Oscars 07: Shouldn't we have something better to do?

Welcome to As Little as Possible's liveblogging, because clearly the Oscars aren't being covered enough. Please refresh throughout the evening, and comment at will.

12:17 / Well, more settled thoughts tomorrow or sometime this week. A fun show, if a little long.

12:14 / Ha! The Departed! It is the best of the bunch. Poor Brad Pitt and Brad Grey.

12:13 / DIANE KEATON.

12:08 / OK, now we can close the Scorsese chapter. This is great!

12:05 / Good, Forest wrote something down. Good. Good, powerful speech. Celine Dion's husband is crying. (My friend Maria: "He's bringing his Oscar to heaven?")

12:00 / The show is too long. They must get rid of the montages.

11:55 / Safe speech by Mirren. Weird ending. So the Elizabeth II = Oscar?

11:49 / Those f*ckers clapped during In Memoriam. Despite what I said. At least they included Alida Valli.

11:44 / Jodie Foster. Etheridge. Ellen. (Latifah?) It's lesbian night.

11:41 / Winslet: "Cut to the chase." My friend Stephen: "Yes please." (This is kinda slow.) My friend Maria: "I want to be Kate Winslet. Or her dress."

11:39 / What the hell kind of montage is this? A montage to movies in general? But Network! This is the strangest montage ever. Talladega Nights. Saving Private Ryan. Dr. Strangelove. Leslie Nielsen.

11:30 / Yes, Melissa! This is the Al Gore Night. Great speech.

11:26 / Anika Noni Rose: Better actor, better singer.

11:24 / Jennifer Hudson: Bad actor, great singer. Beyonce: Bad actor, bad singer.

11:10 / Alanna reminds me that a portion of Babel's score appeared first in Deadwood. Plus, the original stuff from Babel ain't that impressive anyway.

11:08 / Two years in a row for Gustavo.

11:01 / Clint's a little loopy. But good for Ennio for accepting in Italian. And he wants everyone to win an Oscar!

10:59 / No chorus! Are they crazy? The man writes beautiful choral music!

10:53 / Ladies & gents, the greatest living film composer.

10:48 / This is the Al Gore Night. And he gets to hold it. Classy guy.

10:37 / Did Hudson really believe she wouldn't win? COME ON. God don't care. Ooh, they started to play her off. Jennifer Holliday what. Alanna says: "GOD DOES NOT GIVE OUT OSCARS. You should automatically be disqualified if you come from American Idol, or if you thank God. God: 'Hi, I'm busy dealing with genocide, nuclear armament, global warming, overpopulation, discrimination, and your idiot President. I don't care if you win an acting prize.'"

10:34 / New best line: "They're naked."

10:33 / Alanna says "Clive Owen is so f*cking sexy. I want him to bang me."

10:32 / FAYE DUNAWAY. FAYE DUNAWAY. Sitting next to the German crowd.

10:30 / Pan's wins three Oscars, then loses to The Lives of Others? I'll never understand AMPAS. (But this is a deserved win.) Guillermo Del Toro joins Eddie Murphy in the Well, Sh*t Club.

10:23 / CATHERINE DENEUVE.

10:19 / The crowd here agrees that the Pilobolus dancers cheated because they used a prop to make the Little Miss Sunshine bus.

10:14 / This is the biggest upset of the night. Pan's Labyrinth wins over Children of Men for cinematography? This is outrageous.

10:09 / See, the trick is to talk to the audience, not the TV cameras. Sherry reads from the TelePrompTer. Bo-ring.

10:08 / I love me some Tom Cruise. He's always very eloquent and poised in these situations. I wonder what he'd be like in live theatre. My friend Alanna says Tom doesn't age: "There are aliens inside him that keep him young."

10:01 / Oh, the Prada-lovers are probably loving this. Meryl seems to have gone to the Nicholson School of Wearing Sunglasses Indoors.

9:50 / Mirren reads Borat's full title and completely legitimizes it.

9:48 / Hooray for the writer. And their processes. Write, drink, write.

9:45 / Happy Feet's direector is wearing some sort of Titanic-era life vest under his tux.

9:36 / They're giving Jessica Biel a lot of face time. My friend Tony, who's sitting right here, could've hooked up with her in college, but didn't. I think he regrets it.

9:34 / It's good that they're showing the supertitles from the movie. Etheridge = classy.

