Our live blog from the 87th Oscar Academy Awards: Arts&Life Editor Ann Marie McQueen and film reporter Chris Newbould coming at you live from their respective couches in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Chris 9.04 - Yay! It's Birdman for best film. I'm happy with that. Freeform jazz drumming is underrepresented in modern Hollywood cinema, and Alejandro González Iñárritu suggests the US introduces some new immigration laws following this year's Mexican assault on the awards. He may have a point considering the usual glut of British and Polish winners (so what if Ida was best foreign language film? No one ever stopped an American director making a movie in Polish did they? And did it win? I rest my case.)
AM Um, I really liked NPH's Oscar predictions, Chris. Terence "surprisingly emotional" Howard? Gold.
Chris 9am - OK. It's the big one. Best use of cabling in a public information film... I jest, obviously. Before we get to that, we have to sit through NPH doing a lame faux-mentalist 'here are my predictions that have been locked in a box since last week' recap. Just get on with best pic, mate, it's becoming embarrassing.
AM 8.59am My Etisalat feed of OSN Festival skips a big chunk of the show, it seems. Best director acceptance cuts off; jumps to the middle of Julianne Moore's moving acceptance speech for Still Alice.
Chris 8.57am - The pre-tournament favourite Julianne Moore takes Best Actress for Still Alice. She's gracious to her fellow nominees and takes a really rather likeable tone throughout her speech. I wonder if Gwyneth Paltrow's watching?
Chris 8.50am - Eddie Redmayne takes Best Actor for The Theory of Everything. He's very posh isn't he? Now, if that comment can just generate a response letter and as many hits as James Blunt-gate, I'll take a few days off. Fair choice though. I would have gone for Keaton myself, and I know at least one person that will be mourning Cumberbatch's loss. Perhaps as Redmayne attempts to leave the building with his award Cumberbatch will interject: "I can't allow you to do that Ed."
AM -Best director winner (Birdman) Alejandro González Iñárritu nails the artistic paradox: "Ego loves competition, because if someone wins, someone has to lose."
Chris The more they let NPH speak, the more I'm reminded of his creepy, socially inept character in Gone Girl. Please make it stop. Alejandro Inarruto takes best director for Birdman. Good call. And his speech is tinged with the kind of slightly passive/aggressive gratitude you'd expect from a Mexican genius. He probably learnt from Subcomandante Marcos...
AM - Best Adapted screenplay winner for The Imitation Game honors its subject, Alan Turing, and inspires future creatives who doubt what they feel inside: "Stay weird, stay different".
Chris 8.35am - Best adapted screenplay now. There are so many good options here. PLEASE don't use it as an excuse to give American Sniper a token award... Nope - we're safe. The Imitation Game snaps it up. And writer Graham Moore gives a rousingly received speech about his own youthful suicide attempts and celebrating difference. Blimey. That went down well. Can he host next year?
Chris 8.30am - The Imitation Game takes Best Original Score, and there's doubtless an awful gag in that about mathemeticians like Turing and 'score,' as in 20. I know, but it's probably better than anything NPH has come out with so far. Oscar's producers - my emails at the top if you need bad gags for next year. Original screenplay, meanwhile, goes to Birdman. Can't argue with that.
Chris 8.20am - Well I used that ad break for a moment of 'personal reflection,' and came back to find myself watching Lady Gaga singing The Sound of Music. Am I in a Luc Besson film? Going back to that best doc win for Citizenfour, here's Edward Snowden's, in absentia, response: "When Laura Poitras asked me if she could film our encounters, I was extremely reluctant. I'm grateful that I allowed her to persuade me. The result is a brave and brilliant film that deserves the honour and recognition it has received. My hope is that this award will encourage more people to see the film and be inspired by its message that ordinary citizens, working together, can change the world."
Here here, says the audience of one on my sofa.
AM - Wow. Julie Andrews, hugging Gaga and telling her "You were spectacular". Then, on the 50 years since starring in The Sound of Music: "I blinked and suddenly here I am."
AM - Dear Universe: Can Lady Gaga's next album cover all The Sound of Music songs please? I could listen to this all day. Thank you.
AM - What in the name of Job has John Travolta got on in place of a tie? Is that a bike chain?
Chris 8.06am - Well, Selma has been largely written off as a potential best pic winner. We'll wait and see, but at least it has one gong for Glory, best original song.
AM Glory had to win best song after that performance. Common is one righteous speaker: "This bridge was built by hope, welded with compassion..." John Legend: "March on."
AM - They need some extra Oscars! Celebrities moved to dramatic tears by Glory: Chris Pine, etc.
