Spoiler Alert: Oscar Updates

We're settling in for a long winter's night of Oscars! Oscars! Oscars! C'mon, Academy, bring on the musical numbers, clip reels and tearful speeches. We're ready.

Host Hugh Jackman started the night off well with some charming jokes and an opening musical number that, although it referenced excrement and pubic hair, made us simply embarrassed for adorable Jackman. (And for those of you who were wondering... yes, Anne Hathaway did change her dress. Huh.) After an energetic (but in our humble opinion flat) musical number, Jackman perused the crowd calling out the front row celebrities.

The first presenter? Try five of them: Eva Marie Saint, Whoopi Goldberg, Goldie Hawn, Tilda Swinton and Angelica Houston. The female talent powerhouses honored each of the Best Supporting Actress nominees with bizarre testimonials in what can only be called a stilted waste of our time.

At least it settled one question... the leaked winner list is totally fake. It had Amy Adams listed as the winner, but the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress went to Penelope Cruz. (Sorry, Amy.)

Next up Tina Fey and Steve Martin rocked their jokes and the screenplay awards. The producers actually did quite a nice job with the presentation of this award - from having Fey and Martin read from the scripts to superimposing dialogue on the movie clips - it was elegantly done. Best Adapted Screenplay went to Dustin Lance Black for Milk and Best Original Screenplay went to Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire.

The weirdness continued as Jennifer Aniston presented the award for Best Animated Feature with Jack Black. OK, first of all, why is Black, voice star of "Kung Fu Panda," one of the nominated films, presenting an award for his own category? Second off, why is Aniston (of Pitt-Jolie drama) presenting an award with Jolie's co-star from "Kung Fu Panda"? The only redeeming thing about their presentation? Wall-E won! But don't get too excited... they both remained onstage and butchered the names for the Short Animated Films. I'm not sure what Jack Black said when he announced the winner, but the Oscar went to La Maison en Petits Cubes.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Daniel Craig were next up to present the awards for Art Direction, Costume Design and Make-Up. (Ah, so this is how the show will be kept to time: 3-fers.) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button took home its first and second Oscars of the evening (out of 13 nominations) for Art Direction and Make-Up. The Duchess won for Costume Design.

We could have done without the "Romance 2008" interlude, which seemed gratuitous to say the least. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the musical medley clearly conceived by someone tripping on acid. The horror continued for a good five minutes as more and more stars contributed to the excruciating pain. Some audience reactions? Train wreck, waste of time, making me angry, the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, vomiting in my mouth.

Natalie Portman was radiant as she presented the award for Best Cinematography with Ben Stiller, who mocked Joaquin Phoenix with full-on beard, shades, and crazy-'tude. Even Portman lost her composure and started to laugh as Stiller said he wanted to retire from comedic acting, become a cinematographer and then wandered away from the podium. The winner of the category? Well, it looks like we could have another Golden Globes on our hands... the Oscar for Best Cinematography goes to Slumdog Millionaire.

We give a thumbs up to the Judd Apatow short that had some fun with the nominees. Apatow then helped present the award for Best Live Action Short. The winner? Spielzeugland. You've seen Spielzeugland, right? It means Toyland, but we're sure you knew that already. Just like you knew how to pronounce Spielzeugland.

The five presenter monstrosity happened again as former Oscar winners announced / honored / blah-blah-blah the Best Supporting Actor nominees. No surprise here. Heath Ledger wins posthumously. But even eye-rollers were given pause. Ledger's family came onstage to accept the award on his behalf. Anyone not touched by his family's words can only be considered heartless freaks.

Bill Maher was the poor sucker who had to follow that act and his attempt to address that made the moment even more awkward. The Oscar for Best Documentary Feature went to Man on Wire. The Oscar for Best Documentary Short went to Smile Pinki.

Will Smith presented multiple awards for what are traditionally the action flicks categories. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button took home its third award of the evening for Visual Effects. The Dark Knight took home the Oscar for Sound Editing.

And chalk another three wins up for Slumdog Millionaire for Sound Mixing, Film Editing, Music Score and Song. Which song? It was nominated for two. "Jai Ho" was the winner.

Departures from Japan won the Oscar for Best Foreign Feature.

In a shocking turn, the Best Director award was presented before the Best Actor and Actress awards. In a not-so-shocking turn, Slumdog Millionaire won. We're psyched, really we are. But we're wondering... why don't we just stick to the Golden Globes and be done with award season?

Dear. God. Not. Again. The five presenter smaltz is back. And, yes, it's just as painful as last time. Love fest, love fest, love fest. And the Oscar for Best Actress goes to Kate Winslet. Well, we knew it was coming. Five more presenters for Best Actor and - who knew - Sean Penn with the upset! Penn, in an unusually charming turn, opened with "you Commie-loving sons of guns."

Steven Spielberg presented the Oscar for Best Picture to Slumdog Millionaire.

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