This brief review of Colicchio and Sons (where Craftsteak was up until the banker expense accounts all died, under the High Line, next to the DEA building) in the New Yorker stresses an important fact: the pastry chef is unbelievable. Stephen Collucci, who does desserts across the Craft mini-empire, is really the best thing going. We heartily recommend hitting the front bar room at Colicchio for dessert after your dinner anywhere (although sometimes you have to look at Ed Westwick which I personally never enjoy but your mileage may vary).

A survey of 200 students at Stanford University revealed the newest crippling dependency that is sapping the vitality of our nation’s youth: iPhone addicition. Nearly half the survey’s participants admitted to being very or completely addicted to the devices, while 41 percent admitted that they would characterize the loss of their iPhones as a “tragedy.” Also:

There was also a tendency among the survey participants to anthropomorphize their iPhones and treat it differently than other electronics. For example, 3 percent of the students said they don’t let anyone touch their iPhone; another 3 percent have named their iPhone; 9 percent have patted their iPhone and 8 percent admitted that they have at some time thought “My iPod is jealous of my iPhone.”

Other signs of iPhone addiction are thought to include an irrational desire to have the latest popular tech product, a willingness to shell out money for a device whose actual “phone” aspect remains only a slight improvement on two Dixie cups connected with a string, and a deep misunderstanding of what “addiction” actually is.

It was only a matter of time. First, the histrionic cry of “socialism” at the merest suggestion of a more equitable distribution of the social good known as health care. Then, the robust trade in New Deal denialism on the right — the economic version of intelligent design theory, only without the intelligence. And now, unsatisfied with turning the clock back to 1929, Wall Street Journal editorial hand Daniel Henninger has called for the resuscitation of the Robber Barons. Henninger derides the incremental efforts of the Obama administration to boost job creation with tax credits and stimulus funds. That’s all just bootless government meddling in the masterful free market, he announces; in lieu of that we need “industries no one thought of before”-and that means, in turn, that “we need vision, vitality, and commercial moxie. The government is draining it [sic] away.”

And who better to summon these primal virtues forth than a new breed of robber baron? Oh, not the bad kind-the unproductive financial monopolists that Matthew Josephson laid low in his 1934 muckraking classic The Robber Barons. No, thanks to the labors of Burton R. Folsom, who teaches history at the fundamentalist Hillsdale College in Michigan we have-courtesy of the publishing arm of the Tea-Party happy Young America’s Foundation-a refutation of Josephson’s broad-brush portrait of the Gilded Age business class as a rapacious plutocrats. The heroes in Folsom’s set-piece revisionist history are “market entrepreneurs,” who hewed their fortunes from the hardy natural blessings of the American land: your John D. Rockefeller oil titans, your Cornelius Vanderbilt railroad tycoons, et al. The Robber Barons you have to look out for, by contrast, are the “political entrepreneurs,” the no-account dandies and fops who gamed state legislatures for monopoly contracts and locked out competitors with price-fixing schemes and the like-such as, oh, Robert Fulton, whose ham-handed chicanery to lock up steamship traffic on the Hudson River was broken by the manful Vanderbilt, brandishing the slogan “New Jersey must be free.” (You will no doubt be shocked to learn, by the way, that Folsom also engages in New Deal denialism on the side.)

As Henninger explains it, this baby-simple dichotomy points the way out of the iron grip of Obamaism, and its efforts to defy the sacred laws of market making-not merely via woeful stimulus boondoggles, but market-distorting nightmares like “green job” initiatives to retrofit the economy to diminish the impact of climate change. What we need more of, Henninger insists, is modern day market-entrepreneurs like Larry Ellison, the chieftain of software giant Oracle. Let a thousand Ellisons bloom, Henninger thunders-while Ellison may have a personal penchant for opulent self-indulgence, he’s still contributing to the common good, in classic Adam Smith fashion. “Someone in our politics has to find the courage to say, So what?” Henninger says of the high-living Ellison lifestyle. Intoxicated by the realization that he is that courageous someone, Henninger builds to his stirring peroration: “If the next Ellison and Oracle ripples into American life as many new jobs and family incomes, I’m happy to be grossed out by parties and boats. The alternative is a nation of Pecksniffs, choking on virtue.”

