start getting some viewers.

Hudson tearily wraps up her speech. As the music starts to gently cut her off, I so wanted to see her hold that Oscar out and belt out, "And I am Telling You I'm Not Going."