Oscars 2011: live coverage of the 83rd Academy Awards

Oscars 2011: live coverage of the 83rd Academy Awards

Frock by frock, gong by gong, gaffe by gaffe coverage of the 2011 Oscars, in which The King's Speech reigned victorious

Colin Firth accepts the best actor Oscar for The King's Speech. Photograph: Mark J. Terrill/AP

11.23pm: Welcome to the 83rd Academy Awards. The main action kicks off at 5pm PST, 1am GMT, but before then we have the small matter of the red carpet histrionics to attend to. Please stick with us as we celebrate the winners and usher the losers on a one-way trip to Palookaville. It's an Oscar tradition that losing nominees are forced to lick the red carpet clean following the show so we'll stick around to see that too. Oscars 2011: Melissa Leo, nominated for her role in The Fighter, arrives for the 83rd Academy Awards Photograph: Chris Pizzello/AP

We'll be bringing you all the action from the Kodak theatre, Los Angeles as the Academy doles out its annual accolades. Will The King's Speech extend its dominion or will The Social Network have more friends? Is Black Swan the dark horse or will The Kids be better than All Right? Xan Brooks will be liveblogging and inviting you to have your say. He'll be joined by our roving reporter, Hadley Freeman, who will keep you up to date with all the gossip from the event, while running her expert fashion eye over proceedings. Our critics, including Peter Bradshaw and Andrew Pulver, will be on hand with instant opinions, while Jason Solomons will be pooling reaction in his podcast studio. There will be picture galleries and videos, as well, of course, as up-to-the-minute news of the awards and speeches. You could even send pictures of your wild Oscar night celebrations to our Flickr group.
In the meantime, get yourself primed for the action. We already have, for your consideration, a comprehensive interactive guide to all the best picture contenders, pulling together all the reviews, interviews and trailers for each film. Our team have been putting passionate cases for their favourite films in our Oscar hustings video series. Vote online for who you think should win in the big categories. Then join us on Sunday night if you simply have to be the first to know. And the winner is … you.
Hailee Steinfeld makes an entrance. Photograph: Andrew Gombert/EPA

11.50pm: It's the 83rd annual Academy Awards, live as a petri-dish from the Kodak theatre in Hollywood. The lights are green and the carpet's red. And for our exhausted nominees, staggering and borderline-incoherent at the end of a gruelling awards season, the carpet is the final straight on their route to triumph or disaster. By this point they just want to be inside, in their seats, waiting for the envelopes to open. They want it done, they want it over, but joke's on them, because there is still a long, long way to go.

First fashion spot. Hailee Steinfeld, it seems, has come dressed (rather fetchingly) as candyfloss.

12.15am: Out on the carpet, the celebrities come and go. Their eyes are fixed desperately on the entrance, but the entrance might as well be a million miles away, for even now there remains one last indignity to contend with. Before they can gain access to the Kodak theatre, the nominees must navigate the wiles of Fawn, Gush and Flirt, the court sycophants from E! Entertainment.

This, it transpires, is an Oscar tradition. And nobody - but nobody - fawns and gushes and flirts like Fawn, Gush and Flirt. Each question is a compliment in disguise, every inquiry a gold-plated invitation to twirl and to preen. So ostensibly, Fawn, Gush and Flirt are here to praise the stars, not bury them. Everyone is wonderful. Everyone is beautiful. Everyone is going to walk home with an Oscar. Ah, if only it were so. The danger of all these honeyed compliments, of course, is that they are but the coating on a man-trap.
In this way Fawn, Gush and Flirt play a deeply subversive role. They are here puff up the nominees, to fill their heads with dreams of stardom, to pump them up so much that they assume there is no possible way that they can lose. And then they waft the nominees towards the Kodak theatre, with their pants metaphorically around their ankles, primed for a spectacular fall on prime-time TV. And where will Fawn, Gush and Flirt be then? Laughing, laughing fit to burst.

12.18am: Right now the directors have the run of the red carpet. Look, there's Tim Burton, and Danny Boyle, and Steven Spielberg, who is presumably here because he's Steven Spielberg. Does the carpet run on a clock? 4.15-4.20pm is directors; 4.20-4.30 is starlets. Between 4.30 and 4.35: that's sound editor time.

