LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Adapted Screenplay, Lord of the Rings. I missed this one but I think most did.

Best Original Screenplay, Lost in Translation.

The telecast is feeling very long and I suspect that despite what I think is a fine hosting job, the reviews of this Oscar show are going to be pretty negative. It isn't that there's anything wrong with the broadcast besides its length, and I certainly can't imagine what they might have cut to gain much time. But there's a certain lack of energy this evening…no real emotional moments, no real surprises. I haven't seen one thing Leno can do a joke about tomorrow night apart from the usual ones about "Is it over yet?" and watching the child stars go through puberty.

They're just presenting Best Director. Looks like they decided to hold Best Actor for next-to-last, figuring that was the big suspense.

And Best Director is Peter Jackson. See? No surprises.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Foreign Film, The Barbarian Invasions. Funny line: "We're so thankful that Lord of the Rings did not qualify in this category." I'm ten for thirteen.

Best Cinematography, Master and Commander. And having had the wisdom to not predict this one, I'm still ten for thirteen. At this rate, it looks like I also made a good prediction setting the TiVo for an extra hour. We have at least six major awards to go.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Nice number from The Triplets of Belleville but it looked like all or some of the track was prerecorded and the folks on stage were just miming.

Before it, the number from A Mighty Wind didn't sound too good. And since the movie wasn't a blockbuster, I wonder how many people knew who the performers really were and/or that it was a spoof.

As several e-mails are noting, the odd framing of the clips is apparently due to someone being more interested in making it look right for the HDTV transmission than for the normal sets being watched by 99% of us.

Funny bit by Jack Black and Will Ferrell, singing the unknown lyrics to the song they play when a winner has gone on too long.

Best Song, "Into the West" from The Lord of the Rings. Several of you have e-mailed to ask if this movie has lost one of the awards for which it's been nominated. I don't think so. If Peter Jackson doesn't win for Best Director, it can only mean that Katherine Harris is working for Price-Waterhouse. We're nine for twelve here.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Editing, Lord of the Rings. I didn't predict in this category. Actually, I was originally just going to put Lord of the Rings down for all the ones I wound up not predicting. If I had, I'd now have called twelve out of fifteen.

Crystal says, "Do you know that people are now moving to New Zealand just to be thanked?" He's doing a good job keeping it moving. I like him better than any other host since Johnny Carson.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Harold Wheeler is the conductor? Then what was that shot of Marc Shaiman earlier? Oh, I get it: He was Billy Crystal's conductor. Okay, they didn't make that clear.

Best Score, Lord of the Rings. Evanier is nine for eleven. I'll probably lose another one on Best Song but I took a hopeful guess because I know and like Michael McKean.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Rick Scheckman, who knows his stuff in this department, has been e-mailing me to note that the clips being shown are often misframed such that the actors and/or film titles are off the screen. He's right. That last shot of Donald O'Connor in the "In Memoriam" package gave as much attention to Francis the Talking Mule as to Donald. He also notes that the Bringing Up Baby clip in the Hepburn spot was mostly her stunt double.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Documentary Short, The Chernobyl Heart. Great, memorable speech. I'm seven for nine.

Best Documentary Feature, The Fog of War. Great line: "I'd like to thank the Academy for finally recognizing my films." That's the kind of thing people think but it's nice to hear someone with the guts to say it aloud. But then he has to thank Robert McNamara…"if he hadn't done it, there wouldn't have been a film." Yeah, and if he hadn't done some other things, a lot of people wouldn't have died in Vietnam.

The tribute to Katharine Hepburn a few minutes ago was nice. This one to Gregory Peck was nice. But is anyone else a little uncomfy with the Academy deciding that certain actors get singled out and others get lumped into a quick montage? And of course, someone also decides that certain folks are omitted altogether because there isn't time. I guess it has to be this way but we don't have to pretend it's all copacetic.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Another clip from a nominated picture. Great time to go to the bathroom.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — As I write this, my mailbox is crammed with comments. Here are three picked almost at random. Chuck Sigars writes…

Every one of these seems special at the moment…but I swear Blake Edwards' acceptance speech was the best I've ever heard. 81 years old and 90 seconds, and at the beginning I would have sworn it was going to be 8 minutes of embarrassment.

