12:10:48 AM EST

I suppose I need to just do this the same way you remove a Band-Aid: one quick rip, it's the most painless way:

;ldfjhhns; hp[hsegh[ e0GGSLNN

All right: that doesn't work with typing. I shall have to tap this out letter for letter:

"13 for 24." Thirteen correct predictions in 24 categories. Not my worst year ever, but well below the desired performance standard.

Well, it was an interesting year, in which every nominee fit the customary mold of an also-ran. This year was packed with greatly-admired films which didn't stand a chance of winning against flashy, big-money pictures with $20,000,000-a-picture stars, launched in the last couple of months of the year. It wasn't my fault, it was the industry's fault for not nominating the latter movies.

It even affected the Best Animated Feature category, for God's sake; every year it's been "Who's going to try to beat Pixar or Dreamworks?" but guess which two players were absent from the list of nominees?

But remember, like any sensible movie buff, I consider Oscar predictions to be an exercise in agnosticism, not evangelism. That is, the fundamental molecule of the undertaking isn't believing in the Answers but in working on the Questions.

I need to enjoy another beverage (and clear away the detritus of my one-man Oscar Party) before I can start the post-mortem on this year's Oscars. Watch for it later at my usual blog, YellowText.

11:28:10 PM EST

Jack Nicholson is wearing a proper tuxedo...WITH A BOWTIE.

I rest my case. "I don't want to be as straightlaced and boring and middle-of-the-road as Jack Nicholson" is a phrase that's never been uttered by sane men. You strive to emulate the man because he's the most coolest of fellows.

Best Picture...Crash!

Wow!

I think "Capote" was a better movie, but (as with "Wallace And Gromit" winning Best Animated Feature) I can't be all that disappointed with this win.

I hereby incorporate a brand new Rule for handicapping Oscars: if Oprah Winfrey devotes a whole show to how important and healing and educating (et cetera) the film was...it's in the bag.

But even if you get Oprah's enthusiastic endorsement and your film helps to heal the nation and you win the Oscar...the orchestra will still cut you off before you finish your speech.

Bastards. The conductor seems to be unaware that from the podium far above the orchestra pit, a massive loogie fired straight into his face is a fairly easy shot.

11:21:53 PM EST

Ha! Jon Stewart is on my side re: wearing bluejeans to the Oscars. Obviously he's been dashing backstage to read this blog between trips to the podium.

Jon, if you're reading this...touch your left eyebrow the next time you come on.

Yes indeed, it's Ang Lee. And the stain of "The Incredible Hulk" fades at least three more shades lighter.

11:19:05 PM EST

Dustin Hoffman with Adapted Screenplay. "Great work, everybody" he says, after noting that he's looking out at lots of people who didn't win. Nice touch.

Gotta go to "Brokeback" I thought, but now I'm wondering if there wasn't a massive undetected wave of support for "Constant Gardener."

Good: "Brokeback" it is. One of the screenwriters was also nominated for "The Last Picture Show." An admirable career, both for the accomplishments and the sheer duration.

Dungarees. No undershirt under the tuxedo shirt. Tie askew. Jacket's about three sizes too small. And for God's sake...tuck in those pajamas!!! Is that a pledge pin...?!?

Uma Thurman presents Best Original Screenplay. Wow, Uma Thurman must have gone to the same stylist as Nicole Kidman. Skin, hair, and dress color all match. I hereby suggest a Photoshop contest in which we give either one of these women some, you know, color.

Still: it's Uma Thurman. She could come out dressed in a huge photograph of the third-place winner of the Nathan's Hot-Dog Eating Contest and she'd still be Uma Thurman.

She's available, isn't she?

...

Hmm? Oh, yeah, the winner. "Crash," had to be. 12 for 22, with Best Picture and Best Director left to come. Best Director is a lock, Best Picture is something I'm confident about but if I correctly have picked both categories, it'll be one of those rare years when the same picture doesn't win both awards. Fingers crossed.

11:08:48 PM EST

Best Cinematography, presented by John Travolta. I wish it could be "Batman Begins" but it can't possibly be "Batman Begins."

