2011 Academy Awards Livesnark

• Opening filmed bit riffing on Inception was cute.

• Franco's Grandma: "I just saw Marky Mark." Ha! But opening banter was stiff.

• Alice in Wonderland wins Best Art Direction. I hate it when historical movies based on real places win, so I was afraid a sweep for The King's Speech would rob a genuinely original creation.

• Somewhat of an upset as Wall Pfister wins Best Cinematography for Inception over Roger Deakin's work on True Grit since Deakins has been nominated nine times without winning. No complaints about the win, though.

• First segment felt off-kilter and stilted. Franco and Hathaway are too giggly.

• Kirk Douglas is out and doing shtick which is rough considering his stroke. Cute that he milked the envelope opening moment.

• Melissa Leo wins for Best Supporting Actress for The Fighter. Terrible speech. Whoa! Had to bleep her. They should've given it to Halle Steinfeld, but she was really a lead part.

• Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis are absolutely horrid with banter. Jeez, who writes this stuff? I hosted a poetry and music festival for five hours last night, pretty much winging most of it off the cuff and it was tighter and funnier than anything so far here.

• Gee, Pixar wins Best Animated Feature. Again. There should really be more than three nominees in the category. Haven't seen the other nominees yet, but I wasn't crazy about Toy Story 3.

• 40 minutes in and I'm bored.

• Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem - co-stars from No Country For Old Men - are dressed as if they're going to be serving drinks at the Governor's Ball.

• Aaron Sorkin wins for The Social Network and gives props right off to Paddy Chayefsky's titanic Network. Best dialog of 2010.

• David Siedler, age 74 or so, is the oldest winner of Best Original Screenplay for The King's Speech. I was unimpressed by that movie as well.

• Anne Hathaway shows off her impressive lungs - singing voice, that is - and Franco comes out in Marilyn Monroe drag. Scary. She looks hot in a tux.

• Russell Brand and Helen Mirren (co-stars in the Arthur remake) are the first good presenters with banter. A Better World wins for Best Foreign Language, but the woman giving the acceptance was a mess.

• Christian Bale wins, as expected, for The Fighter. No problems with this win. Hard to believe he's never been nominated before.

• It's ironic that The Fighter is up for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Support Actor and two Supporting Actress noms, but the star and producer, Marky Mark, gets bupkiss for his performance.

• It's a long way from Cleveland for Trent Reznor as he co-wins Best Original Score for The Social Network's ambient, futuristic soundscape.

• Inception wins for Sound Mixing and Editing Oscars. Nice to see it picking up the technical categories. Everyone's been thanking Chris Nolan, who was snubbed for Best Director by the haters in the Directors Branch of the Academy.

• Rick Baker wins his 7th Oscar for Best Makeup for The Wolfman. Does anyone even remember that movie.

• Colleen Atwood wins her third Oscar for Costume Design for Alice in Wonderland. Remember her dress made of American Express Gold Cards when she won for Chicago?

• Randy Newman is OK, but his chronic presence at the Oscars is no different than the Coens Brothers getting automatically nominated for anything they put out in a year. I've already forgotten his song from 2010 Pixar Movie.

• Something wins Best Documentary Short. God of Love wins Best Live-Action Film and director-star Luke Matheny gives the best speech so far, "I should've gotten a haircut."

• The Auto-Tune The News Internet meme sails over the head of Hollywood as they do a montage of "musicals" that came out last year.

• Cute moment with Anne Hathaway twirling her dress. She's so yummy.

• I haven't seen Best Feature Documentary Inside Job yet - I've got it downloaded and waiting - but as long as Exit Through The Gift Shop didn't win, I'm satisfied. Not that it's not a good movie (haven't watched it yet, but I'm sick of FAKE "documentaries" by liars like Michael Moore winning a category that implies truthfulness in its very title.

• "Surprise" presenter - only if you don't read Deadline Hollywood - Billy Crystal comes out to into a montage of Bob Hope hosting bits. And then he's gone. Big whoop.

• Inception wins for Best Visual Effects, continuing the irrelevant technical honors sweep. Sherlock Holmes co-stars Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law do OK banter.

• The Social Network wins Best Editing. I seem to recall hearing that it's unlikely to win Best Picture without winning Editing. Hmmm, could The King's Speech be getting passed over?

• Randy Newman wins. Yawn. That he's only 2-for-20 in winning says something. Terrible song. Can't even remember the tune. Funny speech, though.

• And yet again, they don't use Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" for their In Memorium montage. Heh, they use a clip from Blue Velvet for Dennis Hopper. They must have commanded that no applause be given, so there's no winner for the Most Popular Dead Person.

• A sort of upset as Tom Hooper wins Best Director for The King's Speech. Even those who thought it would win Best Picture thought David Fincher would win here. Good speech thanking his mother for tipping him off about the script that led to his win.

• Queen Amadala wins for Insane Lesbian Ballerina. I had a headache watching her, so this is merited. Good thing Annette Bening didn't rob her for a Lifetime Achievement Award. She thanked everyone on the crew, but none of her co-stars. None of them. Tacky and stuck-up.

• Sandra Bullock looks Botoxed to near-lethal levels. Funny intros to the actors though.

• Colin Firth wins Best Actor for The King's Speech and last year's A Single Man, thus filling in the Free Space box on every Oscar Pool bingo card. Dull acceptance speech.

• Good mention by Spielberg of the movies that did NOT win Best Picture: Raging Bull, Citizen Kane, The Graduate. Interesting montage using the king's speech to underscore clips from all the movie.

• The King's Speech wins Best Picture. Snooooooooore. So overrated. The Oscars refuse to step into the present, much less the present. This is Harvey's big comeback.

• James Franco seemed ill-at-ease the whole night and contributed nothing to the proceedings. Anne Hathaway was yummy and cute and looked great in all her outfits, but didn't do much. Bring back Steve Martin!

• Who the hell are these kids from PS22 in Staten Island and why are they singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow"? Were they in a movie or did someone just think this was a good idea. (Hint: It wasn't.) Having all the winners come out for a mass bow was an OK touch.

• Pop Quiz: What films won the past two years, since they're triumphs of the cinematic arts? Exactly! Next year, who will remember this year's winner? Exactly!