"We're talented and/or pretty"

Dunno why, but I like this photo. An unlikely crew at some post-ceremony sh*tfest. I can't wait for the day when I'm over the Oscars. But I ain't yet. So, here's a rundown on the ceremony, which was long, yes, but let's get over ourselves. No one is holding a gun to your head and telling you to watch. Just go to bed if you're sick of it.

Hottest winner: Ari Sandel, who won for his live action short, West Bank Story. And a good speech, too.

Best dressed: Milena Canonera, costume designer for Marie Antoinette. I was thinking before the show, "Why don't more women wear tuxes to these things?" And I loved how she thanked Hugh Hudson and "my great master," Stanley Kubrick.

If you want to hear something really funny, click here and then scroll down and hit the Audio Slide Show on the left hand side. "JENNIFER! THE BACK OF THE DRESS! I NEED TO SEE THE BACK OF THE DRESS!" Who is that woman? We're a strange species.

I'm still angry about the abbreviated performance clips for the acting categories. Hey, I've got an idea: Get rid of pointless swill like Michael Mann's absurd "America!" montage. And maybe start the show at 8, not 8:30.

Funny guy: George Lucas, who was pitch-perfect in his sad-sackness opposite Coppola and Spielberg, who are each 100 times the filmmaker he is. Also, his hair is astonishing. Also, Will Sasso as Lucas on MADtv.

Of note: The Departed is the antithesis of the typical Oscar best picture. It is bloody and cynical, with no uplift or redemptive statement about the human condition. Even The Silence of the Lambs (arguably the darkest best picture) had something rallying to say about femininity, which wrested itself from the chokehold of misogyny in the film's climactic sequence. The previous 78 best picture winners either said "People are good" or "Some people are good." The Departed is the first best picture to say, flat-out and with force, "People are sons of bitches." Am I right?

This will be updated with more thoughts throughout the day.

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.

DZ Oscar Pool percentages

With 80 ballots in so far, here are the standings. Of note: Hudson appears to be more of a lock than Mirren. Gosling and Kikuchi received no votes. Supporting actor is the most volatile acting category. The DZ Oscar Pool is a very accurate predictor of what actually happens. But best picture is a split between Babel and The Departed. Does that mean we'll have a tie at the ceremony? Hoo-ha! Who knows...

PICTURE. Babel 33%. The Departed 33%. Little Miss Sunshine 16%. Letters from Iwo Jima 10%. The Queen 8%.
DIRECTOR. Scorsese 71%. Eastwood 17%. Inarritu 8%. Frears 2%. Greengrass 2%.
LEADING ACTOR. Whitaker 74%. O'Toole 18%. DiCaprio 5%. Smith 3%. Gosling 0%.
LEADING ACTRESS. Mirren 79%. Dench 10%. Streep 5%. Cruz 3%. Winslet 3%.
SUPPORTING ACTOR. Murphy 49%. Arkin 24%. Hounsou 11%. Wahlberg 9%. Haley 7%.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS. Hudson 81%. Blanchett 13%. Barraza 5%. Breslin 1%. Kikuchi 0%.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY. The Departed 56%. Notes on a Scandal 20%.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY. Little Miss Sunshine 44%. The Queen 21%.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM. Pan's Labyrinth 73%. The Lives of Others 14%.
ANIMATED FEATURE. Cars 64%. Happy Feet 34%.

Oscar predix: picture & director

DIRECTOR: Martin Scorsese, The Departed. Word is that Spielberg, Coppola and George Lucas are jointly presenting the best director Oscar. Hmm, wonder if the ceremony producers are banking on one of their estimable but un-awarded peers winning. So it looks to be Scorsese, who will win for a terrific movie and we can close that chapter. But I don't think he's a shoo-in, though. Greengrass' work on United 93 is kinda mindblowing, and Eastwood's epic double bill is kinda impressive...

PICTURE: The Departed. The toughie! Convention says Babel or Letters from Iwo Jima will win. If they pick Babel, they get to award Inarritu (who's a producer) an actual statuette. If they pick Iwo Jima, they get to give Spielberg his fourth and Eastwood his fifth. Oscar has never really touched a "gangster" pick, but The Departed was a massive commercial and critical success, recently came out on DVD and it's a damn good movie -- the best of the bunch, in my opinion. Again, I might be giving AMPAS more credit than they deserve...

TONIGHT! Live-blogging, starting pretty damn early. As soon as red carpet stuff begins. Comment early and often.

