We warned you. Bwog music critic Bryan Mochizuki has been peeing his pants all week for this moment: the Oscar Liveblog. Awards will start dropping in about an hour, so meanwhile, Bryan’s got a warmup for you. Keep refreshing for the latest updates.

I don’t know a single person who is excited about Ellen DeGeneres hosting tonight, which means that everyone should be excited.  Expectations haven’t been nearly this low since Whoopi’s return in 2001, and I think most people would even take her over Ellen.  This is good though. Jon Stewart had to be really funny in a Jon Stewart way but still conform to the Billy Crystal footprint.  This turned out to be pretty impossible.  Ellen just has to not be bad and it’ll be a success.  And she’s hosting after a week/month/year where the jokes wrote themselves.

All the Oscar pool talk I’ve heard this year circles around Pan’s Labyrinth (ie: “Are you gonna ride the ‘Lab all the way?”).  Which is strange because the biggest category they’re up for is Original Screenplay.  I can’t remember a year where the possible big winner of the night wasn’t up for Picture or Director or any of the acting awards.

The ‘Lab plot-line is joined by two other big ones to watch through the evening: The Departed (hopefully) taking over and Diva-fest, aka Beyonce vs. Jennifer Hudson, aka THE MOST DYNAMIC COMPETITION FOR BEST SONG THAT ANY OF US WILL EVER WATCH.  Seriously, besides Best Director, Best Original Diva Jam is the big attraction of the night.  Will they let Hudson double up because she’s just that good, or will “Listen” get the apology Oscar since Beyonce got snubbed as the fifth songwriter?  OR will they snub “Listen” AND “Love You I Do” because Beyonce doesn’t want anyone to get that statue if she can”t, and Jiggaman has a deep Melissa Etheridge collection?  So many possibilities!

7:30 PM: Joan Rivers is on fire on the TV Guide Channel.  She just scared/out-funnied Steve Carrell.  They keep cutting away from her, usually to shots of Jessica Biel and Penelope Cruz with not funny people talking over them.  Very conflicted over this decision…

7:39 PM: Oooh…Diva-fest begins.  Jennifer Hudson is on some Captain Eo shit though with that jacket.  I’m afraid to speak on fashion stuff, but, yeah, I know this jacket.  We’ve met before.

7:45 PM: Portia De Rossi is here.  The DeGeneres takeover is already looking up.  Also: Celine Dion just spent two minutes defending her presence at the Oscars.  And Alan Arkin’s here.  I wonder if they’re gonna kill him off 2/3 of the way through with a heroin overdose and the entire show’s gonna get really trite and sentimental.  Oh, and Jennifer Hudson is here and she’s ready to, yaknow, dance-fight the Whip Warriors.

7:55 PM: Anyone else mad about DiCaprio not getting the Best Actor nom for The Departed?  They love awarding overly ambitious roles; this year won’t be any different.  DiCaprio’s part wasn’t ambitious per se but he was definitely the MVP of the year (as he has been for a while now).  Would Departed be up for Picture and Scorcese for Director without DiCaprio?  Probably.  Would they be odds-on winners?  No way.  Who would you rather have in your movie, Forest Whitaker, Ryan Gosling, or Leo?  Think about it.

8:01 PM: The ABC “official” coverage just started.  Already one unfunny Borat reference.  It’s been a minute guys!  Jeez.

8:11 PM: Why aren’t commercials during the Oscars as big a thing as they are during Super Bowl?  Or are they?  Last one: Filet Mignon For Cats.

8:25 PM: Red carpet continues.  Not a single actor from Letters From Iwo Jima came through yet.  I was hoping that Ken Watanabe and the actor who played Baron Nishi would roll up tipsy and just wreck house all night.  On that note, those two had the best on-screen chemistry of the last year.  The best.  They had, what, like five scenes together, but the second they meet on the beach, the screen LIGHTS UP.  Didn’t see that happen any other time this year, even during Arkin’s best scenes in Sunshine.  Robbed.

8:28 PM: Robbed!

8:29 PM: The real show’s starting on ABC, the red carpet’s still rolling on other channels.  Make your move, smooth.