12.24am: "It's Jennifer Hudson!" announces Flirt, and she knows whereof she speaks. "It's Jennifer Hudson! You look so pretty! Mwah! Mwah!" Across the way, Penelope Cruz clasps Javier Bardem's hand and they sidle, in tandem, crab-like towards the entrance.

Now Flirt has found Kevin Spacey and attempts to interview him against the din of screams. "I don't think they're screaming for me," shrugs Spacey.
"No," Flirt agrees, perhaps just a little too readily. "Halle Berry's here! Halle Berry!" And all at once, Kevin Spacey is all but shoved out of the way.
Oh, and talking of glamour, feast your eyes on this: the Guardian's Flickr pics, which perfectly captures all the glitz of Oscar night. Feast your eyes, Flirt, and then tell us precisely how beautiful we are.
Jesse Eisenberg. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/REUTERS

12.40am: Approximately $10bn worth of fashion (aka the outriders of the entertainment industry) has now infested the carpet outside the Kodak theatre. We see Chris Nolan, Hailee Steinfeld, Jesse Eisenberg, Josh Brolin and look, just who is that vision of luminous beauty? The one with the gleaming head and the come-hither twinkle? It is none other than Rupert Murdoch and you better believe it, he looks good enough to eat.

"The red carpet is literally hotting up down here," reports Flirt. She says this cheerfully, but it is surely cause for grave concern. Literally hotting up as in about to combust? Wouldn't that be horrendous? All those celebrities, those designer dresses, all that hair lacquer: the whole lot of them going up like so many Roman Candles. A great, gaudy bonfire of the vanities. Screaming and perhaps rolling on the carpet in a desperate bid to put themselves out. And all the while, Flirt and Fawn will be standing to one side and gently laughing, Perhaps leaning in with their microphones from time to time. "Amy Adams, you look so beautiful. You're literally on fire tonight."
Cate Blanchett. Well done, Mr Byrite. Photograph: Amy Sancetta/AP

12.46am: Latest news from the carpet. Fawn is Cate Blanchett's biggest fan. He's just informed her of it too, right there in front of the Kodak theatre, and then gone on to to ask her who she's wearing. Cate Blanchett duly tells him but ashamed to say I missed the name. It might have been Mr Byrite.

And still the stars keep on a-coming. Here come Annette Bening and Warren Beatty, Marisa Tomei and Donald Trump (but not together; not holding hands). At one end of the carpet stands Helena Bonham Carter, who may well pick up the best supporting actress for her turn in The King's Speech. At the other, there's Mark Ruffalo who almost certainly won't win the best supporting actor statue for The Kids Are All Right. One day, God willing, his time will come.
Actress Anne Hathaway and fashion designer Valentino arrive at the Oscars. Photograph: John Shearer/Getty Images

12.56am: A missive from the frontline from our esteemed colleague Hadley Freeman:

Jesus H Christ, Annette Bening has dressed like an Oscars statuette and her hair is literally standing straight up. She is also giggling hysterically on the red carpet. Maybe she's just spotted her reflection in the mirror.

Followed, a minute later, by another:

Anne Hathaway has come to the ceremony with ... Valentino. Come on, Anne, we know you've been burnt in love before by your thieving Italian boyfriend but could you really not find a better date than a strange orange gnome?

Thanks to Hadley for clearing up the mystery of Hathaway's date. For a second there I feared that all the sun and the stress had worked a terrible fate on poor James Franco.
And not a stray dog in sight ... Reese Witherspoon arrives at the Oscars. Photograph: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

1.03am: Now along comes Robert Downey Jr and it turns out he's here on a mission. "I'm here presenting for visual effects and editing," he explains. "Stunning," says Gush.

Elsewhere, Reese Witherspoon is being asked "how long it took her to decide to wear Armani". If she's anything like me, it's normally about seven months. You can't rush Armani. But, by God, once the decision is made there's no going back and I usually wind up wearing him until he sprouts mould and rots off my back and stray dogs start pursuing me on the street. But that's just me. Reese may well do things differently.

1.10am: And still the carpet spectacle shows no sign of abating. Here's Fawn with a question for Jennifer Hudson. "Are there any dreams you HAVEN'T accomplished yet?" Hudson burbles through a gracious response and then Fawn pounces with his coup de grace; the thing he really, really wants to say. "We all love you, Jennifer," he says.