Oscar predix: the technicals

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY. The Departed. A master class on how to successfully remake a movie. Greatly deserved.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY. Little Miss Sunshine. A supremely weak category.
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM. Pan's Labyrinth. Although everyone's predicting a Lives of Others upset. I'm fine either way. Both are good.
ANIMATED FEATURE. Cars. Who cares. Poor Richard Linklater. This is the second time AMPAS has snubbed his inventive animated movies.
CINEMATOGRAPHY. Children of Men. Greatly deserved.
ART DIRECTION. Pan's Labyrinth. Children of Men should've been nominated here, and won.
COSTUME DESIGN. The Devil Wears Prada. Here I go again, expecting AMPAS to have some imagination.
ORIGINAL SCORE. The Queen. Although Philip Glass has been nominated a whole bunch of times...
ORIGINAL SONG. "I Need to Wake Up." Etheridge slays Krieger.
FILM EDITING. United 93. Although Schoonmaker's work on The Departed is ravishing.
SOUND MIXING. Dreamgirls. The one bone it gets.
SOUND EDITING. Letters from Iwo Jima. The one bone it gets.
MAKEUP. Pan's Labyrinth.
VISUAL EFFECTS. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest.

Next: my thoughts on best picture and director. Plus: my viewings of the shorts.

For the record

Al Gore is not nominated for an Oscar. Would the media please stop saying that he'll have one in his hands on Sunday? Davis Guggenheim, the director of An Inconvenient Truth, will.

Oscar predix: the actors

Disclaimer: My predictions rely too much on logic. That's why I always lose my own pool. Heck, I picked Don Cheadle to win two years ago. (Yeah, I know.) But here are my picks. You'll see that I arrive at them with clarity of vision. Which is why I so often mis-forecast the tendencies of the Academy, which year after year has proven to have no imagination. But the biggest (and therefore the most volatile) voting block is the actors branch, and here's where they will really exercise some abandon.

LEADING ACTOR: Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond

If you were a voter, who would you want to hear on stage: Forest Whitaker, who had a quiet stroke at the Globes and who was just as unintelligible at the SAGs? Or Peter O'Toole, who included the phrase "As I totter into antiquity" in his 2003 honorary Oscar speech and is a superb raconteur? O'Toole, obviously. He's old, he's legendary, he's campaigned. He wants it. He's probably stolen a great deal of Whitaker's voting momentum, which will split the race and make way for Leo, whose film has a much deeper presence (four other nominations) than O'Toole's and Whitaker's (each is his film's sole nom). Plus, people who love The Departed have probably thrown more heft Leo's way. In all, Leo's movies have 10 nominations this year.

LEADING ACTRESS: Helen Mirren, The Queen

A couple weeks back, I brazenly predicted that Winslet would upset Mirren, who's been frontrunning for so long and at such a high level that it seems almost a given that there should be an unsightly upset. But I can't go around predicting major upsets in every category, so I must relent with this one. The Queen is a best picture nominee and it has across-the-board approval. My only hope is that Mirren has a couple drinks before she wins. (Also: I'm going to put my head in an oven if Winslet does pull it off.)

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

Dreamgirls is a bad movie musical. Thing is: Murphy's pretty good. In fact, he's the most interesting part of it. Too bad Norbit is everywhere (though I admire Murphy for sticking to his guns and being proud of the movie). And he's not exactly a loved figure in Hollywood. And he eschews the press. No "SNL" alum who's been nominated has won. There must be plenty of Hounsou-lovers, though. He popped up out of the blue for In America a couple years ago. And he won the very first award of the season (from the National Board of Review). But this category is really eating me up. It's the most volatile, I think. Arkin's nomination is kind of a joke, and would be more so if he won, but people love him. Wahlberg is a serious contender. Haley perhaps deserves it the most. I'm going with Wahlberg. He's proven himself before and is the sole nominee of a rip-roaring ensemble cast in a best picture contender.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal

Dreamgirls is a bad movie musical. Jennifer Hudson is no actor and, despite her graciousness throughout this long awards season, I think people might be sick/jealous of her. Plus, she wants to be a recording star, not a movie star. Barraza and Kikuchi will split the Babel vote. Breslin is too young. Blanchett's is a strong lead performance and only Winslet is more beloved by her peers. Yes, Blanchett just won two years ago. While deserved, that award was compensation for the egregious oversight in 1999, when a burbling Gwyneth stole the Oscar Blanchett deserved for Elizabeth. This will be the Academy's chance to tell her they like her. And didn't you? She was terrific in Scandal (and she has some face time in Babel).