It goes to "Memoirs of a Geisha," which surprises me. It's earned, but it says...something? that the voters were able to ignore the sumptuous landscapes of "Brokeback Mountain."

I've never been to the Kodak Theater. Someone from LA, help me out: if you show up in a tuxedo wearing a traditional bowtie and not a necktie, do parking fees triple or something? The consistency there on the stage is absolutely uncanny.

Jamie Foxx presents "Best Actress." In a shirt made out of the same colored fabric that local weathermen stand in front of when they present the five-day forecast.

Anything other than Reese Witherspoon will be a colossal upset.

And it's RW.

Cute. As. A. Button! I think the award was earned, but I think a huge motivation behind her votes was the simple desire to see her win.

Another item in the This Can't Possibly Be Of Any Interest To You Department: I am watching this on the sofa in my office rather than in my living room, because I'm using my iMac for chat-parties while I use this PowerBook for live blogging. To defend workplace productivity, there's no cable TV up here.

But I've got a Slingbox hooked up in the living room, so I can keep an eye on the feed that's being recorded on the cable box. And whaddya know: the WiFi video feed coming through on this Windows PC actually looks better than the over-the-air reception on the tee-vee.

Of course, ten feet behind me, I've got an EyeTV 500 hooked up to my HAL9000-class Mac G5 tower. It's recording 1080-quality HDTV directly to its 1.8 terabytes of storage. But watching analog TV on a sofa beats watching photo-quality digital TV in an office chair.

10:51:53 PM EST

Will Smith presents "Best Foreign-Language Film." I still think "Lock, Stock and

"Tsotsi" wins...good good good. I am now 7 for 16, and it sounds like it was a great movie, to boot. I didn't see any of the nominees but the more I read about "Tsotsi," the more I wanted to find a screening somewhere.

Maybe my favorite acceptance speech of the evening. Sincere without being maudlin, happy without losing control of the moment, proud without being arrogant.

"Crash" wins for film editing...the obvious pick, as it was a fairly intricate and non-linear story that kept jumping from viewpoint to viewpoint. 8 for 17.

Hilary Swank appears, wearing the sort of dress that makes all the men in the audience think the same phrase: "You know, she's separated from her husband now..."

We're already at the Best Actor category? Gosh, things are moving along, aren't they?

My hitting streak ought to continue. If Hoffman doesn't win for "Capote," the barometric pressure of the theater will drop about 10 millibars owing to the 3000 people gasping at once.

It's a bit jarring to see Strathairn in color, at last.

And it is indeed Philip Seymour Hoffman. His performance was so thrilling that I'm willing to forgive him or wearing the costume from his high-school production of "Guys And Dolls" to the ceremony.

PSH is one of those actors who's going to spend the rest of his life playing great parts. It's been true up to this point and I'll continue to be plunking down ten bucks at the theater based solely on his name on the poster.

9 for 18...for the first time in (seemingly) hours, I am back at the 500 mark.

But dammit, the third Coke of the evening is also a Yankee Coke. I hereby call off this part of the revelries. Next time I'm thirsty, I'm rooting around in the ice chest for a Mexican one.

10:34:36 PM EST

Best Sound Effects Editing goes to King Kong, as I predicted. 6 for 15.

George Clooney approaches the podium, announced for the first time as Academy Award Winner George Clooney.

Memorial package. I wonder who gets to choose the clip that represents the late performer? Does the family get a say? Maybe the performer's most famous credit wasn't his or her personal favorite.

How awful if they went with the actor's most recent credit. Could you imagine Raoul Julia being memorialized with a clip from "Mortal Kombat"?

10:27:37 PM EST

Okay. This commercial that's set in a restaurant? You'd better get to the point quick or else I'm going to throw something at the set.

Okay, the dude who looked like he might be M. Night Shamalan was indeed he, and in the final seconds of the forty-minute commercial, you find that it's an ad for American Express.

"It's Hard Out There For A Pimp." It's after 10, so they got permission to say The S- Word. Prediction: the usual collection of family groups will issue press releases in about three weeks, proudly trumpeting the fact that due solely to their political pressure, the network has caved in and cancelled the 2006 Academy Awards program after just one episode.