Along come Hugh Jackman and James Franco (who looks nothing like Valentino), Natalie Portman and Justin Timberlake, so good in The Social Network, who points out that the carpet is not red, not exactly. "It's got kind of a fuschia thing going on," he claims. "Justin Timberlake, colour theorist," announces Fawn.
Another presenter rolls up to ask Sandra Bullock if motherhood has changed her as an actor. Bullock thinks about it, but can't say for sure: "I don't know if motherhood has changed me as an actress, we'll see," she says. Happily, however, one thing hasn't changed. "You look stunning, as always," the presenter tells her.
Jeez, is that the time? Isn't this thing supposed to be starting any minute? Is there some clause in Bullock's contract that prohibits the Oscars from getting under way until she has made up her mind, once and for all, whether motherhood has changed her as an actress? And in the meantime the others just have to stand out there and wait; broiling in the LA sunshine while the carpet literally turns hotter and hotter, and tendrils of smoke start crawling from their shoes. Time, I guess, will tell.
Natalie Portman, left, and dancer Benjamin Millepied arrive at the Oscars. Photograph: Matt Sayles/AP

1.25am: More from the redoubtable Hadley Freeman, live as you like in Los Angeles, California.

Well played, Natalie Portman, in your long purple dress which almost totally disguises your pregnancy. While all actresses are, of course, expected to spawn as otherwise they will be seen as tragic failures (see The Aniston Disaster), they must not look pregnant as that is basically the same as looking fat. So well done, Natalie, for mastering this conundrum.
Now just try not to announce that your fiancé wants to shag you as you did at the Oscars and we'll all go home happy.

and ...

Nicole Kidman has come as the White Swan. Nice try there, Kidman, we see what you did there. Keith Urban hair update: still working those highlights. And those highlights still ain't working.

and ...

Gwyneth is wearing the most extraordinary earrings ever forged on God's earth. Blog photo people, get a picture post haste!

Happily, the evidence suggests that the dignitaries are now gathering inside the Kodak theatre. Still more happily, the vast majority of them appear to have emerged unscathed from their brush with the Amazing Flammable Carpet. Tom Hanks looks a little singed about the edges, but he is smiling, smiling to reassure us that all is well. Outside, I'm guessing, the thing is now being hosed down by the fire brigade. By the time this thing finally wraps up, the ashes will have been scooped up and flung far out, to the four winds over Mulholland Drive. Good riddance to bad (and dangerous) rubbish.

1.34am: And now, at long last, "it's the 83rd Academy Awards". It begins with a little Zelig-style montage, as co-presenters Anne Hathaway and James Franco inveigle themselves into all 10 of the best picture nominees. The best clip has Franco in the bear costume, on the back of a horse, in True Grit. As for the rest, I'm not so sure. On and on it goes and eventually even the audience laughter dries up and dies.

1.38am: Now up come our co-hosts James Franco and Anne Hathaway, beaming and clapping like the king and queen of some billion-dollar prom.

"Anne, I must say you look so beautiful and hip," says Franco. "Well thank you, James," rejoins Hathaway. "You're very appealing to the younger demographic yourself."
Is that sexual tension crackling in the air between them? If so, it's sparking, sparking, yet to fully ignite (like that infernal carpet outside). Maybe they're still getting the measure of each other - these two star-crossed souls: so similar in some ways; so dissimilar in others, like two golden emissaries from either side of the nation.
Meet Anne: she's your ultimate east coast WASP, smart and funny and borderline neurotic. Now meet James: he's sun-washed, star-dusted and totally west coast; a free-living child of Topanga canyon, tie-dyed on the inside. So far they seem a little coy, a shade nervous. But by the end of the evening, all being well and the heavens in alignment, these two may just find the United State of Romance.
Dear God, we may have just scripted our pitch for the worst romcom of 2011.

1.48am: It's the first award of the night, it's for art direction and it's presented by Mr Tom Hanks. And it goes all the way to Robert Stromberg and Karen O'Hara for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. As often seems to be the way with these things, the man hogs the mike and the woman can only get in a burbled "This is for you, Tim" before her partner leans in again and says some more stuff about how proud and happy he is.

