Tonight’s big winner: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with 11 Oscars (out of 11 nominations). Wow.

And we’re off… anything that starts with Sean Connery is okay with me.

Oh, nice opening montage. Good use of special effects without having it just be about the special effects.

And we’re nine minutes in, and we’ve had the first Bush joke. I’m not even going to bother counting them; they’ll have added waaay up by the end of the night.

Billy’s singing, so we’ve hit bottom only ten minutes in. Oh dear. I do hope that he’s not going to sing a song for each nominee. And it’s not even far enough into the show that I can fast-forward through it. Yep, he’s doing one per best picture nominee, but he’s on Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World so it should be over soon.

Catherine Zeta Jones, looking fabulous as always, announcing the nominees for best supporting actor. I don’t have any opinions here as I haven’t seen any of them. And the winner is: Tim Robbins for Mystic River. I expect we’ll be seeing a bunch of Mystic River wins tonight.

Okay, if I had to bet that one person was going to go off on a political rant, I would have put Tim Robbins way up there. Abuse victims should get counseling? Good cause, and showed some class to not go for the cheap shots.

I’m skipping most of the commercials, but Martin Scorcese pushing AmEx was funny.

Ooooh, Ian McKellan, who (imo) really should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. He gives the intro for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Hey, that clip was much too short!

(Why yes, I do have a cheat sheet with the titles already encoded with the proper tags. Why do you ask?)

Angelina Jolie comes on to Wild Thing. Heh. She’s announcing the Art Direction Oscar. And the winner is: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. And that’s one for LotR, and hopefully not the last.

Robin Williams interrupts Billy Crystal making fun of Mel Gibson to give the award for the best animated feature. And the winner is: Finding Nemo. Boy, I had that one pasted in here before he even announced it. Yes, a thank you for Steve Jobs from the podium—yeah!

What is it with the instant replay? That threw me off last year, and it’s happening again.

Renee Zellweger’s out to give the award for best costume. When you’re giving that one, you’ve got to look good, and she does. I’m hoping for LotR, but it’s up for grabs. And the winner is: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Yes! I always expect costume designers to be wearing something fabulous, and these folks are good but not great.

Nicholas Cage introduces Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. No, a black suit and tie are not a good replacement for a tux. Sheesh. Go buy a tux, Nic! Once again, an incredibly short clip.

Chris Cooper comes out to present the best supporting actress award. I love his work, except that he looks so much like Tom DeLay that I always want to punch his lights out. And the winner is: Renee Zellweger for Cold Mountain. I suspect that it’s part payback for losing two years in a row for best actress. Nice, good classic movie star dress, just like she should wear. Okay, why on earth when Renee is thanking Tom Cruise would they cut to Nicole Kidman?

Tom Hanks comes out to “Hail to the Chief,” to give a tribute to Bob Hope. Once again, why on earth do guys wear ties with tuxes and not bowties? Best Hope quote: “I hope you losers aren’t too disappointed. There’s a bright side to all this: remember, you can still run for governor.”

I know I’ve mentioned before how much I hate Ben Stiller, and I’m not inclined to change my mind. They give the award for best live-action short, and the winner is: Two Soldiers. And best animated short: Harvie Krumpet. Wow—neither Disney or Pixar won? That’s the first surprise tonight.

Liv Tyler introduces the nominees for best song, looking like a shlump. Why on earth would someone so beautiful work so hard to look so plain? [Tom: "Too bad she's not one of the winners tonight. Instead of those clunky glasses, she could have used the coupon for laser surgery that's in the goodie bags."] Does anyone know what instrument that is that Sting’s playing? We both know more than a little about folk and old music, and neither of us could name it. [Later note: Lisa at Digitalmedievalist.com tells us that it's a hurdy gurdy.]

Tom says that Liv looks elegant when her glasses are off (comment about what else he’d like to see her take off deleted). I’m not entirely sure about the neckline and shoulders on that dress; it just looks bit funny to me. It’s a darn shame when the back of a dress looks better than the front.

If I’d been given a list of who would be onstage tonight and asked to pick who’d look the worst, Annie Lennox would have been way up there. I’ll admit that I’m dead wrong, and she looks gorgeous. Okay, during the closeup, Sean wanted to know if she was a man or woman, but the longshot cleared that up.