I note that it's hard to sing a song like that with any sort of street-cred when you're wearing $120,000 of custom couture.

Man! She totally American Idoled that last note!

Best Original Song: and "Hard Out Here For A Pimp" wins!

Censors are sweating above the red button...

How terrific to see such sincere, uninhibited joy there on the stage.

Great quip from Jon Stewart ("I think it just got a little easier out there to be a pimp")

"How come they're the most excited people out here tonight? That's how you accept an Oscar!" he says. Good for JS.

10:14:50 PM EST

Coke #2. Guess: Yankee. Origin: Yankee. At least I'm doing well in one event this year!

Another clips package. This is starting to get annoying. It isn't that I think they shouldn't talk about the history of movies. I applaud it; this is the one opportunity that Hollywood gets to get everybody thinking about the movies.

I'm just disappointed that it's such a sorely-squandered opportunity. Again: it's just random film clips. If someone is amazed by that clip of Buster Keaton standing dumbly while the entire front of a house collapses on top of him, his life spared solely thanks to a fortuitously-placed top-floor window, where do they go from there? Would it have killed the producers to caption the clips so that the viewer knows to plug "Steamboat Bill, Jr." into Amazon.com's or Netflix.com's search engines?

Jessica Alba and Eric Bana: two stars of recent films based on Marvel Comics characters. Intentional?

Best sound mixing goes to "King Kong." Damn. I thought this would go to "Walk the Line," due to the problem of painting a sound picture that included so many musical performances. 5 out of 13. The bloodletting continues.

Special Oscar to Robert Altman, presented by Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep, two women I wish I could see more of.

(Not to be bitchy or anything, but Streep is wearing yet another dress whose fabric has a tint that's almost a color, but not quite. It's more of a doppler-warped low-frequency sound than an actual wavelength of visible light.)

Altman demonstrates how important it is to eat right, take your vitamins, get regular cancer screenings, et cetera. Because usually, ometimes you have to get your head above the 8-decade mark before Hollywood remembers that you're a genius and that it'd be nice to heave a career award your way.

Great speech.

09:51:51 PM EST

Jon Stewart introduces the President of the Academy. Ten bucks says he mentions digital piracy.

Mickey Rooney gets a patented "Yup, He's Still Alive" audience-reaction shot.

Salma Hayek is looking particularly hayekkey tonight, even for her. On behalf of all heterosexual men everywhere I say "please put this model into production straight away; it's far too wonderful a design to be relegated to the Woman Show, where it can only be appreciated by a small group of industry and press."

Best Original Score. Terrific presentation: Itzhak Perlman playing a medley arrangement of all nominees. This shows off the movies and the nominees and the industry to perfection. Remember when the best the Oscarcast could do was have Debbie Allen choreograph one of her pelvis-fracturing little dance numbers around the music?

I have backed John Williams here, a conservative choice to be sure but "Memoirs Of A Geisha" was my favorite movie score of the year. The great thing about predicting John Williams is that

(Man alive...Hayek's dress looks even more terrific from the back)

...most years, you've got a 2-in-5 chance of being right.

It goes to "Brokeback Mountain." A credible choice...but I thought the music was pretty damned slight. Not "deceptively simple"...I mean full-out vague and easily-expendible.

5 for 12. Dear God, won't somebody please help that poor man?!?

(Hush, Margaret! That's a sure way to get him killed!)

09:40:07 PM EST

This means nothing to you people out there, but I finished my first can of Coke and pitched it at a trash can ten feet away. It went in, bounced off of some sort of box inside, flipped end-over-end to the lip of the can...and is now perfectly balanced there.

If this were a "Twilight Zone" and I were Dick York, I would have the power of telepathy, so long as that can remained balanced right there.

Best Art Direction: another "It has to be..." category, methinks, with "Memoirs of a Geisha" being the suffix in question.

There you go. I am now 5 for 11.

Samuel L. Jackson is introduced and approaches the podium. There. See? I need to point out that if Shaft can put on a tuxedo one night a year, nobody has any excuse.