Now go ahead. Tell me how crazy I am. Expect multiple posts every day through Monday. The madness is here.

I wanna be a producer...but only if I get credit

Here's an article that elegantly parses all the hubbub about the Academy's nominating process, which is re-goddamn-diculous. (They cap nominees for best picture at three, but they nominate five writers for a screenplay that's not supposed to exist?) If Little Miss Sunshine or The Departed wins picture, it'll be two years in a row that the process robs deserving people of a statuette. Wouldn't it be in the Academy's best interest to get Brad Pitt on the stage at the climax of the show? When's the last time a recognizable person accepted a best picture Oscar? Probably never. (Michael Douglas, at left, won for producing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest 30 years ago, but he wasn't yet a Pitt-caliber star.)

Starting in a day or two: my year-end awards, a top 10 and Oscar predix. On Sunday, I'll be liveblogging the sh*t out of the pre-show and ceremony. After the Oscars, things will return to normal around here. Or I might actually dissolve this blog and pursue other endeavors. Who knows? Stay tuned. Also: a nice little piece by someone I know. 'Bout time someone brought this up in a major publication.

Dame to Oscar: 'I'd rather experience you on a morphine drip'

Despite being nominated for a sixth Oscar (in nine years!) for her best film performance ever, Judi Dench has opted to undergo bone-cracking knee surgery rather than applaud politely as the other dame collects her 28th trophy of the year. Too bad. Dench classes up the joint, but it appears it's gotten entirely too rote for her. Or maybe she's sick of the self-love (she's said she hates to watch herself on screen). Other famous Oscar no-shows: Joan Crawford feigned illness in 1946, then made a quick recovery by the time the cameras arrived at her sick bed and she was presented the Oscar -- in her nightgown -- for Mildred Pierce. George C. Scott called the Oscars "offensive, barbarous and innately corrupt," boycotted the ceremony in 1971 and won anyway for Patton. Katharine Hepburn was not present to pick up any of her four statuettes. Paul Newman stayed away and finally won in 1987. Anne Bancroft and Ellen Burstyn had shows to do. If Dench somehow wins this year (and she deserves to), I hope Mirren accepts it for her: "Jude, if you're kneecaps weren't already broken, I'd break them for you."

If the Oscars were given out based on box office...

...here's who would win right now for "most money earned" in each major category and "least money earned" in each major category:

Picture: The Departed / Letters from Iwo Jima
Director: Martin Scorsese, The Departed / Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima
Actor: Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness / Peter O'Toole, Venus
Actress: Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada / Kate Winslet, Little Children
Supporting Actor: Mark Wahlberg, The Departed / Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Supporting Actress: J. Hudson, Dreamgirls / C. Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine / Letters from Iwo Jima
Adapted Screenplay: Borat / Little Children

It's kind of a populist vs. non-populist perspective on the year's "acclaimed" work. Evident: The Departed rules, except when it's matched against Borat. And Iwo Jima and Little Children remain virtually unseen (which makes my crazy-ass prediction in the previous post seem all the more crazy-ass). For full figures, see Box Office Mojo.

Kate Winslet will win this year

You heard it here first. Even though (and especially because) Mirren is the 12-1 favorite. There are 27 days til voting closes -- a solid month for that kind of frontrunning to backfire. In other news, DZ Oscar Pool ballots will be available tomorrow.

They were better in...

For what they had to work with -- this was a weak year, with brilliance deep but not broad -- the Academy chose well and there is little worth complaining about. So to pull focus from Oscar fussing, here are other noteworthy and/or overlooked movies made by current nominees:

If you liked Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, then you'll love her in Keane. No cat-clawing dance moves to hide behind here. In this 2004 movie about a man scrambling to find his kidnapped daughter, Breslin must play a spectrum of emotions without the maturity to exhibit them effectively. This role is, in many ways, more of a feat than Olive.

If you liked Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls, then you'll love him in The Nutty Professor. This was Murphy's true comeback, and one of the great comic performances of all time. He portrays six characters (five of which have dinner together, in the same scene, twice) and manages to run the gamut between ribald and heartwarming, regardless of how much latex is between him and the material.

If you liked Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, then you'll love her in Death Becomes Her. I've blogged effusively about this movie before, but this is a much better showcase of Meryl's comic talents. She's praised for her "understatement" in Prada (puh-leez), but it's her overstatement in DBH that resounds with true showmanship and sends the movie (and us) into orbit. As I have before, I simply offer this.

Other nominees who've done better work in previous films? This ain't limited to actors.

