Happy Pancake Tuesday! AKA, the day before Ash Wednesday on the Catholic calendar. There’s also a tradition that before you start your Lenten sacrifices, you go off and have a rich, hearty pancake breakfast. (Ha! See? I’ve just gone and proven that Richard Dawkins is just a big stupid id...

Time for Best Actress. Really, how secure can you feel when your competition for The Academy Award is Meryl (****ing) Streep?!? But I think she’s almost in the Oprah category now. At this point in her career, she’s won her industry’s award so conspicuously frequently that thereR...

Best Foreign Language Film. About which I have nothing to say. This is a category that is soooo ripe for being taken off of the telecast portion of the program. But it’ll never happen. I understand that it’s impossible to take any of these categories and move them to a pre-show or an alt...

I’ll say one thing for these clip packages (Best Visual Effects)…it gives the liveblogger time to do some Wordpress housekeeping and tag and ship the previous post. So I’m all for ‘em. We’ll be here until 3 AM, but for selfish reasons…sure, bring ‘em on. Wil...

Best Supporting Actor nominees. Okay, Arkin mangled Hoffman’s name. But it’s good to see Joel Grey on a big stage, under any circumstances. (So now we know: they’re only singing “Happy Birthday” to the acting nominees.) Actually, I think this is all a big tribute to Jer...

The Judd Apatow short film: Seth Rogan and his Pineapple Express couch-buddy watching pirated movies. Very rare to find a comedy piece on the Oscars that’s actually funny! Funny bit with Janish Kaminsky “Saving Private Ryan” cinematographer. I do think that’s the last time Se...

Ben Stiller as Joachin Phoenix! Oh, man. The entire audience is acknowledging and endorsing the fact that Phoenix acted like a colossal ass on the Letterman Show and can happily be mocked. Before that appearance, his retirement was a personal choice. After it…well, the decision left his hands ...

More looks at the “we don’t have enough money to do a proper set” intentional set design. I wonder if that’s a smart move. Remember, during the hardest times of the 20th century, moviegoers went to the movies because they wanted to see glitz and sparkle and tuxedoed men and w...

Live! From the set of “Tron!” It’s the 2009 Academy Awards! No opening documentary-style montage? Hmm. Guess they really are serious about moving things along. But wait until 10:33, when we see the Salute To Chimpanzees In Cinema. Not to be confused with the Salute To Orangutans In...

I thought I’d handed out change-of-address cards to just about everybody after my move. But it wasn’t until last week that I realized that I’d missed someone: I haven’t received my annual You-Do-It Electronics Store Presidents’ Day Sale Flyer! The Sale is a big day on t...