Seconds later, it's time for the cinematography Oscar. I was hoping this would go to the great Roger Deakins for True Grit (for by God, it's been a long time coming). Instead it falls to Wally Pfister for Inception. Deakins, it turns out, will have to wait at least another year.
Melissa Leo at the Oscars. Photograph: Michael Caulfield/WireImage

1.59am: Let it be known that while Kirk Douglas may have turned 94, and while, when it was announced he was showing up at this year's Oscars, many will have assumed he was booked for the in-memoriam section, the Spartacus star has clearly lost none of his moxie. "I want to thank Anne Hathaway," he says, and then shoots her a pop-eyed stare. "She's gorgeous!" he roars.

Douglas Senior is here to call the winner in this year's race for the best supporting actress Oscar. So bring on the contenders! Round up combative Amy Adams and Melissa Leo from The Fighter, refined Helena Bonham Carter of The King's Speech, vengeful Hailee Steinfeld from True Grit and Animal Kingdom's Jacki Weaver, with her beaming smile and cold, killer's gaze.
First Douglas pops the envelope in his mouth. Then, finally, he gets it in one hand and starts clawing it open. But he seems in no hurry. "You're still laughing," he says. "Colin Firth is still laughing."
At long last it's down to business. And the winner is ... Melissa Leo. Which just goes to prove that taking out adverts for yourself, paid for out of your own pocket, need not necessarily scupper your chances. And as she comes to the stage, Douglas seizes his big opportunity and plants a kiss on her face. Anne Hathaway is already a distant, fading memory.
But then, just when it looks as if Leo has put all past controversies behind her, she sticks her foot in it all over again. "I'm lost for words up here," she says. "I saw Cate do this a few years ago and it looked so fucking easy!" The horrified gasps almost lift the roof clean off the Kodak theatre.

2.03am: Here comes that picturesque duo Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake to announce this year's Oscar for best animated short. And the winner is ... Nick Batzias, Shaun Tan and Andrew Ruhemann for The Lost Thing. All three victors rock up on stage. One of them, it seems, is British. That surely makes this the night's first Great British Success Story. So that's the Daily Mail's front page sorted. From here on in, everything else is just an afterthought.

2.10am: The Oscar for best animated feature does not go to The Illusionist, good though it was. Nor does it go to How to Train Your Dragon.

It goes, as pretty much everyone said it would, to Toy Story 3, Lee Unkrich's glorious Pixar 'toon (a film that Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw dearly wants to see win the best picture award as well). "I want to thank the Academy and I never thought I'd be saying that," says Unkrich. Why not? It makes it sound like he has some history with the Academy.
"I want to thank the Academy and I never thought I'd be saying that, after they ran over my dog in their car."
"I want to thank the Academy and I never thought I'd be saying that, after I caught the Academy president in bed with the wife." The possibilities are endless. Perhaps we shall never, ever know.

2.20am: James Brolin and Javier Bardem are here to call the best adapted screenplay award. They are clad in matching white, with white bow-ties, and this makes them look like nightclub bouncers who have come disguised as angels.

And the Oscar goes to .... Aaron Sorkin for his crisp, graceful script for The Social Network - a decision that few but the losing nominees would argue with. Sorkin has a lot of people to thank and he thanks them at length, as some lackey behind the curtain keeps cranking up the volume on the music in a desperate, nagging bid to drown him out.
And then seconds later, the Oscar for best original screenplay falls to David Seidler for The King's Speech. Seidler, if I recall, gave the night's most heartfelt, moving speech at the Baftas a few weeks back, and he's on similar form again here. "My father always said I'd be a late bloomer," the 74-year-old writer confides. "I believe I'm the oldest person ever to win this award. I hope that record is broken soon and often."

2.28am: We've had the flaming carpet and the profane best supporting actress and now, for added torment, we get the singing co-presenter. Anne Hathaway sings a dirge about Hugh Jackman, and then James Franco shows up dressed as Marilyn Monroe. Needless to say, it is utterly hilarious. It's like watching an opening routine from the Little and Large Show, circa 1982. Now there's a thought: maybe they can get Little and Large to compere next year's event. And what a coup that would be.

All told, it is with a weird sense of relief that we welcome Russell Brand and Helen Mirren to present this year's best foreign film Oscar. And the winner is ... Denmark (the whole of Denmark) for In a Better World.

2.35am: Please welcome Reese Witherspoon, on hand to bugle the winner of the best supporting actor award.