Oscar nom predictions

I started to exhaust myself by providing predictions for every category, then realized it (like the Oscars) was a stupid exercise (and one that everyone and their mother is doing). We all know Mirren, Whitaker, O'Toole, Murphy & Hudson, Little Miss Sunshine, The Departed and Babel will be up for the big prizes. You don't need me to contribute to that kind of media onanism (see AMPAS-approved photo at left). So here's a snapshot of tomorrow's quirks and blips: Cohen, the lady Gyllenhaal, Gosling, Arkin and Breslin will be up for acting; Meryl will too, but not for The Devil Wears Prada. Letters from Iwo Jima will rebound with a picture/director score; Dreamgirls will be left out of both. The director category will look remarkably different from the DGA: In addition to Eastwood, Cuaron will arrive and Greengrass will be back. Children of Men will pop up in at least five technical categories. The Departed will have the most nominations (I'm seeing eight). Still, none of these are true surprises ('cept for Meryl), so I'm going to go out on the shakiest of limbs: Bobby for picture, plus a script nod to Estevez, plus Laura Dern for Inland Empire. Deal with it, crackers.

Golden Globes predictions

Picture (Drama): Babel
Picture (Comedy/Musical): Little Miss Sunshine
Director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel
Actor (Drama): Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
Actress (Drama): Helen Mirren, The Queen
Actor (Comedy): Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat
Actress (Comedy): Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls
Screenplay: Babel
Animated Film: Happy Feet
Foreign Language Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Original Score: The Fountain
Original Song: "Listen," Dreamgirls

In other words, a boring night (unless everyone is blotto). Babel gets three, Dreamgirls gets three and The Departed's power is called into question. We can at least expect some refreshing theatrics from Meryl (remember the last time she got a Globe, for Adaptation? This is how you accept an award). As I've said before, Meryl should accept all the awards for everyone. Sometimes I think she's a better awards-acceptor than actor. Also in that category: Liz Taylor ("Gladiator!") Any thoughts on predictions? The show is tonight.

Update 1.16.07. The link to Meryl's acceptance speech for Adaptation has been "removed at the request of copyright owner Dick Clark Productions." To this I say: Kiss my ass, Dick. With ever-dwindling ratings, your silly awards show needs all the exposure it can get. Try this one instead.

It's five o'clock, pig. Time for a white wine and a cigarette

Last night The Daily Show had Peter O'Toole, who at first was bemused to the point of speechlessness and then later settled down to deliver a few gems (his loving Hepburn impression, his sad observation that everything's "gotten a bit glum, hasn't it?"). To watch, go here and scroll down the Last Night's Highlights box. The old bugger is on the campaign trail for Venus... Upcoming: Oscar nominee predix (ballots due tomorrow), Globe winner predix (shoot me). My year-end huzzahs will be posted the weekend of Feb. 16. By then the top-10 frenzy will have settled and we take a fresh look.

Oscars 07: And all of Italy mutters, 'What took you so long?'

Ennio Morricone, the greatest living composer of movie scores (and the only reason you cry at the end of Cinema Paradiso), will receive an Oops-We're-Idiots Oscar from the Academy at the ceremony in February. As a primer, I recommend the album Cinema Concerto at Santa Cecilia, from a live 1998 concert directed by the man himself. It features his best work: Paradiso, of course, plus the epic choral boomings of The Mission (the only piece of music in existence that'll make you consider martyrdom) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (your neck hairs will bristle). My favorite, though, is his quiet score for Bugsy, which is so rich it clogs your blood vessels with sweet melancholy. Surely there will be a medley of his scores performed during the ceremony. They must get a chorus. Done correctly, this tribute could be a showstopper.

Watch, listen and wonder why he never won a competitive Oscar: "Gabriel's Oboe" from The Mission. "The Ecstasy of Gold" from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Theme from Cinema Paradiso. The Untouchables. Days of Heaven.

Oscars 07: Globe nom reactions

HUZZAH: Bobby for best pic. Adriana Barraza, Babel. Mark Wahlberg, The Departed. Ben Affleck, Hollywoodland. Clint Mansell, The Fountain.

GROSS: The Queen. The Devil Wears Prada (best picture?!). Thank You for Smoking (best picture?!). Beyonce. Toni Collette, Little Miss Sunshine. Will Ferrell, Stranger Than Fiction.