Well, let the Pecksniffery begin, I say. We need not be long detained by the purported intracapitalist combat between market and political entrepreneurs in the Gilded Age, since no one in the Industrial Age saw any value in such Talmudic niceties. Indeed, the very term “Robber Baron,” referred back to medieval lords in northern Europe who’d gouge peasants on the toll roads they owned; government licensing was, in other words, a central feature of the racket.

So it was for the entire cohort of U.S. robber barons, from John D. Rockefeller-whom Henninger laughably only credits here with here with having “innovated his way to energy primacy in the United States”-to Leland Stanford, a notorious purchaser of state legislatures. Henninger, Folsom and other historical fabulists apparently have no acquaintance with the shocking boondoggle known as the Homestead Act, which directly launched the fortunes of railroad tycoons like Stanford and Vanderbilt, while indirectly permitting allied titans of industry like the oilman Rockefeller and steel mogul Andrew Carnegie to vertically integrate their enterprises into industrial-financial-political empires unto themselves.

By granting politically connected industrialists nominally priced title to land and resource wealth and doling out railroad land rights into perpetuity, the federal government engaged in a pay-to-play brokerage that Josephson appraised as “one of the great wonders of history.” [The Robber Barons, p. 51]. Indeed, Henninger is far too modest on Rockefeller’s account; it was, after all, his mammoth holding company, Standard Oil of New Jersey, that prompted the first major federal antitrust prosecution of the 20th century.

Throw a dart at any Gilded Age tycoon-which itself would have been a fine idea at the time, come to think of it, save that so many of them shared such a striking facility for buying themselves a surrogate passport out of harm’s way -and you find they all sprouted from the same fetid nexus of government favor and cartelized pelf. Any competent history of the era will furnish a motherlode of such edifying detail; I particularly recommend study of the murderous antics of Carnegie’s right-hand man Henry Clay Frick, who’s gotten a soft-sell treatment in the annals of history thanks to his fondness for the pretty paintings.

But recall, this is just Gilded Age 101 stuff. Consider instead Henninger’s curious choice of latter-day model market entrepreneur, Larry Ellison. Oracle cribbed its name from a CIA project, and the federal spook agency was the company’s first major client when it was founded in 1977-and at least a quarter of the firm’s revenues comes from software sales to government agencies. As Mike Wilson, author of The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison flatly puts it, “Oracle wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for government contracts.” And of course, in great Robber Baron fashion, Ellison’s firm generously kicks the dosh back to the purveyors of the People’s Business with campaign donations to lawmakers who make key software procurement decisions. There is also a seven-figure Washington lobbying budget. Small wonder that the company’s government work quadrupled between 1997 and 2002-and that, last fall, it had forked over $7.4 billion for Sun Microsystems, whose Solaris software is integral to many defense and intelligence applications.

So much for your latter-day model of an excellent “market entrepreneur.” And thus, it seems that what our present day plight calls for is not so much a Robber Baron revival as a new golden age of muckraking. If nothing else, it would put the Daniel Henningers of the world out of work.

Chris Lehmann is really enjoying the recent vogue of people taking to newspapers to entirely rewrite history.

Well, it seems like spring is actually coming. So that is good. But the news that Mark Linkous killed himself Saturday is terrible. If you’ve are familiar with his story (short version: he was depressed) and have listened to his music, which he recorded under the name Sparklehorse, this is perhaps not entirely surprising. He almost died from an overdose of Valium and antidepressants in 1996, and here is a video for a song called “Saint Mary” he released three years later that has the same world weariness you hear in the music of Elliott Smith. But the news arrives and reminds you of the commonplace, everyday sadness of life and how some people seem to suffer it worse than others, and how some of those people make music out of that, and how that music can make other people feel better, and even alleviate some of the sadness, but maybe not the people making the music. I don’t know.