The contenders for this one assemble like penitents at an AA meeting. We have Christian Bale, crack-addled in The Fighter, John Hawkes, cooking crystal meth in the woods of Winter's Bone, Jeremy Renner, guzzling cheap beer in The Town and Mark Ruffalo slurping fine wine in The Kids Are All Right. Only Geoffrey Rush out of The King's Speech seems clean and sober, although I seem to remember him drinking an awful lot of tea.
And the winner is ... Christian Bale for The Fighter. Proof, if proof were needed, that crack is better than meth, and beer, and wine, and tea.
"Bloody hell," hollers Bale. His accent sounds a little suspect. There's lots of hand gestures, lots of matey banter. He doesn't quite say "Lord luvva duck" but you can bet he considered it. Nor does he quite say "Stone the bleedin' crows!", but I'm guessing it was there in the first draft of his acceptance speech. In person, on this evidence, Bale seems a self-conscious chump. But who cares? He was brilliant in The Fighter and deserves every award they care to throw at him.

2.45am: Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman have come to the 83rd annual Academy Awards to tell us how much they like music. They like music a lot. In particular, it seems, they like music when it is played on the soundtrack on a motion picture. Their enthusiasm is touching, but is there any particular reason that they are telling us all this now? Haven't we got an Oscar ceremony to watch?

But then, of course, all is explained. All of this eulogising is just a preamble to their presenting the Oscar for "achievement in music written for motion pictures (original score)". Confession: I thought this one was going to Alexandre Desplat for The King's Speech. But no: it goes to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross for their superbly chill and elegant score for The Social Network. They play it again as the winners walk up and it sounds as wonderful as ever.

2.50am: More Oscars. So many Oscars at this event, and who could have predicted that? This one is for sound mixing and it goes to Inception.

And from here, it's just a quick scratchy skip to the Oscar for sound editing. This one goes to Inception too. Quietly, stealthily, Chris Nolan's metaphysical heist movie is racking up a number of technical awards here. What remains to be seen is whether it can break out and colonise the other categories too. So far, however, its success seems safely ring-fenced.

3.02am: It's Cate Blanchett - "an Oscar winner and always stunning", says Hathaway. This differentiates her from all those other Oscar winners who instantly run to fat and break out in spots, and start pulling out their own hair for kicks. That's why they're not here and Cate Blanchett is.

Perhaps fittingly, Blanchett is here to hand out the makeup award (which goes to The Wolfman) and costume (which falls to Alice in Wonderland). Job complete, Blanchett heads for the wings. Still stunning, no spots and forever an Oscar winner.

3.09am: It is one of the first laws of Oscar that there is a time for winning, a time for losing and a time for songs. This portion of the evening, it transpires, is the time for songs. First Randy Newman sits at a piano and sings his song from Toy Story. Then it is the cue for Mandy Moore to step up and sing a song from Tangled. The song is riddled, top-to-tail, with foul expletives.

Actually, it's not riddled with foul expletives. Perish the thought. It is sweet, verging on the saccharine. At no point does Mandy Moore pull a face into the camera and start effing and blinding like a drunken Melissa Leo. She stays entirely on message.

3.17am: Amy Adams is clinging to Jake Gyllenhaal's arm as she steps out to present an award. Maybe she fears she will fall over. The award is for best documentary short and it's going, going all the way to Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon for their refugee portrait Strangers No More. Both are roundly applauded as they collect their statues.

Next up it's the turn of the live-action short. The winner is Luke Matheny for God of Love. "Ugh, I should have got a hair-cut," jokes the irrepressible Matheny, who sports a vast black bouffant that makes him look like an untidy microphone.
"NYU, what's up?" quips James Franco as Matheny ambles unhurriedly off the stage. And with that we're into another musical montage.

3.25am: A laboured, circuitous introduction from Oprah Winfrey leads us all the way - round the houses and up the path - to this year's best documentary Oscar. And the winner is ... Inside Job, Charles Ferguson's rigorous, quietly devastating autopsy of the 2008 financial meltdown. "After which, not a single banking executive has gone to jail," he points out on taking the stage.

No doubt about it: Inside Job is a fine film and a deserved winner. But its victory does spoil for the fun for those who wanted to see what would have happened had Exit Through the Gift Shop picked up the gong instead. Would Banksy have shown? And if not, would he have sent a Sacheen Littlefeather-type in his place? Now, alas, we shall never know.
Hey ho. What with Banksy's collapse and Lee Unkrich possibly nursing a deep and abiding grudge against the Academy for deliberately running over his dog on their Harley-Davidson, these Oscars are leaving so many pressing questions woefully unanswered.