9:32 / James Taylor + Randy Newman = buzzkill

9:30 / I'm still very pissed off by the abbreviated performance clips. I'm seething.

9:24 / Bad speech by Arkin. This is a dumb win. Yikes. Eddie's probably pissed. I bet frontrunners are shaking in their seats now.

9:22 / Ooh, I'm pissed off. They're showing four seconds of the performances. Ack! This is almost as bad as when they didn't show clips at all in 2003.

9:17 / The Iwo Jima sound editors are giving the worst acceptance speech ever.

9:15 / It's fantastic that they're showing clips of what sound editors do.

9:13 / OK, this sound effects choir? Holy crap. This is officially, right now, the best Oscarcast I've ever seen.

9:05 / Good speech by Ari Sandel. How could I have not picked West Bank Story? What a clip.

9:00 / Judi Dench "is having knee surgery...on her eyes." HA! The line of the night.

8:58 / Pan Labyrinth 2. Everyone else 0. The Mexicans are winning like the British usually do.

8:54 / Ferrell & Black, reprising their musical chemistry from a couple years ago (when they put lyrics to the play-off music). I can't believe this musical number! This is fantastic! How suprising! This ain't your grandaddy's Oscar.

8:50 / WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? People turned into an Oscar!

8:48 / Apparently, they seat the art directors in the mezzanine.

8:43 / If there weren't blacks, Jews and gays, there would be no Oscars. Or anyone named Oscar. Ha! This is a good, light-hearted monologue. The opposite of Chris Rock's two years ago. Wait -- a tambourine in my hand? This is great! Will this be the funnest Oscars ever?

8:41 / "Tell 'em you lived in your car." A Swank dig! I'm just a girl from a trailer park with a dream.

8:40 / Correct. We don't have time for boring speeches.

8:38 / Ellen: Penelope Cruz is not from Mexico.

8:31 / The Errol Morris short film. Cute. Kind of. "Any sexual thought about the queen is a treasonable thought." They should be identifying these people.

8:25 / Winslet. The viewing crowd here in this Washington rowhouse agrees that the Brits are more articulate than Americans.

8:24 / Three amigos = Coppola, Ford and Lucas. Ford? Ford?

8:14 / Vogue guy calls Will Smith & family the "first family of Hollywood." And Hudson is the people's princess. I can't wait til he calls Queen Latifah "the Schwarzkopf of Beverly Hills."

8:09 / Apparently, we're not starting til 8:30. Is this typical? The Prada women are like an animated version of the French flag. I wonder if Meryl is wearing Prada...

8:06 / This guy from Vogue has proclaimed Jennifer Hudson the "people's princess." And it's not just because of her work with land mines.

8:00 / Penguins. Like spelling bees, we, as a culture, just have to get over them. (This is a really lame opening.) Wait, is it not starting now?

7:55 / Meryl looking a little bohemian. Poor husband Don Gummer is stuck in the background. 14 nominations, size 14. Holla.

7:46 / They were showing the dinner scene from The Nutty Professor on ABC! For the Baba Wawa weepfest. Eddie Murphy was being interviewed.

7:45 / Blanchett and Winslet sharing the screen -- gah. Great dresses. How grand.

7:29 / Okay. This doodle stuff? Outlining Helen's cleavage? A bit much. DePandi and that awful guy think they're the John Maddens of the E! network.

7:24 / Helen Mirren's loving the attention. Look at her with that flag. I hope she doesn't lose...

6:42 / Seacrest is gnawing away at Al & Tipper. Al's wearing Ralph Lauren. Will he announce his candidacy tonight? Jennifer Hudson appears to be wearing some sort of sparkly gold blouse-vest. I'm switching locations, so i'll be absent for 20 minutes or a half hour. Comment away, though, if you see ridiculousness on E!. Al Gore says William Hung should play him in an Al Gore biopic. CATHERINE DENEUVE IS THERE. Melissa Etheridge looks hot.

6:38 / If you want some last-minute funny trivia, check out this. Seacrest out.

2:25 p.m. / E!'s on-air douchebag Ben Lyons says Little Miss Sunshine is the first movie to come out of the Sundance Film Festival and make it to the Oscars. Clearly he's never heard of, oh, Pulp Fiction or sex, lies & videotape. Christalmighty. I need to shut this off til 6.