Another clips package devoted to Some Vague Concept With No Immediate Relevance. If they're going to bring the show to a halt, why not pick one under-represented topic and stick with it? What sort of impact can a hundred four-second clips have upon anybody?

"Network" is having an anniversary, and it only grows more and more relevant with each passing year. Why not do two minutes on "Network"?

09:28:50 PM EST

I need to check with the statistician: was this the first car fire on an Oscar stage?

And why didn't they use this idea during the closing ceremonies of the Los Angeles Olympics?

09:25:03 PM EST

Documentary Feature. I'm ready to be wrong on this one. I did something stupid: I picked a terrific movie that people have actually seen..."Murderball."

Didn't pick "Penguins" because it just made so much money. And dangit...it wins.

This is looking very very grim.

Speaking of grim: open collars with no ties whatsoever?!? Oh, aren't you wayyyy too cool for the Oscars.

I have a new reason to wish that they hadn't won: because if they'd lost, they'd still have to carry around those damned stuffed penguins all night. Talk about humiliating...

J.Lo's gown: yet another gown pulled from the same color palette they used in the design of Bob & Emily's Chicago apartment in "The Bob Newhart Show."

09:21:22 PM EST

Lauren Bacall! She looks like she's still pissed off about losing Best Supporting Actress to Juliette Binoche a few years ago.

No, it's just that she's having trouble reading the prompter. I wonder if the producers have a Plan "B" ready and standing by for such occasions? An elderly actor/actress who needs glasses but doesn't want to wear them onstage...clearly there's a good chance that the words will be up there but the presenter won't be able to read them. A paper script on cards that can be passed to the podium? A pre-recorded version of the text that they can cut to just in case?

She's introducing a clips package. It seems to me that these elements ought to be the very first to go. Unless they're remarkably timely, they just sort of...are.

Hmm. Jon Stewart cuts to a "Daily Show"-like commercial narrated by Stephen Colbert. Dangerous, I think. Remember when Letterman brought "Late Show" bits to the Oscar stage? Didn't go terribly well.

Documentary Short Subject. Will I go 0 for 3 in shorts? Maybe. The mythical Purple Cloud of Insanity that floats above the atmosphere and occasionally drifts to the ground and makes people act in completely bizarre and insane fashions has a parking pass at the lot where they decide the Documentary categories.

"Norman Corwin." I thought this one was a non-starter. Damn: I slip below the 500 mark.

09:08:50 PM EST

My predictions are now running 4 for 7.

I'd love to attend the technical-achievement Oscar ceremony. I bet it's (on balance) a lot more dignified and entertaining than the telecast version.

Every time I see those columns set at the deep end of the stage, I can hear the announcer of "Candlepin Jackpot" intoning the odds of making that sort of spare.

"Best Supporting." I'm curious to see if this will indicate hitherto-undetected support for "The Constant Gardener." It got lots of key nominations, despite having come and gone fairly quickly, early in the year.

Frances McDormand: always good.

Have they shown the clip for "Junebug" yet? Guess they have.

"Rachel Weisz." Wowwwww. Good performance (actually, a good leading performance) and now I've mentally bumped up "Constant Gardener"'s chances in all other categories. And maybe downgraded "Brokeback Mountain"'s.

4 for 8...I'm shooting .500. Bad trend...

Major point deduction to Morgan Freeman: you want to dress like you're in a 1968 Montclair cigarette ad, do it when it's 1969 and you're in a Montclair cigarette ad. Don't bring that open-collar with loose-whatever-that-was-around-your-neck to the Oscars and call it "formalwear."

09:00:26 PM EST

Funny makeup bit.

"Best Makeup". How could this be anything but "Star Wars"?

And I wonder if the nominee is prepared to accept the Oscar on behalf of the while 6-part series.

NARNIA?!? What CRAP!!!!!! I now increase my mental recollection of the lameness of that book series by an additional 5%, purely out of spite.

08:55:56 PM EST

Best Costume goes to "Geisha." It had to.

My predictions are now running now 4 for 6. Man alive, the "Short Subject" categories were a real Waterloo. And I often do really well, there. Oh, well.