AM - John Legend is killing it singing Glory, the best-song nominee from Selma. Some observations: John Legend looks like he's about 18; he'd better get on a plane, he's due to close out the Dubai Jazz Fest Friday; everything is better with a gospel choir.
AM - Empire's Terence Howard wins an Arts&Life Alternative Academy Award for 'inexplicably awkward emotional introduction'
Chris 7.50am - Terence Howard is up to introduce the last couple of Best Film nominees, and manages to get through bigging up Selma without any really poor gags, unlike Neil.
AM - (*Starts to suspect Chris and I are on opposite ends of the NPH fan spectrum*) Well-timed silly joke to break the heavy mood after Laura Poitras's best documentary win, NPH: "The subject of CitizenFour Edward Snowdon could not be here for some treason"
Chris - Now Citizenfour has won best feature doc, and both Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald appear to have made it to the ceremony unmolested by the CIA. NPH makes an actually amusing gag that Edward Snowden couldn't be here this evening, but it goes down as well as the rest. Poitras, meanwhile, gives an impassioned speech about human rights, the surveillance society and the great journalists doing vital work in this field. Which reminds me, I must get another digestive.
Chris 7.44am - Bendict Cumberbatch breaking the fashion mould as he steps up to present the award for editing in a trend-setting white tux. Soething about his speech reminds me of HAL from 2001. I both like it and find it mildly disturbing. Whiplash won, but all I can think is "I can't allow you to do that Dave."
AM - No wonder Meryl Streep is nominated every year; I'd misted up before they even started the In Memoriam segment.
Chris 7.32am Meryl Streep up to present the traditional in memoriam section to the talent we've lost in the last year. Mickey Rooney, James Garner, HR Giger, Richard Attenborough all get a nod, but I'm betting the biggest teardrop will be saved for a Robin Williams montage...
Chris 7.28am - Props to OSN, incidentally, for having more than two adverts in their library. This time last year (on a different channel) I was ready to murder Nathalie Portman and have never eaten in Hardee's (or was it Wendy's? So much for the power of advertising. I've never eaten in either as a precaution) due to the Portman Chanel (or was it Givenchy? So much for the power etc...) ad and the attendant fast food affair being the only two ads that were repeated EVERY 10 MINUTES!!! Some great ads on OSN tonight. Already, that's an exaggeration. But there's more than two. Fairy steps...
Chris 7.20am - Is Felicity Jones tiny, or is Chris Pratt huge? Neither nor, according to Google. Pratt comes in at a tall but not behemoth 6'1", while Fliss is a demure but not stunted 5'2" There we go then. You may need that information. Either way, they've given the Best Production Design Award to Grand Budapest, rahter scuppering my sympathy vote theory again...
Chris - Cinematography. If Birdman doesn't take this I'll, well, I'll do nothing thankfully as Birdman has won it. I was beginning to doubt my soothsaying abilities there...
Chris 7.12am - A double whammy of Abu Dhabi interest as Furious 7's Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson presents Best animated feature to Big Hero 6, which had its 3D world premiere at last year's Abu Dhabi Film Festival. I'm reminded of an amusing moment when a TV reporter who shall remain anonymous kept calling producer Don Hall 'Ron,' despite regular corrections from the Disney gong winner...
Chris 7.06am - Special Effects is up, where the biggest, daftest blockbusters get a look in. But the many Marvel options are eschewed in favour of Interstellar. On to shut the Christopher Nolan grumblers up at last - look, he got one!. Animated Short, meanwhile, is Feast.
AM - How much do I love Patricia Arquette, best supporting actress for Boyhood, using her Oscar speech to call for wage equality? Nice work on cameras, cutting to Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez cheering her on. Now I'm glad I stayed up night to watch every last minute.
Chris 6.54am - Patricia Arquette deservedly takes the best supporting actress award for Boyhood, and gives a rousing speech demanding gender equality.
AM - I'm starting to dread it when NPH heads out into the audience. Awkward, bad jokes. This is no Ellen Degeneres working the crowd.
AM You just knew NPH would gear down to re-enact Michael Keaton's underwear walk through Times Square in Birdman backstage. But stopping to briefly impersonate JK Simmons to a drum-playing Miles Teller (Whiplash) was a brilliant addition.
Chris 6.45am - A quick visual gag on the Birdman dressing gown scene, a strange educational speech from Margot Robbie and Miles Teller about the importance of audio, and before you know it, Whiplash has snapped up Best Sound Mixing, and American Sniper best Sound Editing. Now Jared Leto is up, warming up for his MEFCC appearance in March, to present Best Supporting Actress
Chris 6.33am - NPH gives a much deserved heads up to this year's many British nominees, and makes a risky Marin Luther King gag in the process: "Now you like him!" Too soon?