3.30am: Make way, make way for the Ghost of Oscars Past. It is none other than Billy Crystal, probably the most beloved of recent presenters, come to rescue hapless Hathaway and faltering Franco. Crystal hasn't MC-ed one of these things for a number of years now and first appearances aren't altogether encouraging. The face is a little too immobile; the hair a little too black. But he's limber and confident, striking just the balance between respect and irreverence, a professional to his fingertips. Perhaps they can convince him to come back next year, assuming Little and Large aren't able to wriggle out of that booking in Dick Whittington (Bournemouth Playhouse, tickets still on sale).

Moving right along, here are Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr to hand out the visual effects Oscar. It goes to Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb. Inception, for the record, is now in the lead with a total of four Oscars. But it may well have peaked too soon.

3.36am: It's the Oscar for editing and it goes to Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter for The Social Network. "We'd like to thank our wives," they say, "for allowing us to have such incredible affairs with our family and our work. And our PAs."

OK, they didn't actually say their PAs. But at this time of the evening the ears play tricks and you start hearing anything and everything. I'm now wondering if I hallucinated Melissa Leo using the F-word about 127-hours ago.

3.47am: "How you doing, James?" asks Hathaway. "Not so good," responds Franco.

It is an exchange that may prove to be their epitaph. They're not doing badly, exactly, but they sure as hell aren't doing good. Where's Steve Martin? Jon Stewart? Ricky Gervais? Hathaway and Franco just seem a shade underpowered. They are idling at half-speed, basking in the very fact of their being there and seemingly terrified of giving offence.
Now Gwyneth Paltrow is on stage singing about "a four-letter word".
"The world tried to break me, I something-something take me," she croons. "Ooh-ooh-ooh," she adds. "Oooh-ooh-oooh."
On the desk next to me, sub-editing Ian is unimpressed. "I'll give her a four-letter word," he offers. "Shit."
Sadly there's no time for Ian to make good on this promise, because Gwyneth has gone (no encores for Gwyneth) and then up steps Randy Newman to collect the best song Oscar for We Belong Together, from Toy Story 3.
Newman appears a bit startled to be there. "My strike rate is not good," he confides. "I've been nominated 20 times and this is the second time I've won."

3.58am: Now is the time to remove your hats and bow your heads and walk, with Celine Dion, through the Great Celebrity Boneyard. Dion is singing "Smile, while your heart is breaking" as we flit through the clips of the dearly departed. And there they go: big-as-life Tony Curtis, classy John Barry, glorious Patricia Neal.

Still they keep on coming: Leslie Nielsen, Susannah York, Arthur Penn, Lynn Redgrave and Lena Horn, all taking their final bow here tonight. It's a montage that is both poignant and oddly energising. If cinema does anything, I guess, it preserves and celebrates; catches these people at their best and then holds them that way forever. So it's not just Tony Curtis who still seems as big-as-life, caught in that brief black-and-white clip. It's the whole lovely lot of them.

4.04am: Now raise your heads and stick your hats back on, for it's back to the land of the living. Time now for the best director Oscar.

Your contenders tonight: Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David O Russell (The Fighter), Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), David Fincher (The Social Network) and the Coen brothers (True Grit). The shortlist is read out by Kathryn Bigelow, who won last year for The Hurt Locker.
And the winner is ... Tom Hooper for The King's Speech. This, it must be said, is something of a shock. Yes, Hooper picked up the Directors' Guild Award a month or two back (usually a good Oscar indicator) but failed on home soil at the Baftas. Most insiders figured this was going to Fincher. But no: it's Hooper.
On stage, he heaps praise on his mother, who first pointed him towards The King's Speech. "The moral of this story: listen to your mother," he says.

4.11am: Welcome back, welcome back to the Kodak theatre, where Anne Hathaway has changed into yet another dress: her sixth of the evening, apparently. How is she finding the time? What becomes of all the discarded gowns? I'm picturing them all thrown in a heap at the side of the stage, some torn right down the back in her haste to get them off in time.