In the Times’ public editor’s column on the matter of their little plagiarist Zachery Kouwe, there is a fantastic moment in which a Local Blogger Makes Extremely Good. “In January, Dealbreaker, a competing Web site, scored a scoop by posting an internal Citigroup memo about a rumored joint venture. The same memo soon went up on [Times business blog] DealBook, complete with two minor alterations that Dealbreaker had inserted as a trap to catch competitors ripping off material without credit.” This is the most genius thing we have ever heard and this is so going to be house policy!

Dealbreaker’s editor, Bess Levin, posted a gotcha. I called and asked her what happened next. She said got a call from Andrew Ross Sorkin, the editor of DealBook, who explained that Kouwe had verified the memo with Citigroup and was going to get his own copy. Rather than wait, Kouwe grabbed it from her site, she said Sorkin told her. Sorkin immediately ordered an editors’ note inserted in the DealBook item that gave credit and explained what happened.

This is the greatest invention in the history of blogging and we should all bow down.

The new Pavement retrospective/best-of gets a Pitchfork 10, despite the mandatory disclaimer: “To be sure, it’s all very much of its time and no band aside from perhaps Guided By Voices better epitomizes the sound and style of 1990s indie rock, but the material transcends its era as much as it defines it.”

There was a lot of trashing of Elinor Burkett last night on the Internets, and Eli did go a little crazy by seizing the microphone for best documentary short, especially because she was not technically the winner, according to the director, as she and the director of the winning film have been suing each other for a while, although The Academy™ does recognize her as producer. But Burkett was the most fascinating person to hit that stage last night, and trashing her is a mistake for those who might be 1. pleased about big wins for “The Hurt Locker” and also 2. interested in authenticity and nonfiction. While “The Hurt Locker” is an action movie wrapped up in the guise of a “real” movie based on “reporting” (and yet is “a collection of scenes that are completely implausible — wrong in almost every respect”), Burkett’s been making opinionated, involved nonfiction for decades.

She is, also, it is apparent to all, kind of… well, let’s call her opinionated! She has a tendency to end up on the outs with collaborators and friends. But to heck with that! Let’s look at her work.

Just for starters, she moved to Kyrgyzstan in September of 2001, which, ha. She spent a year in a suburban high school trying to figure out the kids; she wrote a fantastic book about the distorted way we reward parenting in our society (a must-read for those of us who’ve worked in offices where automatic raises are given whenever anyone “starts a family”).

And there’s her late-90s, pre-Palin history of American right-wing women; and then the rather blockbuster book, with Frank Bruni, on the Catholic Church’s coverup of sexual abuse-and, from 1996, the best history of AIDS yet written. So she’s kind of got it all over everyone else in the end.

Actually Liveblogging The Oscars Part 3: Punny Title About Movies And Blogging Goes Here

Alex Balk (11:20): Since David Cho is never satisfied, we are once again shifting locations! Welcome back to the purgatory that is this year’s Oscar ceremony. They just gave the Award For Thing In Non-English Language, but I was too busy setting this up, so I hope you were all able to make your own jokes about it. Anyway, let’s RIDE THIS BITCH HOME.

AB (11:25): Here comes the Man award!

AB (11:25): OMG, is it going to be PERSONAL TESTIMONIES for every nominee?

AB (11:26): Seriously, don’t you feel like someone is going to inadvertently admit to being raped?

AB (11:28): Who was not impressed with Colin Firth’s courage?

AB (11:30): Colin Farell is inadvertently going to admit to raping someone.

AB (11:31): Oh God, we’re going to have to watch that all again but for the women aren’t we?

AB (11:32): Every other actor who knew that Jeff Bridges was going to win Best Actor did a very admirable job of nodding and smiling when they announced his win.

AB (11:33): Jeff Bridges is the coolest guy to ever have been tweaking on the Academy stage.

AB (11:35): Jeff Bridges’ next Oscar will come for Old Colonel Sanders.

AB (OPRAH!): OPRAH!

AB (11:41): I don’t think anyone should be bringing up Hope Floats.

AB (11:43): I am worried that Captain Caveman is going to hurt Helen Mirren.

AB (11:43): Peter Sarsgaard is going for a JV-John Malkovich thing, right?

AB (11:45): Oprah Winfrey is making Academy voters wish they could change their ballots right now.

AB (11:46): The Tooch has GOT to be pissed about following that.

