Two things to share with you before this year’s Oscar liveblog. One, the stakes are higher than ever before, because I have money riding on the outcome. I entered the office Oscar pool. Twice. So expect a lot of cursing. Two, I thought it’d be fun having an Oscar party. But I knew I’d be handcuffed to this computer all night, liveblogging the show as it airs, so to avoid being distracted, I invited a whole bunch of strangers into my apartment. So as we speak, there are about 27 strange people milling around in my living room. I hope they don’t take anything.

So anyway, I do have one ace up my sleeve for my predictions this year. I took all of my predictions from Ann Coulter, because I figured if anyone has a chance of getting this stuff down pat, it’s a bow-legged, borderline psychotic crossdresser. (And just to head off your emails, there is no way that Ann Coulter is a woman. (S)he has an Adam’s apple. Women don’t have those.)

There are a few predictions that I am willing to make myself. Jon Stewart will do a pretty good job, but you’ll never know it because they’ll spend all of tomorrow talking about how disappointing he was. Billy Crystal will be back next year. Izzac Mizrahi will grab someone’s boob. Billy Bush will be a boob. And I will lose my Oscar pool. Twice.

Ok, folks, it’s gametime.

7:00 – Starting off with a computer-animated recreation of Oscartown. Say what you will, at least they didn’t use a Pussycat Dolls song.

7:03 – First Brokeback Mountain joke occurs three minutes into the show. I bet on seven minutes. Damn. I’m already losing.

7:05 – Billy Crystal Chris Rock Steve Martin Whoopi Goldberg David Letterman Mel Gibson Mr. Movie Fone Jon Stewart welcomes us to the night’s festivites. He’s short.

7:08 – Jack Nicholson is sitting next to Keira Knightley. Are they dating? That really wouldn’t surprise me as much as it should.

7:10 – “Bjork couldn’t be here tonight. She was trying on her dress and Dick Cheney accidently shot her.” See, the problem with that joke is @ssuming that you have to resemble a bird to get shot by Dick Cheney. That is not a requirement.

7:15 – 15 minutes in. First award of the night. At this rate, we’ll be done sometime tomorrow morning. I think. My math is bad.

7:16 – My bets are on either Matt Dillon or Paul Giamatti for Best Supporting Actor. Watch me lose both when George Clooney wins.

7:19 – Were you watching? Were you watching? 0-1. 0-1.

7:26 – Did I miss anything? Some guy was peeing in my hallway, so I had to punch him in the throat.

7:27 – Is there some sort of requirement that I’m unaware of that Ben Stiller has to waste five minutes every year not being funny? Who does this guy have incriminating pictures of?

7:28 – Best Visual Effects seems like a safe bet for King Kong.

7:29 – Safe bets are my favorite. 1-1. 1-1.

7:30 – Best Animated Feature comes down to a Japanese movie you never heard of, a British claymation film and a movie about what goes on inside Tim Burton’s head 24/7. I see the British winning.

7:33 – That’s because I’m a genius. 2-1. 2-1.

7:35 – Dolly Parton is performing at the Oscars. So why’d she bring those Golden Globes? AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

7:37 – AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

7:39 – …can’t … breathe.

7:42 – If you were wondering why Ben Stiller was out earlier being unfunny by himself† instead of his usual shtick of being unfunny with his partner-in-crime Owen Wilson, it’s because Owen and Luke Wilson are presenting together. And being unfunny as brothers. Nepotism rules.

7:43 – Best Live Action Short. I’d tell you who I picked, but you wouldn’t know what I was talking about.

7:44 – Whoever it was that won, I didn’t pick it. 2-2. 2-2.

7:45 – This year’s awkward usage of cartoon characters are from Chicken Little, one of the many computer animated films your children dragged you to this year that you slept through. Remember? Of course you don’t.

7:47 – Best Animated Short just went to another film that I didn’t pick. Ten bucks going straight down the drain. Screw you, Academy. 2-3. 2-3.

7:48 – Best Costume Design presenting honors are shoved into Jennifer Aniston’s lap. Hasn’t she had a rough enough year already?

7:50 – Memoirs of a Geisha wins an award. That seems wrong. 2-4. 3-3.

7:51 – Russel Crowe is onstage. DUCK!!

7:54 – A tribute to actors playing real people. About as interesting as it sounds.

7:57 – There’s a knife fight going on in my kitchen. I think I’ll let that one slide.

7:58 – Steve Carell and Will Ferrell present Best Makeup because somebody has to. And because their last names sorta rhyme.

7:59 – Chronicles of Narnia wins. That lion was awfully purty. 3-4. 4-3.

8:04 – Best Supporting Actress will either go to Rachel Weisz or Amy Adams. Or I will cry aloud.

8:06 – Rachel Weisz wins. That’s good. If I screamed, the rioters in my apartment might’ve taken notice of me. 4-4. 5-3.

8:15 – It occurs to me that this show wouldn’t be five hours too long if they didn’t have tributes to absolutely nothing every fifteen minutes. But that’s just me. I like interesting stuff.

8:17 – I am, however, totally in support of political advertisements for Best Actress nominees. Don’t ask me why.

8:20 – Best Documentary Short Subject goes to one of the films that doesn’t want me to win any money tomorrow. BOO!! 3-6. 5-4.

8:22 – Good God, the bow on Charlize Theron’s shoulder is bigger than her head.

8:22 – Penguins march onstage and take the Best Documentary award. And then, onwards to Atlanta, burning everything in their path. They’re so cute. 4-6. 6-4.