8:36 PM: The HBO ad knockoff they’re using as the intro is on its seventh minute.  But whistling Ennio Morricone is a good look.

8:37 PM: Scorcese is sitting directly behind DiCaprio.  I would pay millions to hear that color commentary (especially those Ellen jokes).  In other news, Jack Nicholson pulled a Britney Spears on his dome.

8:43 PM: Jennifer Hudson has removed her jacket/armor.  The battle, apparently, is won.  Ellen’s jokes are pretty good – but everytime the people I’m watching with compliment her, it ends with “actually funny”.

8:44 PM: Wait, Ellen’s running around with a tamborine.  The descent begins.

8:47 PM: The ‘Lab vs. world: 1-0.

8:55 PM: The tradition of douchey audience reactions continues: Helen Mirren puts up boxing hands after Jack Black calls her ugly.

8:58 PM: The ‘Lab has 2 now.  What?  Mel Gibson’s movie didn’t win an Oscar?  Robbed!

8:59 PM: Christ just walked out.  Robbed!

9:00 PM: Abigail from Little Miss Sunshine and Fresh Prince II are presenting best short.  I can’t stand how adorable this is.  They’re adlibbing!  They just stopped presenting and started playing Legos.  They built a fort!

9:05 PM: West Bank Story (yes, exactly what it sounds like) just won best live-action short.  I just went ahead in my Oscar pool.  Just saying.  Ironically, it’s a two person pool, and my friend is Jewish, and he chose the Japanese short and I chose the one called West Bank Story.  Actually there wasn’t a Japanese short.  But still, what luck.

9:13 PM: There’s a choir onstage re-enacting sound effects from famous scenes.  Like wind and car wheels and planes and everything.  Coolest thing I’ve ever seen on the Oscars (EDIT 9:17 PM: Kind of just forgot about it, Jessica Biel is onstage).  That said, it’s only fifty minutes in and there have been three gimmicky things like this.  Eh.  Ooh, Apocalypto‘s up for something else…wonder if they’ll win…

9:19 PM: You don’t say!  Another loss for Apocalypto.  A win for Iwo Jima.  And Watanabe is here, but his date isn’t Baron Nishi.  And he’s not drunk.

9:22 PM: Rachel Weisz is presenting Supporting Actor. I still can’t believe she won Supporting Actress last year.  I didn’t know “supporting” meant “destroying an otherwise decent film”.  The Oscars: changing the definitions of words.

9:23 PM: Alan Arkin with the upset.  Word is he’s gonna thank Norbit.

9:25 PM: Ellen goes into audience to bug Walhberg, Scorcese.  Marky Mark is so unhappy right now.  He just lost so he’ll probably leave soon so he can return to being typecast as a basketball playing tough-guy.

9:28 PM: You want more photos?  You get more photos.

9:30 PM: Departed montage ends in a slow-mo of the “want some coke/don’t get up til you’re numb” scene.  Just saying.

9:32 PM: James Taylor is doing “Our Town” onstage.  Could care less right?  Wrong.  This means that all of the noms will be singing their own songs, which means Beyonce is definitely doing “Listen” and Hudson her song.  Oh, we’ll have our Diva fest alright.

9:33 PM: Oh dang they’re playing them all in a row.  Melissa Etheridge is on-stage doing the song from that silly liberal propaganda “movie”.  Could win.  Unfortunately.  I wouldn’t want to take Beyonce AND J.Hud backstage, though.

9:36 PM: Oh wait, not all the songs, just the two by boring, old, irrelevant white musicians.  Al Gore’s onstage, pushing Oscar.com.  Holla at ya boy.

9:39 PM: Al just made a funny.  I want the old one back.  Jeez this guy peeked at the wrong time.  Just like Joan Rivers, actually – right when you get shoved back to the TV Guide Channel, you get self-referentially hilarious.  But not before the beard phase.  That darn beard phase.

9:45 PM: Happy Feet wins.  Liberals.

9:47 PM: Kind of Oscar related (kind of) – my old roommate – who is playing Assassins – just got put on the disavowed list and he’s stalking around dressed like The Man With No Name (poncho, water-gun).  Eastwood would be happy.  Anyways, if you see The Man With No Name on campus, shoot first and ask questions later.