At this point I would like to thank whoever was in charge this year and all deities involved for not putting dance numbers with each nominated piece. Thank you!

Billy Crystal comedy bit: okay, some are better than others.

Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith give the award for best visual effects. LotR ought to be a shoo-in, let’s see what happens. And the winner is: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. That makes three for three.

Jennifer Garner, looking amazing wearing a gorgeous orange dress (and I hate orange), gave the scientific and technical awards earlier, and gives the 3 winners their (combined) 30 seconds of fame.

Jim Carrey comes on with near-shaved head (probably for a part) to pay tribute to Blake Edwards. Is there a problem with our TV, or did they screw up the ratio of the clips? Nice entrance! and quite in keeping with much of his work.

[Tom's aside: "Diane Keaton's doing the Annie Hall thing again?" "Still," I said, "still. She's never stopped."]

Bill Murray does the intro for Lost in Translation, which I’ll bet gets another big 30 second clip. Yep. Scarlett Johansson then gives the award for best makeup. LotR again? And the winner is: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Four for four—yes!

Sandra Bullock and John Travolta talk about sound in music. [Tom: "Sandy, why are your cheeks so shiny? They look like they're made out of ceramic."] They’re up to give the award for best achievement in sound mixing. And the winner is: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I think we’ve got a sweep here, boys and girls. Or possibly the Academy is giving LotR all the small ones to make up for not giving the biggies—it wouldn’t be the first time. And what’s the story behind the blue things on their lapels?

I’ll bet that LotR doesn’t win for sound editing, but that’s easy because it wasn’t nominated (and why not, dammit!). And the winner is: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

Billy: “It’s now official, there’s nobody left in New Zealand to thank.”

Julia Roberts does a tribute to Katherine Hepburn, one of my favorite actresses. Kate easily outclasses almost every woman in Hollywood. Ahh, A Lion in Winter, one of my all time favorite movies. I hope some of these women learn something from her example.

Oprah Winfrey thankfully does not say anything about Uma. We’re divided on the dress; Tom declares it an automatic failure due to the butt bow, and I think that the bow’s actually on the side so it’s not disqualified. Is she wearing gloves? Gloves are bad. She introduces Mystic River with another short clip.

Diane Lane and John Cusack give the award for best documentary short. And the winner is: Chernobyl Heart. I don’t know anything about it, but in the documentary area I’ll always put my money on a film with a nuclear disaster in the title if there’s no holocaust documentary in the running.

Naomi Watts and Alec Baldwin present the award for best documentary. And the winner is: The Fog of War. Good choice. Errol Morris deserves it. But why is he wearing sneakers? Morris gets in the first real political dig of the night, but I don’t have a problem with that when it’s actually applicable to the point of the film.

Reading Andy Ihnatko’s Oscar blog, I find out that a tie with a tuxedo isn’t a tie, it’s a cravat. I say it’s spinach and to hell with it. Even if most of the men are wearing them, it’s still wrong.

Frank Pearson, the president of the Academy, pays tribute to Gregory Peck, but has trouble reading his cue cards. Jeez, guy, learn your lines! Then it’s the tribute to the deceased, which has the same problem with the ratio as mentioned earlier. What, are only the people with HDTV allowed to see the whole thing? (Sorry, Tom, but I have to admit we don’t have HD.) [Tom: I insist that you add that we have an HD-capable set.]

Sting and Phil Collins give the award for best original score. Will it be LotR again? And the winner is: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan give the award for best editing. Oh c’mon, Pierce, you know how to wear a tux—I’ve seen it! Sigh. And the winner is (again): The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Thank god for copy and paste.

Jamie Lee Curtis comes on, with (as always) an amazing dress. She plugs A Mighty Wind, a film by her husband, and its best song nominee A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow. Oh cool, Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy are doing it in character. Oops, Jamie Lee wasn’t on the stage and missed her cue and they had to play some music while they waited. Heh. I have no idea what The Triplets of Belleville is about, but the song looks fun.

Given the number of musical instrument experts we appear to have reading our blog, Tom would like to ask if the guy was playing the vacuum cleaner, or if it was something else?