Oscars 07: The gathering storm

We're now bound -- head locked and arms tied -- in the stockades of the movie awards season. Don't try to get out. If you want to defecate, you'll have to do so in your pants as you yap and squabble with other film-lovers who are stuck in their own personal stockades. Why do we derive pleasure from this season? It's a stinking mess. (If you're not convinced, read these insider anecdotes from this morning's voting session of the New York Film Critics Circle. They're both precious and ridiculous.)

I dunno, but I love it and I hate it, and I love to hate it, and I hate to love it. And so on. So allow me to register some complaints, now that awards have been issued by both the New York and Los Angeles critics groups (as well as by the National Board of Review, the N.Y. web critics and the Boston and Washington critics):

1. Helen Mirren is 6 for 6 (as is Forest Whitaker, who perhaps actually deserves the sweep). Mirren's a wonderful human being, and her performance in The Queen is marginally interesting by virtue of her talent (it's like watching Rembrandt doodle), but this uniformity is silly. It may also backfire, since Oscar voting won't close til mid-February. Plenty of time to lose momentum. If I were in a critics group, I would use my power for good and start some buzz for an underdog (Sook-Yin Lee for Shortbus, anyone? John Diehl for Land of Plenty?).

2. The Queen itself is cleaning up. Two supporting actor awards for Michael Sheen as Tony Blair? Seriously? Three screenplay awards for Peter Morgan? Might I remind you that The Queen's screenplay looked like this. I am baffled. This is the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American public since global warming.

3. Hooray for variety: Boston singles out Mark Wahlberg for The Departed. L.A. goes for Luminita Gheorghiu for The Death of Mr. Lazarescu. New York touts Jackie Earl Haley for Little Children.

4. The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics wisely went United 93 for best picture (as did New York) but caved to convention in every other category. They even named the joyless and flaccid Thank You for Smoking as best screenplay. I guarantee the only reason they picked this was to give a little love to a film that took place in the District. Grow a pair, folks.

Soon I will begin my own For Your Consideration series, which debuted last year to middling acclaim and succeeded in winning a nomination for zero of my underdogs (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Joan Allen & Jeff Daniels).

For Your Consolation: Catherine O'Hara

Catherine O’Hara could’ve won an Oscar this year, and it’s not her fault she won’t. More on that (and For Your Consideration) later.

But first: Catherine. IMDb says she "has an almost religious cult following around the world.” And I can believe it. This video is Exhibit A.

Why do we love her? Maybe it’s because she is the only viable heir to Gilda Radner. O’Hara is a ballsy performer, a reckless impressionist, a character actor without vanity or delusions of grandeur. Maybe it’s her red hair. Maybe it’s her voice, which (like Radner’s) was always a little flat or sharp. It’s a tomboy’s voice, a voice slightly hoarse from laughing. She is a comedian, but she’s not a personality like DeGeneres, Griffin or Poundstone. O’Hara is egoless and -- despite the distinctions of her physicality and her talent -- almost anonymous at times, which is probably why she has never been a movie star, and why she only briefly flirted with TV stardom (as a mainstay on SNL rival SCTV) and why she has become a beloved cult figure nonetheless. I hate the word “cult,” because it belies the sincerity of her fans’ admiration.

Beetlejuice was my first encounter with O’Hara. She plays Delia (left), the flakey matriarch of a seriously bizarre family in a bizarrer house. Delia is a fatalist, a bad mother and a worse sculptor. Could any other actor have pulled off a character that is, at one point, both possessed and lipsynching to Harry Belafonte? She's being manipulated by ghosts, but she's more horrified that she's actually enjoying it.

A couple years later, in 1990, she hitched a ride to a box office rocket ship: Home Alone. Her straightforward performance as Kate McCallister anchored a galley of absurdity. She was the heart and soul of the franchise -- free of bombast, and heart-tugging especially in the sequel. Home Alone is still the top-grossing comedy of all time, I believe. Let's hope she's still getting some ancillary checks in the mail.

O'Hara's one shot at comedic stardom was 1992's There Goes the Neighborhood, which was the last gasp of those suburbanites-are-wacky comedies (think The 'burbs and The Money Pit). O'Hara got billing beside Jeff Daniels, whom she matches blow for blow. But O’Hara was no Meg Ryan, and that’s both a compliment and a guarantee that she would never be an A-lister.

But she continued her streak through the mainstream by reuniting with her Beetlejuice director, Tim Burton, to voice Sally in A Nightmare Before Christmas in 1994. What an unconventional and thoroughly delightful pairing: O'Hara and Chris Sarandon as animated netherworld lovers.

