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.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Good Bob Hope tribute. Did you catch the audience shot of Mickey Rooney when Tom Hanks was doing the intro? And of Julie Andrews? They were probably as close as the director could come to someone in Hope's generation who was present and recognizable. It's kinda sad there are so few "great older film comedians" alive.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Supporting Actress, Renée Zellweger. Popular choice.

They'd talked of not cutting off acceptance speeches so rapidly this year. So far, no one seems crowded, and it's a distinct improvement.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Best Costume Design, Lord of the Rings. I'm four for four in predictions so far, but they've all been pretty easy ones.

A friend of mine once said that he was most interested in the "non-star" Oscars because you're seeing people who ordinarily don't get applauded, and you're seeing them at what is probably the absolute high point of their lives. Tom Hanks may have many thrills and honors that will mean more to him but how often does an Art Director have the whole world watching him?

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Robin Williams delivers the second gay marriage joke of the evening and the second jab at Michael Eisner. There will be more of both.

Best Animated Feature, another non-surprise: Finding Nemo. My guess is that if you'd locked all the voters in a theater and made them watch all the nominated films and vote their consciences, The Triplets of Belleville would have won.

I don't care for these "instant replays" going into commercial, like showing us Tim Robbins' win again. To me, if you're going to do a live show, keep everything in real time.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Paul Dini just e-mailed that he found Crystal's monologue more excruciating than sitting through Mel Gibson's new movie. And "DneColt" thinks the best joke so far was Michael Moore getting squashed by the elephant, which I agree was pretty funny.

Art Direction Oscar to Lord of the Rings. I'm two for two on predictions. These winners are all wearing bowties…first ones of the evening. Was there a memo they missed or something?

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — Good opening by Mr. Crystal. Great lyrics. The cameraguys missed a lot of audience shots but it probably wasn't their fault. That Kodak Theater looks like a monster for this purpose, which is surprising since this event is one of the main reasons it was built. (The year Letterman hosted, one of the backstage points of friction was that Dave was inserting monologue jokes at the last minute and expecting the director to get certain audience shots that couldn't be arranged on such short notice.)

Best Supporting Actor, Tim Robbins. No surprise. Good speech. Good audience shot of Susan Sarandon. And you could hear the exhales that he said nothing controversial. That is, unless you're in favor of violent abuse.

LIVE OSCAR BLOGGING! — "This morning, Peter Jackson woke up with Seabiscuit's head in his bed."