Live Blogging: 81st Annual Academy Awards [Half-Hour 2]

And, the Oscars have begun. Less fanfare than usual. No prelude, clip montage, etc. Just Hugh Jackman.

It's going to be hard to get used to hearing Jackman's Australian accent. I'm so used to hearing him as Wolverine. He's singing now. He's bringing back the nominee music montage that only Billy Crystal used to do. He brought Anne Hathaway on stage to help with the Frost/Nixon segment. Oh, she can sing too.

I like how the The Reader portion of the music montage had nothing to do with The Reader. The lyrics implied that Hugh never got around to seeing The Reader. That's okay; he didn't miss much. Now, Hugh's sitting on Frank Langella's lap.

Hugh's pointing out several nominees in the front row. Where is Jack Nicholson? He's not nominated for anything, but doesn't he usually get an honorary front row seat anyway?

Woops. They had a little trouble with the curtains when revealing the screen to show the previous Best Actress montage. You could actually hear someone say, "Open them!"

Five actresses are up to present the Best Supporting Actresses. My pick is Taraji P. Henson out of the two movies I saw, but she may be the least likely of the five to win. Wow, this is a long presentation. They're talking about the roles of the nominees rather than showing clips. If they do this with every award, this will be a long night. The winner: Penelope Cruz. Wow, they're letting her go on forever with her acceptance. This show may last until Tuesday.

Steve Martin and Tina Fey are up to present one of the screenplay categories. Tina Fey looks better than Angelina Jolie too. This is the Original Screenplay category. The only one I've seen here is WALL-E, so it's automatically my pick. I wish J. Michael Straczynski had been nominated for Changeling. And, the winner is: Milk.

Now, the Adapted Screenplay category. Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire. My pick is Slumdog, with Frost/Nixon a very close 2nd choice. The winner: Slumdog Millionaire. Woohoo.

Was that Rudy Giuliani in the crowd?