AB (11:47): Sean Penn is going to wish rectal cancer on Meryl Streep!

AB (11:49): Sandra Bullock, ladies and gentlemen! The chick from Speed!

AB (11:49): George Clooney’s girlfriend: loaded. And who could blame her?

AB (11:50): Sandra Bullock actually deserves an Oscar for this acceptance speech.

AB (11:52): Um, cannot argue with that acceptance speech. WHO HAS A KICKER LIKE THAT?

AB (11:53): I know all you people are thinking horrid, ageist thoughts about Barbra Streisand and it makes me sick. Animals.

AB (11:55): THIS IS FOR YOU, HILLARY! WE FINALLY CRACKED THAT GLASS CEILING!

AB (11:56): Okay, the crack is finally cooked! Bigelow wins Best Director, although Streisand is TOTALLY gonna swipe that statue on the way to the green room. Anyway, I am done. To cap off your evening, here is David Cho.

DC (11:57): Alex’s bedtime has come and gone, so I guess I’m finishing this up? Was that side-by-side of Barbara Streisand (ugly and small) and Kathryn Bigelow (tall and hot) the most jarring visual ever?

DC (11:59): And I guess we’re done? The Hurt Locker wins for Best Picture and also hottest director!

DC (12:00AM — YEP!): Jeremy Renner is making a serious face right now. Apparently he’s been trying to holler at Jessica Simpson at the Oscar parties this week.

DC (12:02): And thus concludes our Oscar liveblog! Many, many, many thanks to Katie Baker for helping liveblog and also thanks to Carey Mulligan, Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Julianne Moore, and Kathryn Bigelow for all being super attractive and talented!

Alex Balk (9:20): Welcome to the second section of our liveblogging extravaganza. It is brought to you by Awl publisher David Cho’s belief that by offering an empty commenting area we will somehow maximize pageviews. For our earlier coverage of tonight’s astounding ceremony, please go here. Now that this unpleasantness is out of the way, let us continue.

AB (9:20): John Hughes: still dead.

AB (9:21): Clearly, all the actors who showed up for the John Hughes tribute were not exactly like, “I need to check my schedule for that night.”

AB (9:22): Not only does your heart die when you get older, your face bloats, your skin sags, your hair goes gray, and you play second banana to Charlie Sheen on some inexplicably popular ABC sitcom.

AB (9:23): When you think “the year’s most heartwarming animated feature, a movie which sent adults into paroxysms of tears even though it was ostensibly a children’s film,” you totally think Samuel L. Jackson, right?

AB (9:25): This is completely unrelated to anything, but for various reasons that I will not go into here, I saw Big this morning for the first time in 20 or so years. And you know what? It is actually still a pretty great movie! Except the very end, where you’re like, oh, wait, Elizabeth Perkins has been fucking a 13-year-old all this time? Kind of creepy! Anyway, more Oscars now!

AB (9:28): Carey Mulligan could totally win an Oscar in Young Judi Dench.

AB (9:30): I can go smoke now, right? I mean, who gives a shit about short films, besides Helen Mirren’s husband?

AB (9:31): I did NOT see Logorama winning. Nor did I see Logorama.

AB (9:33): Clearly, if you make a short documentary, it’s a good idea to call it “The Last [Something]”

AB (9:34): Best short documentary guy just got Kanye’d by his own producer? Or something. VERY UNCOMFORTABLE!

AB (9:38): Ben Stiller is a national treasure. And a good example of why the Jews and the Irish should not be allowed to breed.

AB (9:39): I bet James Cameron’s next wife is in the audience right now.

AB (9:40): Makeup? You guys are on your own.

AB (9:43): Is a backwards beret some kind of Bizarro-world gang thing?

AB (9:44): While they are running the Serious Man montage can I say how excited I am for True Grit? If you have not read anything by Charles Portis I highly recommend you open a new window right now and buy one of his books. My favorite is Dog of the South, but, really, you can’t go wrong with any of them.

AB (9:50): Come on In The Loop.

AB (9:50): Oooh, Reitman is getting NOTHING.

AB (9:51): And now I am nostalgic for “I love you more than rainbows, baby.”

