11:15 -- Tom Hanks dashes out on stage and (no time to list all ten!) blurts out the Best Picture: The Hurt Locker. I'm thrilled to have been so wrong with my non-stop Avatar predictions. Bigelow's acceptance speech may be the first in Oscar history to thank hazmat emergency crews.
Meanwhile, James Cameron puts his all-Na'vi speech back into his pocket and heads out into the night to kick the stuffing out of Ben Stiller.
11:09 -- The Academy gets a dig in at Barbra Streisand--never nominated for her three films--by making her give out Best Director to Kathryn Bigelow, the first-ever female winner. While it's fantastic that Bigelow broke the glass ceiling, don't let this great achievement overshadow the really amazing thing: this woman is 58 years old?!
11:03 -- Sean Penn seems happy and relaxed to be handing out Best Actress. No, I'm kidding, he seems as nervous as a cat in a rocking-chair factory. Gives the award to Bullock. (That squeal you hear is Moviegoer running screaming up and down the hall.) As cool as Bridges' acceptance speech, Bullock takes home the prize for a speech that is perfectly self-deprecating, funny, and touching. "My lover Meryl Streep!"
10:55 -- Now the "friends and co-workers" of the Best Actress nominees. Forest Whitaker directed Bullock in Hope Floats and Michael Sheen co-starred with Mirren in The Queen (she played the queen, not him). Bald Sarsgaard gushes over Mulligan, Oprah talks about Sidibe, bald Tucci praises Meryl Streep.
10:51 -- Jeff Bridges wins for Crazy Heart and a million Twittering film geeks tweet "The Dude abides." Bridges gets a standing O, drops a "groovy" on us and ends every shout out with "maaan." It's awesome.
10:43 -- People who have starred with the Best Actor nominees are out to offer tribute to them. For five minutes Michelle Pfeiffer fondly recalls decades of working with Bridges only to realize she was thinking of Nick Nolte. Farmiga lauds Clooney, Julianne Moore talks up Colin Firth, and Tim Robbins thanks Morgan Freeman for busting him out of prison. Colin Farrell talks about appearing in SWAT with Jeremy Renner. Which means tonight has seen Fisher Stevens win an Oscar and SWAT get mentioned at the Academy Awards ceremony.
10:35 -- QT and Pedro Almodóvar present Best Foreign Film in front of a wall of lamps. (In tribute to the important role lamps have always played in foreign films.) The winner is Argentina's El Secreto de sus Ojos ("The Secret of the Oreos").
10:25 -- A complete lack of Holocaust documentaries leaves the category wide open this year, so Matt Damon gives it to The Cove. Dolphins and other sea-mammals of the world rejoice, decide to put sea-park revolution on hold for a few weeks. And in a the most amazing Oscar moment ever, Fischer "Short Circuit" Stevens accepts an Academy Award.
10:20 -- Gerald Butler and Bradley Cooper are out to present Best Visual Effects. Butler speaks of "movie magic," two words that probably shouldn't come out of the mouth of an actor whose last few films included Law Abiding Citizen, Gamer, The Ugly Truth, and PS I Love You. Avatar wins, naturally.
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