9:50 PM: Helen Mirren just atoned for her earlier hand gestures by very properly reading a section of the the Borat script.

9:53 PM: Departed got its first win, for adapted screenplay.  Shout-outs to Valium and Lawrence of Arabia.  First use of acceptance speech music so far.  Hour-and-a-half?  That’s a decent run.  Also, the screenwriter for Departed looks a lot like the T.A. in the Eastwood lecture.  And Maggie Gyllenhall’s there.  Look at all these connections to Columbia.

10:02 PM: Live-action models for the Best Costume noms.  This includes 3 Helen Mirren look-a-likes for The Queen.  I bet when they walk around people always call them out on looking exactly like Helen Mirren.  Also, five fake Kirsten Dunsts: not fresh.

10:10 PM: Ellen is on it.  She’s doing a schtick with Steven Spielberg and Eastwood right now that’s pretty funny.  It doesn’t sound as funny as it is though, so I’m not going to describe it.  But it was funny.  You should be watching the Oscars right now.

10:14 PM: The ‘Lab takeover continues, beating out Children of Men for Cinematography.  I’m gonna treat this like a no-hitter though and stop talking about it.

10:20 PM: (Pan’s Labyrinth is so good it’s gonna win every award Robert Downey Jr. went gel crazy this morning)

10:21 PM: When they announce the nominees, the clips are set against a backdrop of famous movie quotes.  “It’s alive” and stuff like that.  The best one?  “Frodo”

10:29 PM: Downey Jr.’s arrival here is like the fifteenth time that a great actor from 2006 presented/showed up without a nomination.  They already poked fun at this with the Ferrell/Jack Black skit, but it’s really too bad that comedies are never taken seriously anymore (unless they’re quirky or have super established stars like Meryl Streep).  For example, Downey in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang and Lucy Liu in Slevin were both really great, especially compared to the old stars they channeled.  But whatever, off the soap-box, sorry.

10:30 PM: Clive Owen’s tux keeps turning from black to blue and back.  And the ‘Lab just lost Foreign Film to Germany.  Shouldn’t have talked about it.

10:36 PM: Suspicious… J.Hud just won Best Supporting, and she went to hug Beyonce, but they cut away to the losers and then cut back to J.Hud after the hug.  I wonder what really happened…

10:44 PM: Documentaries and doc shorts back to back.  Everyone’s really struggling through this.  Even the winners seem bored.  They’re letting Seinfeld stand up there for five minutes and the audience is being extremely hospitable with the laughter.  It’s the sort of laughing you do in class when you’re doing anything to stay awake.   I just dozed off in the middle of writing this.

10:48 PM: Al Gore wins, shocking.  What better person to wake up the crowd than Al Gore.  Global warming to Iraq: YOU MUST NOT KNOW BOUT ME

10:50 PM: Clint’s introducing the Ennio Morricone tribute.  If you haven’t been watching, turn your TV on now, you won’t regret this.  We’re hitting the homestretch too – Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Diva-fest.  I’m awake.

10:56 PM: Ok so 50-50 ain’t bad.  The montage was great and then Celine shatters Morricone’s career in 3 minutes.  They keep raising the volume of the strings, but Celine fights back.  Also, Morricone looks borderline comatose listening to her.  I guess I understand.  You wait your entire life for this thing and when you finally get it, Neon Dion does the honors.

10:59 PM: Polite clapping.  She won’t get off-stage.  Clint waits.  She won’t leave the stage.  Ennio comes on-stage.  Celine’s still there.   Ennio does his speech in Italian.  Clint translates.  Celine remains.  The tension builds.

11:14 PM: Little Miss Sunshine wins Original Screenplay.  Greg Kinnear feels so cool.  Not just regular cool, but Greg Kinnear cool.  He got ridiculous seats to this thing.  He’s Greg Kinnear.  What I said earlier about DiCaprio being the MVP, well, Kinnear’s the opposite.  Honestly, you could have put any other actor in that role and you would not have noticed a change, except for the better.  I’m not saying he was bad, just that he’s Greg Kinnear.