AB (9:54): This year’s Governor’s Award recipients video is sort of like watching a trailer to next year’s Parade of the Dead, right?

AB (9:56): I can’t wait for Mo’Nique’s speech!

AB (10:00): You know what? Good for her!

AB (10:01): Um, Mo’nique was kind of the perfect example of what a great acceptance speech should be. Much appreciated. And now, Cho.

DC (10:02): I’m really into Carey Mulligan now, seriously, how adorable is she? And I think I support her dating of Shia Lebouf!

DC (10:03): So, in case you were looking for even MORE haha’s, here are some good Twitterers to follow: Mary HK Choi (obvs) and Max Silvestri

DC (10:06): I only found out earlier this year that Sigourney Weaver and Susan Sarandon were two different people. In retrospect, that was really stupid.

DC (10:07): ABADAH!!!! (Do people remember that? Sooo good.)

DC (10:08): What is with the mics picking up every single whisper? It sounds like LOST seasons 1 and 2 when the Others were running around the forest?

DC (10:08): Is this the most heartfelt and emotionally compelling design speech of all time? That guy seemed like a really nice person.

DC (10:10): Man, remember when Tom Ford said he was going to direct movies after leaving Gucci and everyone was like, “Yeah, sure…” and now he’s like, doing it? Good for him. Also, I really don’t understand how Sarah Jessica Parker is regarded as attractive? Am I wrong, or was it one of those “best of what’s around” sort of things from the early ‘90’s?

DC (10:11): “Well I already have two of these…” WHAT A BITCH! Also, for someone who won for costume design, she sure doesn’t know how to dress herself. I’m not a fashion expert, but I’m pretty sure SEQUINED SHINY BERET ISN’T THAT ATTRACTIVE LOOKING ON ANYONE.

DC (10:12): Uh, Charlize Theron’s boobs are accentuated by flowers, and I am completely down with that.

DC (10:13): OOOOOOOOOH, AN iPAD COMMERCIAL!!! (I guess? Or something?)

DC (10:15): Sidebar-ish: Is it kind of a bummer to people who haven’t seen the all of movies that these little featurettes showing the big nominees are, in a large part, super spoiler-y?

DC (10:17): Has there ever been a funny Paranormal Activity spoof? I feel like I’ve seen at least six and not really been entertained by any of them.

DC (10:18): DAMN, KRISTEN STEWART IS LOOKING GOOD. WHY IS THE BACKGROUND MUSIC STILL PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND THOUGH? WAIT, IT WAS ON PURPOSE?

DC (10:20): I can’t believe they have so many unnecessarily long montage things and yet the Oscar people still insisted on not letting that nice looking old guy, who looked like the old guy from UP, who won for best short whatever give a thank you speech.

DC (10:21): Well that was a sort of square peg into a round hole type thing by fitting Twilight into the horror film montage.

DC (10:22): That whole horror montage was whatever the watching equivalent of tl;dr is.

DC (10:23): Man, how was the Dark Knight not nominated for Best Picture last year? It was so awesome.

DC (10:25): Best Sound Editing goes to the Hurt Locker. I seriously cannot get over how hot Kathryn Bigelow is. Why did James Cameron ever let her go? I definitely back this dude and his Asian wife and his deciding to look like the henchman from The Davinci Code look.

DC (10:34): OOPS, the site kind of wonked out for a second. Which is unfortunate because I have LOTS of thoughts on John Travolta and the ABC show V!

DC (10:36): Sandra Bullock annoys me — ESPECIALLY her “jokes”. You know who doesn’t annoy me though? Katie Baker who is now handling the liveblog!

Katie Baker (10:37): Oh god, here comes the Parade of the Dead. JAMES TAYLOR. Wish it were “Sweet Baby James.” Goodnight you moonlight ladies, indeed. While we’re waiting, a question: Kristen Stewart’s raspy-voiced excuse, I presume, is that she LOVES TO SMOKE THE WEED. What say you, Demi?

KB (10:40): Roy E. Disney totally got name-recognition clapping. Both Michael Jackson and Natasha Richardson — predicted final applause candidates — got sandwiched in the middle, and ultimately kind of … no one got the “prime” posish?