Chad Riden writes…

Boy, I wish somebody would thank the Academy. They're always the unsung heroes of the Oscars.

Go to your room, Chad. And someone named Rick writes about the Bob Hope montage…

I thought it was eerie to have a clip of him in the audience and standing and waving. It makes it look as if he is still alive and thanking them now.

Hadn't thought of that but you're right. I guess I was just pleased they didn't do the obvious, which was a montage of silent clips scored with "Thanks for the Memories."

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Make-Up, Lord of the Rings. Best Sound Mixing, Lord of the Rings. Best Sound Editing, Master and Commander. I didn't predict in these categories so I'm still six for eight.

The broadcast seems to have scaled back on the fancy computer graphics as winners walk to the stage, but I think I'd still rather see winners walk to the stage. I believe the thinking was that there weren't enough recognizable stars in the audience and that even a lot of them were out in the lobby shmoozing for much of the telecast. So if the director kept showing the house, you'd wind up seeing a lot of seat fillers and wondering where Clint Eastwood had gone. Okay, fine. But a six second clip from the movie just takes us away from the sense of the ceremony and usually isn't on-screen long enough to register.

Oh, well. At least we didn't have an animated presenter this year. I'm sure it always seems like a good idea but it never works that well.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Chuck Kallenbach just e-mailed me to ask, "Okay, who is the man in the wheelchair? Is this some guy who had his leg broken by Jim Carrey?" No, that was just that awkward, meaningless shot I just mentioned. It confused me, too.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Special Award to Blake Edwards. Oh, right: That explains what Julie Andrews is doing there. Odd that they didn't bring in Steve Martin to present, seeing as how he's about to take over the role of Clouseau.

Funny sight gag with Edwards in the wheelchair. And it explains why we had that awkward, meaningless shot of him earlier in the chair.

Is it my imagination or does the audience sound cool, like they're not laughing enough? It may not sound that way at the Kodak but it sounds that way on my set…like the place is not properly miked. Then again, Jim Carrey had a few seconds there of that "I'm bombing" look so maybe it's just not as funny as it all ought to be.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Visual Effects, Lord of the Rings. Mark is six for eight. The real surprise is that we're 90 minutes into this thing and they've only presented eight Oscars.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Rick Scheckman writes, "So, I guess that Bob Hope's whole legacy was just about hosting the Academy Awards. Where were the clips from his films???" Now that I think about it, he's right. If you didn't already know Hope made some great movies, you might have missed that fact.

Right now, we're listening to nominated songs. Can't recall the last time I heard one of these and said, "Hey, what a great song." They may work in the context of their films but they rarely shine at these ceremonies.

Just checked my e-mail again and got this from Amazon…

We've noticed that customers who have purchased "The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming" also enjoy "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" on DVD. For this reason, you might like to know that "Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines" will be released on March 16, 2004 on DVD. You can pre-order yours at a savings of 30% by following the link below.

I was almost expecting an ad for the DVD release of Mystic River saying, "Catch the Academy Award winning performance of Tim Robbins."

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Owen Wilson was right: It is a little tacky to come out and plug your current movie. As he and Ben Stiller just proved.

Best Live-Action Short, Two Soldiers. And I'm five for six in predictions.

That was the first acceptance speech hustled off by music. Note that the man wielding the baton this year in the pit is Marc Shaiman. When he won a Tony last year for the Broadway Hairspray, he made a tacky remark, warning the orchestra not to cut off his acceptance speech. He doesn't decide when the music here starts — the producer and director do — but there's still some sort of irony in there.

Best Animated Short, Harvie Krumpet. There's a surprise. Everyone was expecting Destino so that Roy Disney could get up there and be applauded not so much for it as his efforts to oust Michael Eisner. Okay, I'm five for seven.