The 2009 Academy Awards

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8:20pm CST

Slumdog Millionaire picks up its first win, for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Jennifer Aniston, in a beautiful silver sparkling dress with lovely long tresses, presents a tribute segment with Jack Black – The Year in Animation. Then they present the Oscars for Best Animated Feature and Best Animated Short Film to WALL-E and La Maison en Petits Cubes, respectively. Jen really does look good. I wonder if there’s still a little Brangelina resentment. Well, she showed up Angelina pretty handily, if you ask me.

The winner for Best Animated Short, Kunio Kato, seemed uncomfortable with trying to translate his thank-yous into English, but I’ve got to hand it to the guy… He really cut me up when he added “Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto” to the end of his speech. That is just funny in any language.

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8:40pm CST

Sarah Jessica Parker and Daniel Craig execute a dull and accurate speech for Art Direction. No wonder those two were sitting towards the front. I wondered, since I don’t recall seeing James Bond on the list of nominees for Best Actor. Sarah Jessica Parker looks like Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz. Curious Case of Benjamin Button picks up its first win.

– Benjamin Button – 1, Slumdog – 1. All tied up. Ooh. Tense awards race we’ve got here, like the arms race during the Cold War. Except way less dangerous and paranoid. I think Slumdog will pull off the victory.

Of course, Carrie Bradshaw will present the only fashion award, the Oscar for Costume Design, which goes to The Duchess. Boring British guy, big surprise, considering such a boring, British film.

• Benjamin Button – 2, Slumdog – 1. Ooh, maybe I spoke too soon! The Curious Case of Benjamin Button takes the lead when it picks up the Oscar for Makeup

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8:50pm CST

Robert Pattinson (every tween girl’s dream) from Twilight, and Amanda Seyfried from Mamma Mia! are onstage to introduce another tribute segment, The Year in Romance. Why do I think there should be a Best Kiss award coming next? Teeny-boppers presenting a serious award at the Oscars? Preposterous. I must’ve flipped on the MTV Movie Awards on accident.

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9:05pm CST

Natalie Portman and Ben Stiller, in his best grizzled Joaquin Phoenix costume, are next to present. Portman to Stiller: “You look like you work at an Hasidic meth lab.” Natalie introduces the nominees, while Ben wanders aimlessly around the stage. Unfortunately, the camera missed the first few stage antics – it zoomed in to pick up the screen images and only zoomed out after the audience’s laughter became quite noticeable, and clearly unrelated to the Cinematography nominees.

• Benjamin Button – 2, Slumdog – 2.

Commercial. And we’re back and there’s Jessica Biel saying something. I stared and listened and all I heard was a monotone blah blah blah. Thank god for the Nextel commercial that came on directly after. It snapped me out of the coma before my brain function could fully dissolve into a vegetative state.

Back at the Oscars, we get to watch a fun sketch from Seth Rogan and James Franco. They take their stoner characters from Pineapple Express and offer up the next tribute. I’m not sure if it’s the best of the worst films that weren’t nominated, or the year in comedy. Either way, it was funny. And at least the guys don’t look like bums when they present the award for Live Action Short Film to the German director/producer of Spielzeugland (Toyland). A short foreign film I’ve unfortunately never heard of.

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9:20 pm CST

There’s some time to kill now before the big awards. So, we get a Broadway revue starring Hugh Jackman and Beyoncé. Then Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron from the High School Musical series, and members of Mamma Mia’s cast are there and everyone’s singing. “The Musical is back!” Jackman exclaims. All I can say is “Please, No.” Yikes!