KB (10:45): Some sundry items while randoms dance ethnically on my screen. (What is this, the Canadian closing ceremonies?)

I have figured out what Sarah Jessica Parker’s dress best resembles and the answer is this: these decorative jewel-encrusted shower curtain hangers.

Perhaps you, like me, looked at Sigourney Weaver and were like now wait just one minizzle, hasn’t she worn that dress before? And the answer is yes, and also yes. By which I mean: this dress in green is what originally came to mind, but it turns out she’s also gone to the red one-shoulder well before. Check out this spectacular clip from the 1989 Golden Globes in which PHYLLIS NEFLER AND PHIL COLLINS present her with the award for Best Supporting Actress in Working Girl.

“Well, this is one for bad girls, I guess,” she said on stage. Talk about bad girls: check out that saucy sideboob!

KB (10:51): I know I’m way late at this, but speaking as the child of a Mary Kay “saleswoman” I have to point out that the only horror story component in Edward Scissorhands is whenever Dianne Wiest trilled “Aaaavon caaaallllllling!”

KB (10:53): The Oscar for Best Original Score goes to Michael Giacchino for “Up.” Aw, words of (probably non-) wisdom from him: “If you want to be creative, get out there and do it. It’s not a waste of time. DO IT.”

Oh yeah and the Oscar for Visual Effects goes to Avatar, natch.

KB (11:01): Twitter is telling us that Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur were missing from the March of the Deaduins. I’m too lazy to rewind to fact-check, which I guess was probably the Oscar video putter-togethers’ problem too.

KB (11:06): An earlier-received IM:

Friend: Who the heck is Tyler Perry
Friend: I thought it was a girl
Friend: That person is in everything though

KB (11:08): And the Oscar for editing goes to: the most delightfully awkward couple of all time. “…and, uh, my wife.” Hey, better job under pressure than Hilary Swank!

KB (11:12): I think we’re transitioning to a new post now, which sounds like something George Clooney would say to you over webcam because yeah, admit it, you are basically the Stephanie Voorhees of your office, aren’t you?

DC (11:19): PART THREE FOUND HERE.

Welcome to The Awl’s liveblogging of The Oscars! Can you feel the magic in the air? I can’t emphasize how happy I am that we’re doing this, doesn’t it seem like there’s not nearly enough coverage online of this wonderful celebration of cinema?

The way this will work is various Awl contributors, or possibly just myself and Katie Baker/Bakes, will rotate in 15–20 minute shifts, of live-blogging, while also responding, critiquing, and-most likely-praising, the person who came before us. It’s also very possible that this system will completely breakdown and it will be a much more willy nilly affair that involves Katie and myself frantically trying to make Robert Pattinson jokes all night, so, get excited for that!

So starting now and until 8pm EST, THE BEGINNING OF THE OSCARS, Katie Baker/Bakes will be your liveblogging host with pre-show related stuff that I have not been watching because I don’t watch E! Entertainment network!

Katie Baker: Whoa, Joan Rivers doesn’t do the red carpet anymore! I guess I should have known this, but I did not. Ryan Seacrest is being Ryan Seacrest, his normal winky and overly-apologetic self. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask,” he oft intones.

But he does make some good points. “She’s kind of a like a chick … who is half a dude,” he said to Ryan Reynolds by way of asking what it’s like to work with Sandra Bullock, whose lipstick is the best I’ve seen since Michelle Williams that one time. My roommate had his own take. “Please tell me she’s with him!” he delighted, recognizing Jesse James. “They’ve been together, like forever,” I said. While I may have only seen 10% of the best picture nominees, I at least keep up appearance! I read tabloid mags on planes.

Having seen a little too many episodes of Say Yes To The Dress, I can’t stop pointing at the screen and yelling “crumbcatcher neckline!” Which by the way: I found Vera Farmiga’s jewel-toned Marchesa to be so perfect on a blond, although I’m sure her ruffles will rankle for some.