8:24 – Jennifer Lopez. On the Oscars. Can’t decide if I want to make fun of her crappy acting, her crappy singing or her crappy husband.

8:26 – “In The Deep” from Crash being performed and GOOD LORD! THE STAGE IS ON FIRE!!

8:27 – NO, REALLY!!

8:30 – I was so distracted by the stage fire, I didn’t get to make fun of Jennifer Lopez. Damn it all to hell, I was looking forward to that.

8:33 – Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock reunite to present Best Art Direction. God does listen to me.

8:35 – Art Direction goes to Memoir of a Geisha. Hooray! And boo! Simultaneously! 4-7. 7-4.

8:37 – Yeah, you guessed it. Yet another tribute to movies. Thank you, movies. You make life worth living.

8:41 – Time once again to hear from the President of the Academy of … you’ve already stopped reading, haven’t you? Yeah, me too.

8:44 – Why don’t they ever play this shmuck off? The Best Art Direction winners get fifteen seconds to thank their families, but this guy gets to blather on for five minutes for no good reason. I call shenanigans.

8:45 – Is it possible that Selma Hayek’s accent is getting thicker every year? How does that keep happening?

8:46 – Since there were only three nominees for Best Song this year, meaning only three performances by the nominated artists, here’s a guy with a violin to perform the scores for all the Best Score nominees. Don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with this.

8:49 – Best Score goes to Brokeback Mountain. You know the score. It’s that song they play on the eighteen different Brokeback Mountain parodies your coworkers called you over to watch last week. (Brokeback to the Future was my personal favorite.) 5-7. 7-5.

8:59 – My next door neighbor came over to complain about all the noise the now bloodthirsty strangers in my living room are making. I’ll miss her.

9:00 – Academy, take note. When the host is making fun of how many stupid film clip tributes you’ve had in the show to this point, you’re showing too many damn film clip tributes. Seriously.

9:03 – When the winners for Best Sound Mixing (King Kong) hit the stage, the microphone doesn’t work at first. There’s tragic irony for you. Oh yeah, lost that one too. I hate this stupid show. 5-8. 7-6.

9:08 – Lifetime Achievement Award is currently being presented to Robert Altman, which is good for him, and even better for me because I can go do something else while it’s happening.

9:13 – I tried to introduce myself to the group of strangers in my living room. They’re not so bad once you get to know them. And once they stop kicking you in the head with their boots.

9:19 – The final Best Song nominee, It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp, performed by Three 6 Mafia. Don’t deny it, you were humming along.

9:23 – It’s not so hard out here for a pimp anymore. They win the Oscar. Much shouting-out ensues. 6-8. 7-7.

9:29 – Best Sound Editing goes to a big, hairy gorilla. No, not George Clooney in Syriana. King Kong. 7-8. 8-7.

9:30 – Hey, shut up. I was waiting all night to make that joke.

9:31 – Speaking of, here’s regular George Clooney himself to fondly remember all the movie folk we lost this year. He’s so thoughtful.

9:33 – Shelley Winters died?

9:38 – Will Smith still makes movies?

9:39 – Best Foreign Language Film goes to Tsotsi. Oh, like you didn’t see that one coming. 7-9. 9-7.

9:42 – Best Film Editing goes to (Edited). X-X. X-X.

9:43 – Oh, fine, you crybaby. It was Crash. 8-9. 10-7.

9:45 – Time for the big guns. Best Actor.

9:47 – Philip Seymour Hoffman. Bow down before the Almighty Capote! Oh, come on. Humor me. 9-9. 11-7.

9:55 – Back to the little guns. Best Cinematography.

9:56 – Memoirs of a Geisha. For a movie that no one really saw and that I don’t recall being liked very much, it sure is winning a lot of awards. 10-9. 11-8.

9:58 – Big guns again. Best Actress is going to…

10:00 – Reese Witherspoon. Now I wish Joaquin would’ve won, too. 11-9. 12-8.

10:08 – Dustin Hoffman is determined to give out Best Adapted Screenplay. Who am I to stop him? Nobody, that’s who.

10:10 – Brokeback Mountain. I’d comment, but I haven’t seen the movie. I hope you won’t think any less of me, but I just can’t. I’m not a hateful person by any means, but I’m just not comfortable with the cowboy lifestyle. Seeing two grown men wearing those dumb hats gives me the willies. Sorry. 12-9. 13-8.

10:13 – Best Original Screenplay goes from Uma Thurman to Crash. I saw Crash last night. If you like the F word, you’ll like this movie. And I do. And I did. Fuck yeah! 13-9. 14-8.

10:19 – Best Directing will go to Ang Lee. Unless it doesn’t. Then I just don’t know what will happen. But whatever it is, chances are it won’t be pretty.

10:20 – It went to Ang Lee. You can calm down now. Chaos will not, in fact, ensue. 14-9. 15-8.

10:22 – Holy snikeys, they got Jack Nicholson up out of his seat to present Best Picture. Somebody’s feeling productive.

10:23 – Yeah, I don’t know what that last joke meant either. It’s late, I’m tired. Get off my f***ing back.

10:24 – Best Picture goes to Crash. Wow. Color me surprised. 13-10. 14-9.

10:25 – No, seriously. Wow. How the hell did that happen?

10:26 – And they play them off. How nice of them.

So my best call of the night? Tiebreaker question was when the show would end, and I nailed it at exactly 10:30. Too bad it doesn’t matter, since I just lost. Twice. Good night, drive carefully.

-Erik Hagen
/The strangers in my home refuse to leave. If you’re feeling lonely, please come and take one home with you. Please?
TheExpatriateAct@gmail.com