11:45PM – THE SHAPE OF WATER wins Best Picture! It makes sense, considering how many nominations it got. It was a great film, but when Guillermo won Best Director, I hoped they would split with Dunkirk. Oh well. Tough year to pick as there were a ton of great movies this year. Thanks for visiting and reading and we’ll see you next year…..maybe!

11:40PM – LOL. They brought Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway back after last year’s debacle to present Best Picture. Funny.

11:36PM – Frances McDormand’s speech was great.

11:33PM – A hobbled Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence prove Dirty A right about Meryl Streep on their way to present Best Actress to…..FRANCES MCDORMAND!!

11:25PM – Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren to present Best Actor to…..GARY OLDMAN!!! Finally! He was fantastic in Darkest Hour, so this is not some career award.

11:13PM – Emma Stone to present Best Director to…..GUILLERMO DEL TORO! Very deserved, but as any listener of the podcast knows, I was pulling for Chris Nolan.

11:04PM – Jennifer Garner, who is probably making Ben Affleck second guess his life choices, introduces Eddie Vedder to sing Tom Petty over the In Memoriam clip package. 😥

11:01PM – Lin Manuel Miranda and Emily Blunt present Best Song to….REMEMBER ME from COCO!! See, this is the only one we had to see!

11:00PM – Chris Walken to present Best Original Score to…..Alexandre Desplat for SHAPE OF WATER! Personally, I was pulling for Hans Zimmer for Dunkirk, but Water’s score was great.

10:47PM – Sandy Bullock presents Best Cinematography. ROGER DEAKINS. FINALLY!!! Blade Runner was a beautiful film about an ugly world. He has deserved this for so long and it’s so great he finally won. Fantastic!

10:45PM – But Kimmel saves it with a Matt Damon joke.

10:42PM – Wes Studi talks about his Vietnam service and presents a military clip package. Again, very nice sentiment, but this show is long enough already.

10:35PM – The vagina bow returns! Nicole Kidman presents Best Original Screenplay to…..GET OUT!!! Congratulations to Jordan Peele!!

10:31PM – Wakanda Forever, Motherfucker! Chadwick Boseman and Margot Robbie present Best Adapted Screenplay to CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. It was great to see LOGAN nominated, though.

10:26PM – Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra, and Salma Hayak introduce a short film that celebrate diversity.

10:17PM – Dave Chappelle introduces the song from Marshall and is hilarious as usual.

10:14PM – Tiffany Haddish and May Rudolph are yukking it up as they present Best Live Action Short to THE SILENT CHILD.

10:12PM Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 wins Documentary Short Subject. Didn’t see it, but congrats!

10:00PM – Kimmel’s field trip is a funny bit, but again, I have to get up for work tomorrow. “Wrap it up.”

9:56PM – DUNKIRK wins for Film Editing, which makes sense when you see the movie.

9:55PM – Alright, alright, alright, alright, alright, alright presenting Film Editing.

9:52PM – Visual Effects. BLADE RUNNER 2049. Totally deserving. The film was visually stunning.

9:41PM – COCO wins Best Animated Feature! Well-deserved. It was on my list of Year’s Best.

9:38PM – KOBE BRYANT is an Oscar winner!?!? He wrote the Best Animated Short, Dear, Basketball. Congrats!

9:35PM – Mark Hamill, Oscar Isaac, Kelly Marie Tran, and BB-8 present Best Animated Short and Feature.

9:30PM – ALLISON JANNEY wins Best Supporting Actress! She was great in the role, but Laurie Metcalf was robbed.

9:23PM – A Fantastic Woman wins Best Foreign Film! Didn’t see it. 😀

9:21PM – Rita Moreno makes a hell of an entrance for Best Foreign Language Film.

9:13PM – I loved Coco and “Remember Me,” but please stop with the live song performances!

9:10PM – SHAPE OF WATER wins for Production Design. Well-deserved, but I was pulling for Blade Runner 2049. What the fuck is that guy wearing?