Russell Crowe: awesome in a very traditional tux.

First Coke of the evening is withdrawn from the ice chest. Coke: The Real Thing, official soft drink of the Andy Ihnatko Picks On Oscar! 2006 Live OscarBlogCast.

And there's a twist this year: a couple of weeks ago, I returned from Mexico with a full case of Mexican Cokes (or as they call them down there: "Cokes.") You know of their special sort of magic, I'm sure: made with real cane sugar instead of corn syrup, Mexican Coke is to Yankee Coke as Heroin is to Methodone.

I have filled the ice chest with 8 cans: four Mexicans and four Yankees. I am not looking at the labels before opening and drinking. Can I truly taste the difference, or am I talking through my hat?

First draw: I guessed "American"...and so it was.

08:48:28 PM EST

Best Short Film. I dare you...try to come up with a way to predict this category.

Winner: "Six Shooter." I am now 3 for 4. Yes, I largely guessed on this one.

Tuxedo: it looks like it's cut as a business suit...but I'm not watching in Hi-Def so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Why are they playing him off with the "Wacky Looney Cartoon Winner" music?

Aw, crap...two "stars" from "Chicken Little." Take one guess as to why they're here. Lame characters, lame flick. Would they have chosen these characters if the Oscarcast weren't on ABC?

Looks like they didn't have a lot of time to render this, either.

Best Animated Short: tough to call.

"The Moon And The Sun." Dash it, I had "9," figuring that "Moon and Son" was going to be too heavy to pull it off. But it was a swell short.

Proper tuxedo: good man. See? You work in animation. Why ruin your Special Night?

08:39:37 PM EST

Dolly Parton looks like she's been recalled and replaced with RoboParton Series T-2000. I think the first time you get cosmetic surgery, you should be issued a secure card. And every time you get another cosmetic procedure on your face, they punch the card. Once you've got four punches, that's it. No licensed surgeon will cut you again.

Show me one fault in this plan.

08:36:22 PM EST

I wonder if that "movie marquee" over the stage is real, or if the names of presenters and categories are being digitally added.

Reese Witherspoon: how adorable is she?

Best Animated Feature: no fan of animation can be anything less than delighted with whatever result. But I'm really pulling for "Corpse Bride." It was probably the most fun I had in a theater all year, and definitely the most fun I had watching an in-flight movie.

"Wallace & Gromit" it is. I am now 3 for 3.

Arrrrgh! Yet another "animation" nominee who chose to wear a Wacky Bowtie. It's been done, it's been done, it's been done.

Okay, cool bit, bringing the little bowties for the Oscar.

Peter Sallis, voice of Wallace, gets a shoutout. I've always enjoyed the story of how he came on board. He was a fairly famous British sitcom actor, and these college students ask him to please voice their student film. What was in it for him? Nothing but scale pay, and the satisfaction of helping out some kids just starting out.

His reward: he's the voice of an internationally-beloved animated character, and he's now more or less immortal. Sometimes Karma works!

Dolly Parton sings her nominated song. Rather a dull one; if this one wins, I'll be sorely disappointed.

08:30:50 PM EST

Very "Carol Burnett Show"-style bit, with Tom Hanks and the acceptance speeches.

Ben Stiller in a greenscreen suit. Another bet: how long until some talented kid with the right hardware has taken advantage of a HDTV recording and the built-in holdout matte and rendered a full "Predator" costume onto his body?

Best Visual Effects. A little surprised that "Star Wars" wasn't nominated here. A little surprised that there wasn't any sort of Oscar acknowledgement that a 30-year film cycle -- one of the most beloved in film history -- has come to an end. Oh, well.

It's "King Kong." Cool. But what else could it have been?

One...two...three...hey, wow! Everyone's in a proper tuxedo. The VFX guys are a bit of a wildcard. Remember the lame, faux-hipster thing that the "Matrix" guy wore when he won? Rather emblematic of the whole Matrix series.

Minor point deduction: white tie can only be worn with tails.