It seems like Amanda Seyfried and J-Lo were clad a little close for comfort? (Speaking of Amanda, she’s quitting Big Love for a Leo-produced Little Red Riding Hood (?!) and she and Kristen Stewart both look like late-summer bridesmaids with their conspicuous tank top tans that battle strapless necklines.) America’s Top Model’s renowned Miss J, who looks like some silver Goldfinger sequel, has already proclaimed the latter the “Best Dress” of this year. Miss J and I do not agree.

George Clooney was just ambling around the grounds leaning into random microphones and babbling like he owns the estate. Which I mean, he kind of does.

Katie Baker (7:55 PM): Okay, Charlize Theron is wearing a giant rosebud bra attached to a dress. Miley Cyrus won’t stop slumping, and she has the bikini tan lines too. Come on, Millenial Celebs! At least learn how to fill in via self tanner! You could learn a lot from Giuliana Rancic, whose orange glow is smooth and even. (She, by the way, goes in the annals of Women I Have Trouble Looking At Because I Can Make Out Their Skull Beneath Their Face, alongside Bethenny Frankel and Teri Hatcher. There oughta be a German word?)

Katie Baker (7:57 PM): Did anyone see earlier when Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard made a cutesy reference to “a stolen moment” this morning when they got to eat breakfast together, and then got super awkward and cagey when they were asked on what they dined? She was definitely licking whipped cream and maple syrup off of Peter’s newly-bald head, right?

My bestie just IMed me to let me know: “My mom doesn’t like Cameron Diaz because she thinks she’s ‘been around the block’.”

Katie Baker (8:01 PM): It was really hard to navigate away from Johnny Weir on E! so I could watch Kathy Ireland on ABC.

Katie Baker (8:03 PM): Why did Jake and Reese break up? I took that one pretty hard. Hey, here’s George again! I think I can see his date’s lacy corset beneath her dress. He just openly praised the language barrier. I bet
he yells terrible things at her after too many bourbons and she just smiles and leans forward to adjust her cleavage.

Alex Balk (8:11): Hey, Balk here! When you think of the guy you want doing the red carpet shift, you think me, right? Well fuck you, I’m not happy about it either! Ooh, look, Matt Damon! And now old people!

Alex Balk (8:17): What’s her name and that guy she is married to! They look much smaller than they do in the movies/on TV shows!

Alex Balk (8:20): I will recharge the woman in that commercial’s elasticity, if you know what I mean.

Alex Balk (8:21): Just to be clear, I was NOT talking about Whoopi Goldberg.

Alex Balk (8:22): David Cho is concerned that I’m not being celebrity-oriented enough, so I do want to point out that HOLY SHIT THE ACCOUNTANTS FROM PRICE WATERHOUSE ARE HERE!

Alex Balk (8:22): Hey Tina Fey and Steve Carrell, if you’re going to whore out your movie-and that’s FINE, we know how these things work&emdashjust; whore it out. Enough with the wide-eyed grins to show us that you know you’re being whores. We know you know! Whores!

Alex Balk (8:24): I’ll just put it right out there: I dig Jeff Bridges. Great actor, seems like a perfectly amiable guy. The fact that he did not win an Oscar for his greatest performance is a terrible joke. And yes, I mean “Starman.”

Alex Balk (8:26): So are the mean girls in our nation’s junior highs calling other girls “Precious” as an insult yet?

Alex Balk (8:28): And the red carpet part is over! I am getting the fuck out of here for now! Also, holy crap, THAT was Kathy Ireland? WTF? Anyway, I think Cho’s up next! Enjoy!

David Cho (8:30): So I guess I’m doing this now? Full disclosure, when I told Alex to do 8:00–8:30, I thought that the show was starting at 8, so he would be doing opening and all of that good stuff. Clearly I was wrong and now I am doing this?

DC (8:31): Wait, it just starts? There’s no dance number or something? OH MY GOD THE GIRL FROM ‘PRECIOUS’ IS SO SASSY!!!

DC (8:31): Could Neil Patrick Harris have done this stuff if Perez Hilton hadn’t outed him? Right?

DC (8:34): True story, saw NPH in person once and the guy was insanely jacked. Ugh, I’m not liveblogging “like a ‘mo” am I?

DC (8:35): Alec Baldwin’s bowtie is really agressive. Why is it so huge? It’s twice the size of Steve Martin’s!