9:08PM – Lupita and Kumail are cute. I didn’t know she wore glasses!

9:01PM – DUNKIRK wins for Best Sound Mixing! I’m hoping this is the start of great things and not just heaping technical awards on this fantastic film.

8:58PM – DUNKIRK wins for Best Sound Editing!

8:56PM – You know, those Oscar montages are nice, but they don’t help with keeping the running time down.

8:44PM – I love Taraji P. Henson, but Proud Mary was not worthy of her. She’s introducing Mary J. Blige, who’s singing her nominated song from Mudbound. Mary J is also nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

8:41PM – Best Documentary Feature goes to….ICARUS after some pointed dialogue about how we have to keep in mind what’s really real and what’s really fake from Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern. Preach.

8:31PM – PHANTOM THREAD wins best costume design. That tracks, considering it’s….a film…about….uh, dressing women.

8:26PM – DARKEST HOUR for best make up and hair. Makes sense, Oldman was unrecognizable.
Kazuhiro Tsuji was recruited specifically by Oldman. Surprised Shape of Water wasn’t nominated.

8:23PM – Mary Poppins Returns teaser tomorrow. That’s called synergy, folks.

8:18PM – Viola Davis presents Best Supporting Actor to…….SAM ROCKWELL! Well-deserved. If you haven’t seen Moon, check it out. He’s great in that too.

8:12PM – Helen Mirren as a Price is Right girl. Classic.

8:11PM – Kimmel praising Meryl Streep. Dirty A will not be pleased.

8:07 PM – Kimmel making some good topical humor. His burn on comic books movies was great.

8:00 PM – The show opens with an old-timey black and white film intro from host Jimmy Kimmel skewering the attendees. Very funny.

7:55PM – Noelle on Nicole Kidman’s dress, “If you’re going to have a bow on your vagina, then you better commit to a bow on your vagina! It’s a present to unwrap later.”

7:34PM – So….my party and I got here early, so here we go! I’m here at the Rialto Theater in Raleigh, NC with some of my cast and crew from And Then There Were None! ALSO, the Oscars start at 8PM, not 8:30PM like usual.

Here are my picks for the major categories:

Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell – he was great in Three Billboards and this may be his shit to finally break into the mainstream.

Best Supporting Actress: Laurie Metcalf – great, great in Ladybird. Allison Janney was fantastic in I, Tonya, but Metcalf was integral to the story of Ladybird.

Best Actor: Gary Oldman – This is a lock. He was amazing in Darkest Hour and deserves it. Great performances all around, but if he loses this, it will be the shocker of the night.

Best Actress: Frances McDormand – Like Oldman, this is more than likely a lock. She was so fiery in Three Billboards and was absolutely riveting.

Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins – Deakins is the greatest living Cinematographer to NOT win an Oscar and his work on Blade Runner 2049 was stunning. This category is loaded with deserving nominees, but Deakins has earned this.

Best Original Screenplay: The Shape of Water – This is another tough category, full of deserving nominees. Shape of Water was just my favorite film of the nominees.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Call Me by Your Name – I didn’t see this one, but all the praise it has received has it as my pick. Of course, I would LOVE it if LOGAN won, but its reward is the nomination.

Best Animated Film: Coco – There is no other. This wins.

Best Director: Christopher Nolan – Now, if Guillermo del Toro wins, I will not be mad, but this is Nolan’s first nomination, when it should be like his third or fourth. He should win. The fact that Dunkirk was spectacular is just icing on the cake.

Best Picture: Dunkirk – This was simply the best film of the year. Shape of Water was fantastic, but Dunkirk was revolutionary. This is the best picture of the year.

1:20PM – This is where you want to be at approximately 8PM for the 5th Annual Hodgepodge Podcast Oscars Live Blog! Just keep hitting refresh on this link to keep up with the commentary! See you in a few hours!

(All times are Eastern Time)