08:21:33 PM EST

Nicole Kidman...hair, skin and dress match, as though she was drawn by that wimpy kid in the kindergarden who's stuck having to draw with just that one "Straw" crayon that's left over when all the other kids have taken what they wanted.

Best Supporting Actor: I've backed George Clooney, which now seems like a bit of a gamble.

In that clip, John Hurt looks like the "Mask of Comedy" that precedes every Three Stooges short.

Ha! Sometimes a gamble pays off!

I thought this would be a "Wish we could award you for 'Good Night And Good Luck'" award.

Huh? They start the music right away? What the hell? God forbid you give the man one moment alone on the stage. Jerks. This isn't as bad as last year, when they went into the audience to award the Oscars that the producers clearly don't care about. Still, classy decision.

God, this is already getting old.

Terrific speech from Clooney.

08:15:05 PM EST

Is Stewart taking a stiff drink backstage while this "Western Innuendoes" clips package screens?

08:13:39 PM EST

BOY is there a lot of tension there in the room. Wall of ice somewhere between podium and first row. Wasn't this much tension when Chris Rock hosted. Was there this much tension on the first show after 9/11?

Oooo...the "elitism" joke met with POINTY silence.

This could be a tough one, folks...hang in there, John, you'll get to the end soon.

(OUCH! Cut to: Paul Giamatti, impatiently drumming his fingers on his knee...)

08:10:39 PM EST

Political humor...awwwk-warrrd...

Bit of a subdued reaction. Is it partially because he's behind a podium, for the first time in opening-Oscar-monkeydance history?

Cheney joke...8 minutes. 6 longer than I would have wagered.

08:06:47 PM EST

Mel Gibson...awesome. Amazing that so many people freaked out at the news that he'd be somewhere on the show, speaking another ancient language.

I don't know who's scoring this intro, but he should definitely be tested and prosecuted for abuse of anabolic John Williams-oids.

First Tuxedi Alert of the evening: Stewart is indeed appropriately attired for a formal event. Again I remind you that neckties are appropriate if they are, indeed, formal cravats and not something that requires AAA batteries.

08:02:50 PM EST

Four minutes!

08:01:02 PM EST

Any wagers as to how long we have to wait until a Gay Cowboy Joke or a Cheney With A Shotgun joke?

Or a Gay Cheney With A Shotgun joke?

Bitchin' opening montage so far...can't go wrong by starting with Doc Brown's DeLorean...

07:59:02 PM EST

Okay. Last year's show started at 8:30. I could have sworn that this year's Oscarcast started at 8:30.

Damn damn damn...

05:59:43 PM EST

Awesome.

For those of you tuning in early -- or maybe people who are continuing to read to the very bottom of the page -- this is just a test of some code I've just written. This OscarBlog is being run from a custom app written just for that purpose. I write my comments here in an editing window, I click a button, and bango...it goes out onto the OscarBlog page.

Which doesn't seem like too big a deal. But it solves a problem that's irked me with every previous live OscarBlog I've done: my "real" blog (Yellowtext) gets choked with dozens of these little Oscar comments, each one entitled "Live OscarBlog! 2005 Edition" or somesuch. Which was ungainly and inelegant, and anyone out there who subscribes to the RSS feed would see 20 or 30 separate little alerts and topics.

So this year, I've put it all on its own separate page. Well, I'm pleased with it, anyway.

Yes, I know that at present, this page has all of the style and zip of an SMS message from the National Weather Service. At this second, the OscarBlog file is plane-Jane HTML, and I haven't deposited the CSS stylesheets that will make this all look like a million bucks.

A thousand bucks.

Better than it looks now, at any rate. Well, the point here is that the system works, and as soon as I upload a 4K text file to my webserver it'll work and it'll look pretty, which will put this OscarBlog software one up on Paris Hilton.

(Possibly two.)

Oh, look at me...like I'm one to talk about personal appearance:

For now, I'm grabbing my camera and heading off to watch my niece's hockey game. Catch you back here at around 8 PM Eastern time.

Push the button, Frank...

05:42:21 PM EST

Cool, that worked. Let's see if it'll work again!

Push the button, Frank...

05:41:03 PM EST

Testing, testing...