DC (8:37): Everyone is being really polite. This is not what the MTV Movie Awards are like.

DC (8:37): Didn’t they already do a Meryl Streep section? Another one?

DC (8:38): That CAA joke is a little insider-y. AM I WATCHING ENTOURAGE OR SOMETHING???

DC (8:40): Damn, Katherine Bigalow looks great. What an attractive woman.

DC (8:41): GEORGE CLOONEY DID NOT LIKE THAT TOYOTA JOKE. OR THE OTHER ONES THEY’RE MAKING.

DC (8:41): I like that the close ups keep getting closer. And now they’re getting further away, what is happening here??

DC (8:44): Oh, so this George Clooney thing is a bit. That’s great. A stern face, how “funny.”

DC (8:45): Wow, these clips are long. I’ve been sitting on this “and the best supporting actor goes to” post for two minutes.

DC (8:48): Best Supporting Actor Goes to Christoph Waltz. DEFINTELY deserved. He was great, great, in that. That being said, his speeches are always awesome. “Uber-bingo,” weird metaphors about directions, but always so sincere and nice.

DC (8:50): Do they not have commercials for this show? Katie Baker is taking over now!

KB (8:52): The scrolling footnote that just invaded my screen is pretty great:

ABC7 AND CABLEVISION HAVE MADE SIGNIFICANT PROGRESS, AND HAVE REACHED AN AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE THAT RECOGNIZES THE FAIR VALUE OF ABC7, WITH DEAL POINTS THAT WE EXPECT TO FINALIZE WITH CABLEVISION. GIVEN THIS MOVEMENT, WE’RE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT ABC7 WILL RETURN TO CABLEVISION HOUSEHOLDS WHILE WE WORK TO COMPLETE OUR NEGOTIATIONS.

KB (8:53): Has anyone investigated yet whether Helen Mirren, Kathy Baker (no relation, although she and my mother share a name) and Mary Kay Place are secretly triplets? And if they are, admit this would make for a killer reality show on LMN.

KB (8:58): So far this production is kind of just whatever. The Steve Martin / Alec Baldwin lineup maybe feels as forced and “favors were called in” as The Marriage Ref did? I dunno, I just was hoping for behavior that skewed more inappropriate. Ha, Cameron Diaz is getting punished by the teleprompter for stealing Queen Sandra’s lipstick hue.

OMG, I just looked up at the screen and there was an animated alligator that had the SAME VOICE as the most important animated alligator in all of film history:

KB (9:00): UPixar wins Best Animated Feature. I refuse to watch this movie because even reading a description of the opening montage makes me bawl with shoulder-heaving abandon.

KB (9:04): Someone that is not Jeff Bridges won something for Crazy Heart. OMG his name is T-Bone Burnat and what is going on, some dude just told his wife that he “loves [her] more than rainbows.” David Cho just IM’d to say that the dude in sunglasses looks like a fat James Cameron. Sorry, I don’t know what just happened.

I also don’t know what this means, but it sounds smart. From my inbox: “Why does the director accept the award for best animated film but it’s the producer for best picture? TACIT COMMENTARY ON AUTEUR THEORY, ACADEMY???” Discuss.

KB (9:10): Hows abouts we check in with Gavin McInnes? He has a lot to say about Meryl Streep!

Hey Meryl Streep, don’t be so shocked by your popularity. The majority of the American population is as old as your old ass.
Meryl Streep is America’s bran flakes.
–
Helen Mirren has TILFs: Tits I’d Like to Fuck
I’m Neil Patrick Harris and I’m a fagaholic.
What’s gayer than “nude” hosiery?
–
If Meryl Streep dies, can I have her tits? My brother and I need sleeping bags.

KB (9:14): Already Over: Teleprompter-based humor.

KB (9:15): Oooh, hate for “any soldier with a webcam or cellphone.” They’re totes hating on bloggers!!!1!

And the winner for best original screenplay is: The Hurt Locker.

KB (9:18): I am being chastened for not knowing about T-Bone Burnatt. Here, knock yourselves out!

DC (9:20): Programming Note: The second part of the liveblog is happening in a new post!