Will Ferrell and Jack Black come onstage… why? To present the best song award. C’mon guys, you’re way out of your league, but you could at least dress like you belong. Oh crap, they’re singing. “You’re boring,” is right. [Tom says that it wasn't at all boring, that it was fun. Me, I hate Will Ferrell, just like I hate Ben Stiller, and for many of the same reasons.] And the winner is: Into the West from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King by Fran Walsh, Howard Shore, and Annie Lennox. Regarding Howard Shore: Tom wants to know if it isn’t tacky to bring up the Oscar you’ve already won when you win another. Me, I’m just having a hard time wrapping my mind around the line, “Oscar-award-winner Annie Lennox” that we’ll be hearing in the future.

Charlize Theron gives the award for best foreign film. Tom says “woof” when he sees her. And the winner is: The Barbarian Invasions from Canada. Jeez, most of our TV shows get made there; why do they still count as foreign? Best line: “We’re so glad that LotR did not qualify in this category.”

Uma Thurman and Jude Law come out. She’s wearing something that looks like a hippy wedding dress, but Jude is actually wearing a bow tie so kudos to him. [Tom: her dress looks like a combination of that and left-over wardrobe from the samurai sequence in Kill Bill.] They’re giving the award for best cinematography, and I have to ask, why wasn’t LotR nominated here? The award goes to: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and I’ll bet that Russell Boyd is glad that LotR wasn’t up.

Francis Ford Coppola and Sofia Coppola, hoping to become the first father-daughter winning director duo. He makes a joke about “the family business,” which I have to pretend not to understand (it’s part of being married to a Sicilian). They’re giving the award for best adapted screenplay and LotR is up, so let’s see what happens. And the winner is Fran Walsh Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. I’m realy glad that whether or not Jackson wins for director that he’ll at least have this chance at giving his speech.

So far, LotR has won everything that it’s been nominated for. Huzzah!

Tobey MacGuire gives the intro to Seabiscuit. I liked the book better, but the film was darn good, too.

“Welcome to the award-winning couple, Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon,” says Billy. I look at her dress and I think that she’s an award-winning couple on her own. They’re giving the award for original screenplay. And the winner is: Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation. It took us a moment to remember why she’s the third generation of award-winning Coppolas, and the answer is: her grandfather, Carmine, was a composer.

Tom Cruise can’t dress properly either. Sheesh! I remember last year the memo went around telling people to dress down because we were at war, and I thought that that was just for last year. Or did the guys decide that once they got casual Oscar day, they were never going back? Anyhow, he’s giving the award for best director. And the winner is: Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Two thoughts: (1) it should be a lot easier to get geek films made now, and (2) that nerd in the IT department, the one who wears Think Geek T-shirts and beat-up jeans every day, who just checked off LotR all the way down, is gonna kill in the office Oscar pool.

Adrien Brody gives the best actress award, as a personal representation of why the Oscar shouldn’t go for stunt roles (i.e., Keisha Castle-Hughes). And the winner is: Charlize Theron for Monster, no surprise there. Brody took a shot of breath spray in preparation.

We’d like to take a moment thank Miraz Jordan, as we believe that she’s the only person in New Zealand who hasn’t been thanked tonight. Plus, she’s the only NZ blogger we could think of off the top of our heads.

Nicole Kidman, looking amazing, gives the best actor award. I’d still rather see her in an actual color than something that pale. Lots of good choices here. And the winner is: Sean Penn for Mystic River. While I heard he was good, I still bet that it’s a “body of work” award; the Academy loves those. Sean makes the first completely inappropriate political joke of the night by a winner.

And we’ve passed midnight on the east coast, so there’s going to be a lot of tired people there tomorrow. I looked at the TV schedule and said, “Three hours? Yeah, right.”

And all that’s left is Best Picture, and Steven Spielberg comes out to give it. That was a good decision, and he knows how to wear a bow-tie. Go LotR! And the winner is: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Eleven out of eleven; that may be a first. They tied for the record with Titanic and Ben Hur. The only regret that I have about LotR is that it received no acting nominations. That was nice to bring everyone up, as it was clearly a work of a large group of people. As others have said, the last two years all we could hope was that the Academy understood that this was one huge work and would properly reward it at its completion, and they have.

And that’s all, folks, thanks for joining us! And for those of you who’ve come by here for the first time, glad to have you, and feel free to come back any time.