Chris 6.30am Crisis Hotline wins short doc. I'm not sure which lady collecting it is which, but full marks for the dress adorned with giant pom-poms.
AM - 6.26am I feel like the night before Oscars morning in the UAE wasn't the best time to cram in a viewing of best picture nominee Boyhood. Beautiful movie, but after 2 hours and 45 minutes, I felt like I aged 12 years right along with the characters.
AM This performance of Everything is Awesome is a sensory storm. Love Canadian duo Tegan & Sarah on the Oscar stage. Ditto Andy Samberg and Lonely Planet. Where do you look? I just saw Questlove. Channing Tatum loves it too, he's killing himself.
AM - NPH: Welcome back to the Oscars, or as I like to call them, "the Dependent Spirit Awards"
Chris - Best short goes to James Lucas and Matt Kirkby's The Phone Call. Dick van Dyke appears to be collecting, with phrases like "Gaw blimey, guvnor these are heavy."
Chris 6.15am - Shirley McLean drip feeding us a couple more Best Picture nominees now. I see their cunning plan. They're building suspense for the big one. They should think about making a film, this lot. And now a slighty surreal performance of Everything is awaesome from the criminally unnominated The Lego Movie.
AM - Adam Levine is singing the song from Begin Again, and I am thinking he might be the first person to sport full-sleeve tattoos on an Oscar stage
AM Poland's Ida, which screened at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival last year, wins for best foreign film. The director Pawel Pawlikowski (who was also here) shouts out to his friends playing a drinking game back home in Poland while they watch; gets cheers for talking through the 'you're done' music.
Chris 6.02am - Foreign language film. Nicole Kidman says..... Ida. Predictable. Should totally have been Leviathan, or failing that Timbuktu. Judges have gone for the moving black and white one that drags a bit. Fair enough.
Chris 5.59am - Well, you can see why I didn't go into book making for a living as Grand Budapest just picked up award #2 for hair and makeup. Come on, it's the same award, really. Let's not be pedantic!
Chris 5.58am - J-Lo and Chris Pine on stage to surprise nobody by giving best costume design to Grand Budapest. I'll give you very short odds on that being the sole award for the joint top nominee. NPH, meanwhile, seems to be sponsored tonight by American Sniper's publicist. In the interests of equality I feel I should point out quite how much I hated that film.
AM: Liam Neeson is presenting. First "celebrity who has recently been in Dubai" sighting. (He was here for the regional premiere Of Taken 3)
Chris 5.45am - I can't actually watch Liam Neeson anymore without thinking of the Small World clip. Shame that show never took off in the same way as Ricky Gervais' previous efforts Extras and The Office. If you haven't seen it Google "Gervais, Davies, Neeson." You won't regret it. Turns out Neeson wasn't presenting the Best Pic award, merely teasing us with an introduction to a couple - namely Grand Budapest Hotel and American Sniper. Time for a musical interlude, courtesy of Maroon 5. It seems early to make tea, but I could be tempted. And is it just me, or is Clint Eastwood looking increasingly like a clean-shaven Bruce Forsythe?
AM - Well now I have something in both my eyes. Bless JK Simmons and his acceptance speech for Whiplash. "If you're lucky enough to have a parent alive on this planet, call them." Everyone is so terrified of his portrayal of a possessed music teacher, mobile networks are jammed around the world.
AM - Why wasn't Miles Teller nominated for Whiplash by the way? He's the one who's fingers were bleeding from all that drumming!
Chris 5.40am - And first up, it's best supporting actor. Last year we had a spectacularly ill-informed ramble from Jared Leto at this point in the evening. Tonight, we're treated to JK Simmons (Whiplash) entreating us all to ring our mums, which is nice, though mine's currently staying in the hotel next door and would probably be quite annoyed if I rang her at 5.40am. Anyway, Dubai favourite Liam Neeson is up now to present.
AM I'm with Oprah! I didn't understand NPH's joke about how the right side of the theatre was everyone else, and the left side was Oprah, or American Sniper, or the explanation: 'because you're rich' If you have to explain...
AM - NPH gets a laugh with his opening joke: "Tonight we honour Hollywood's best and whitest."
Chris in Dubai, 5.30am - And we're off. A last couple of stragglers in the shape of supporting actor/actress nominees JK Simmons and Patricia Arquette get the red carpet doorstep treatment (presumably they're made to wait till the best leads are all in) and all of a sudden this year's host NPH is opening things up with a musical number in the style of Into the Woods, ably assisted by Cinderella herself (Anna Kendrick) along with Jack Black. Then reminds us all that American Sniper has already grossed US$300 million. A mixed opening then.