11:20 PM: The announcer just hit on J.Lo, or as he put it, “a good reason for Hi-Definition television”.  What adds to this?  The fact that it’s clearly cold in the theatre.  I didn’t realize the Oscars could be creepy.

11:21 PM: Diva-fest begins!

11:22 PM: Beyonce aka “an alright reasons for Hi-Def” rises from the stage in the middle of J.Hud’s number.  Such a great entrance.  She totally blew up that spot.  Lots of fake smiles.

11:24 PM: They’re dueting on “Listen”?!?  This is post-diva.  I can’t tell which one of them is flipping the script.  Probably Beyonce.  She sounds fantastic.

11:25 PM: Ha, J.Hud leaves the stage.  You won this one B.  Actually, her performance was pretty incredible.

11:27 PM: Commenter 18 said it perfectly.  I was going to make a “you must not know bout these” joke but…

11:28 PM: John Travolta loves big girls.

11:29 PM: ETHERIDGE WINS! Diva-fest totally split the votes.  They’re not even showing Beyonce, she’s probably fuming.  Etheridge was this close to quoting Mellencamp: “This is our…”  But then she wimped out.  Surprising.

11:33 PM: So the ‘Lab flamed out early and Beyonce didn’t rip out J.Hud’s locks.  The subplot left?  Departed.  Let’s do this.  I’m getting a bad feeling though about the Sunshine upset.  I don’t know if I can take that Crash deja vu.  At least that little girl will get the mic some more.  She could use the exposure.  Because no one is talking her up at all.

11:36 PM: Dang, lots of italics in that last one.  Sorry folks.

11:37 PM: Best montage of the night, put together by Michael Mann.  It’s about films tackling issues, so I guess I can excuse no extended, masturbatory cuts from Miami Vice.

11:43 PM: Thelma Schoonmaker wins Best Editing for Departed.  This is always a good indicator of Best Picture, so go Thelma.  She’s maybe more MVP to Scorcese than DiCaprio (maybe), so it’s cool to see her honored.

11:48 PM: Tribute to the deceased.   No Departed jokes. (sorry, sorry, sorry…)

11:52 PM: Ellen’s back and out of her mind.  She’s wearing pajamas and just said “My bad”.  It had to happen I guess.

11:53 PM: Actress in a leading role.  Penelope Cruz really should get this, I realize Mirren has it locked down, but Cruz was beyond great in Volver.

11:53:34 PM: “Frodo”…”Frodo”…”Frodo”…

11:54 PM: Helen Mirren gets it, Truman Capote announces it with his best Al Gore.

11:59 PM: Down the wire.  So Best Picture breakdown: I’m still going with Departed, but every film up for Picture won an award tonight (as the Rogaine/Viagara spokesman who’s covering the green room just told us).  Babel‘s got the Crash-y “let’s be kind of socially conscious” aspect about it for the voters, and Little Miss Sunshine has heroine and cute kids.  Letters really should get it but most voters can’t read so that’s out.  That leaves Departed and the movie about the Helen Mirren impersonator and let’s be frank: there are too many great actors in Departed who got snubbed tonight and I feel like all of their individual camps/studios are really hustling for that Best Picture nod.

12:03 AM: Best actor…I’m still rooting for DiCaprio.  He’s shooting with two barrels.  But I think Whitaker’s got it.

12:07 AM: Whitaker won.  I just deleted a comment I made about Whitaker’s eye in that BMW short with Clive Owen, because I was told after the fact that he actually has a lazy eye, so I’m sorry about that.  Um, anyway, George Lucas actually just said “it’s much better to give than receive” and gave a really creepy laugh.

12:08 AM: Scorcese finally wins! He’s beaming, there’s a standing ovation. This is great.

12:12 AM: Diane Keaton and Jack are presenting Best Picture.  I’m getting horrible flashbacks to their nude scenes in Something’s Got To Give.  I thought I finally shook them last year, but nope.

12:13 AM: Annie Hall is still Annie Hall.

12:14 AM: DEPARTED WINS

12:16 AM: And yeah, pants were pissed.  All-in-all, pretty good Oscars.  Thanks for sticking around and for all the boob jokes in the comments, you took the heat off me.