Anyway, enough with the dresses. Here comes Jeff Bridges (by the looks of things, still in the same damn suit he was wearing at the start of the night) to call out the next award. It is time, at last, to rate the actresses.
There's Annette Bening, who played an uptight, hard-drinking lesbian mom in The Kids Are All Right and Nicole Kidman, who was grieving mom in that film about rabbits. Jennifer Lawrence played a girl on a mission in Winter's Bone while Michelle Williams put a torch to a marriage in Blue Valentine. And then there is bookies' favourite Natalie Portman, who starred as an ambitious, virginal prima-ballerina in Black Swan.

4.20am: And the Oscar goes to ... Natalie Portman, for Black Swan. And up she totters, heavily pregnant, to collect her statue. "I truly wish that the prize tonight was to get to work with my fellow nominees, I'm so in awe of you," Portman begins and then wells up as she proceeds to thank her parents, Luc Besson (who provided her with her first job in Leon), her agents and Darren Aronofosky.

She's on a roll now, the names are spilling out, there is no end to the names. Joe was an assistant director and Ricky dressed her and Olga did something else. The music rises up and claims her and so off she goes, bearing precious cargo, with a statue in her fist and a bump beneath her dress.

4.25am: We're swinging into the last lap now and so along comes Sandra Bullock to deliver this year's best actor Oscar.

Just time to name-check the other nominees, then, before the envelope is opened and Colin Firth's name gets read out. These, for the record, are Javier Bardem (Biutiful), Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network), last year's winner Jeff Bridges (True Grit) and this year's co-host James Franco (for 127 Hours). Say hello and wave goodbye; they are all just seconds from oblivion.
And the winner of the best actor Oscar (aka this year's Proud to be British award) is … Colin Firth for The King's Speech.

4.30am: Up comes Firth. As is customary with Firth, he arrives with the pained air of a schoolmaster who must step on stage at morning assembly to break some rather embarrassing news. Perhaps it is that Mr Henderson has sadly decided to leave the school, partly - though not entirely - because of the incident in the bike sheds. We all know the incident I am referring to, so there is no need to go into it again. But anyway, Mr Henderson has left and it's a great shame but there it is, so let us say no more about it.

So up comes Firth. His speech is diffident and gently witty. He thanks Tom Hooper and David Seidler and Harvey Weinstein, who spotted him when he was "just a young sensation". At one stage he threatens to dance. At the end he says he is going to retire backstage and surrender to some powerful "impulses". It is the end of a long, long journey for Firth, who possibly should have won for A Single Man last year but has won this year for his turn as stuttering George VI. If he needs to surrender to some potent impulse or other, he's surely entitled.
So long as it's not murder, of course. We truly hope it's not murder.

4.35am: Make way for Steven Spielberg. He is here to call out the last award, the crowning award, the award that lords it over all the other awards.

And the best picture Oscar goes to ... The King's Speech

4.42am: So The King's Speech is crowned and Harvey Weinstein proves that he still has the Oscar Midas touch. And all at once the stage is thronged. There's Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Hooper and Colin Firth. The producers - Gareth Unwin, Emile Sherman and Iain Canning - pay thanks to all involved and offer a final shout-out to the UK Film Council, which seeded the project with an initial £1m investment.

And with that the curtain comes down on the 83rd Academy Awards. Playing us out is a troupe of grinning little Hollywood munchkins who may conceivably be children. They are singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Their eyes are alight and they are singing, singing as the curtain comes down. They shall sing forever, never pausing for breath until the lights go out and the carpet catches fire and Kirk Douglas orders them, for the love of God and in the name of all that is holy, to stop.
Stop.
Stop!

5.07am: It's over, it's over, they finally stopped singing. The 83rd Academy Awards have been and gone and (fingers crossed) we shall not see their like again. In terms of actual statues dished out, these Oscars saw a dead heat between The King's Speech and Inception, both of which finished with four awards.

But the figures don't tell half the story. It was the night of The King's Speech, the little film that could. Tom Hooper's polished royal drama took the prizes that really mattered, scooping the gongs for best film, director, actor and original screenplay. The Social Network, tipped by many, faltered at the final stage and came away with three Oscars. True Grit, seen as a dark horse as recently as 24-hours ago, canters home with nothing.
And where True Grit goes, the Guardian film team follows: cantering wearily, homeward bound. Thanks for your tweets, mails and (of course) your comments. Somehow we got through it without combusting or swearing or (worst of all) singing. It is now time to gather our possessions, say our farewells and chase the rainbow back to bed.