O'Hara succeeded subtlely in small dramas (sporting a decent Irish accent in Summer Fling, losing all hint of showmanship as a guest star on The Outer Limits). She has been the lone spots of intrigue in middling movies: The hysterical and paranoid Gail in Scorsese’s After Hours, the Southern-fried gossip in the awful Heartburn. She showcases her penchant for benign wickedness as the clever wife of an adultering Joe Pesci in Betsy’s Wedding. All of this was post SCTV: 1985 to 1994. It was a decent run. She was a luminary in some wan material.

Then, glory in 1996: Christopher Guest gives her a platform on which to perfectly blend her TV sketch roots with her varied film work. Her performance as Sheila in Waiting for Guffman is like watching Christ discover he's God made man. Witness the chop suey restaurant scene, in which Sheila is drunk. Lots of actors lose all believability when they’re asked to play drunk. O’Hara knows exactly what to do. In order to act drunk, one must make every effort to appear not drunk. On the Guffman DVD, go to the deleted scene in which Fred Willard makes her reenact famous baseball plays. O’Hara has no lines, but her demeanor, countenance and stance provide the biggest laughs. A lesser performer might’ve tried to play ping-pong with Willard’s antics. She wisely lets herself be steamrolled and steals the scene.

Lighting struck again in 2000 with Best in Show, in which O'Hara plays Cookie Guggelman Fleck, the promiscuous co-shower of a beloved Yorkshire terrier, this time opposite fellow SCTV alum Eugene Levy. I simply offer this clip. By God, you're gonna show Winky.

While A Mighty Wind was a step down for the Guest franchise, O'Hara once again slung some sweet sincerity into the heart of a comedy. As the Mickey half of Mitch & Mickey (left), she can sing, she can act and she can be very funny, sometimes all at once. Here's "When You're Next to Me."

When I heard that she was playing the lead in For Your Consideration, I was giddy. The Hollywood awards season is the perfect topic for Guest & Co., and O'Hara is the perfect choice to play the aging character actor who thinks she's about to have her moment in the sun. I could see it all before me: O'Hara's performance would be Norma Desmond meets Lucille Ball. It would be madcap and tender and real and moving and ruthless and sad -- all the stuff she has prepared for since SCTV. By God, O'Hara would be so good that she'd be nominated for an actual Oscar. Hollywood would watch her, see both the best and the worst in themselves, and laud her for it.

Oh reader. Read no farther. Spoilers ahead. The movie is in limited release today, so I feel comfortable commenting. But if you're a Guest fan who plans to see it regardless, skip this.

For Your Consideration is a wreck. It's amateurish to the point of shoddiness. It lacks cohesion. Most of the jokes and gags fall flat. The jokes that are funny are only funny because we know and love the people who are delivering them. This movie is not a satire. It's hyperbole. And it flares up like a firecracker and burns out almost immediately. Guest & Co. are in a downward spiral when they should be at the top of their game. I've seen it twice now. I am not mistaken about this.

The plot is thus: Some blogger on the Internet thinks "Home for Purim," a sloppy melodrama currently in production, is "Oscar-worthy." The unfounded buzz builds around three of the actors, played by O'Hara, Harry Shearer and Parker Posey. Everyone gets caught up in it -- the agents, the media, the actors themselves. It's a frenzy. Meanwhile, the studio suits are trying to tone down the film's "Jewishness" and the director (played by Guest) is throwing out the script. It all comes to a head when the nominations are announced.

And then the movie ends. I expected the last act to be at the actual awards ceremony. Can you imagine the ripe material Guest & Co. could draw from a fake Oscars? But we are denied any kind of comedic payoff. What Guest leaves us with is a blunt, unfriendly statement about delusion. It's an inedible conclusion.

But what I'm most sad about is O'Hara, who is confined instead of freed by the material. The movie feels like it was scripted. Improv seems minimal. The whole thing feels orchestrated. Doctored. Forced. O'Hara's character becomes a vehicle for Guest's statement, rather than a person of her own. She has some great moments, but they are fleeting and do not add up to a whole. For Your Consideration is a movie that could've used less script and more direction. Or maybe vice versa. I don't know. All I know is I wanted to reach through the screen and tell O'Hara that this isn't working. Let's start over. Let's plan this out a little more. Let's take this story to the actual Oscars, where the real comedy happens.

Unfortunately, the story doesn't go there, and now O'Hara and the movie won't be going there.

SCTV clips: O'Hara as Dusty Towne, Sister Mary Innocent, Linda Blair and Liz Taylor, Morgan Fairchild and Angie Dickinson. And the best clip from For Your Consideration.