Here’s the night that many people around the world have been waiting for.  The rare opportunity for us to see all our beloved movie stars at the same place and time.  As for me—while I can’t wait to watch the red carpet affair, I have a love/hate relationship with the annual event.  The bad news?  When I notice that I’m watching beautiful people parade by while I’m sitting in my PJ’s gorging on chicken wings, I feel lower than low.  But when I realize that I now have the opportunity (and the vindictive excuse) for me to sit back and be catty to my heart’s content—the good then outweighs the bad.

As for how I actually feel about the awards portion of the event, I think that this could be a potentially exciting year—especially if my personal fave, Crash, sweeps in and takes away the grand prize from Brokeback Mountain.  That whole gay cowboy thing was so two months ago… we have all moved on now.  But even if Brokeback does come away with the win, it’s still a victory for us all.  Who would have ever thought five years ago that a gay-themed movie could become Best Picture?

Well, we’re now less than an hour away from the big event.  Please keep checking back with us here at TV Envy as we’ll keep you updated with play-by-play commentary of the big night! You can view it all after the jump - and feel free to play along in the comments.

Fearful that I would catch designer Isaac Mizrahi make another actress feel extremely uncomfortable (remember when he asked Eva Longoria if she waxed??), I could only tolerate bouncing back and forth between the E! red-carpet coverage and the ABC pre-show.  Here’s a couple of the lame-brained nuggets that I did manage to witness:

3:34pm—Isaac’s now interviewing Dolly Parton.  Please tell me that he won’t feel her up like he did Scarlett Johansson.  Oh thank gawd, he only focused on her shoes.

3:37pm—Isaac to George Clooney:  ‘Do you want to win this award tonight?’  Nooo.. he really hopes that his best work was back on ER.

4:22pm—Isaac to William Hurt:  ‘This is not your first time at the Oscars, right?’  Well, this is actually his fourth nomination now… but should we really expect a fashion designer to know any better?

Okay E!‘s coverage has ended now… now let’s move on to the main event!

5:00pm—is Hollywood being invaded by aliens? Oh I get it… it’s a mahn-tage.

5:02pm—Hilarious skit with all the previous Oscar hosts turning down the 2006 gig.  Jon Stewart has a dream within a dream and wakes up with Halle Berry, then George Clooney.  Go Jon Stewart!!!  I’ve missed you this week… make us proud!

5:05pm—Quotable #1:  ‘This is one of the first time that many of you have actually voted for a winner.’  Chuckle…

5:08pm—Quotable #2:  ‘Good Night and Good Luck.  That’s also how Clooney ends most of his dates.’  Touche!

5:15pm—Nicole Kidman comes out to present the award for Best Supporting Actor.  She looks very simple and elegant with her basic white dress and straight hair.  Go Matt Dillon!  Do it for Johnny!

5:19pm—George Clooney wins.  I’m sad for Matt Dillon… but I’ve just gotten one right on my Oscar ballot.  Ch-ching!

5:24pm—Tom Hanks does a tongue-in-cheek demonstration on how to keep your speech at Oscar length.  I’m too focused on his hair and hoping that production for The Da Vinci Code wraps up soon.

5:26pm—Ben Stiller comes out in a green screen outfit to present the Visual Effects award.  Ends up looking like the Riddler in a hazmat suit.  King Kong takes the win and gives me another point for my ballot.

5:31pm—Reese Witherspoon, in my favorite dress of the evening thus far, comes out for the Best Animated Feature award.  Wallace & Gromit wins as expected.  I’m now 3-for-3.

5:35pm—Dolly Parton comes out to sing the first song from Transamerica.  How is it possible that she can be some damn skinny but yet have so much energy?

5:43pm—Luke and Owen Wilson present the award for Live Action Short.  I’m still not believing they’re brothers.  More unbelievable—the award is given to Six Shooter.  Arrgh!  My first loss of the evening!  I’m now 3-for-4.

5:46pm—Best Animated Short Film award goes to The Moon and the Sun.  I’m now 3-for-5.  I must eat some more food to make myself feel better.

5:48pm—Jennifer Aniston comes out to present the Best Costume Design award.  As always, Jen looks classically beautiful in her simple black dress.  Vince Vaughn must be proud.  As for the win? Memoirs of a Geisha now brings me back up to 4-for-6.

5:57pm—Will Ferrell and Steve Carrell present Best Makeup.  As expected, they do something to humiliate themselves —and this time they sacrifice their faces for the award.  By the way—can we say 5-for-7??  Thanks, Chronicles of Narnia!!!

6:03pm—Morgan Freeman presents the Best Supporting Actress award.  Has anyone even seen the movie Junebug??  Rachel Weisz better win.  The Constant Gardener was probably one of the best movies not to be nominated for Best Picture.  Yay—she won!  I’m now 6-for-8!!  More importantly—Rachel has finally made up for the garish dress she recently wore at the Golden Globes.

6:13pm—Lauren Bacall is having an incredibly hard time with the teleprompter.  Why do actors needs the teleprompter anyway??  Shouldn’t they be able to memorize their lines??

6:19pm—Terrence Howard presents the Best Documentary Short category.  The Golden Age of Norman Corwin wins.  Arrgh.  Back down to 6-for-9.

6:21pm—Charlize Theron walks on the stage with about 10 lbs of bow on her shoulder.  I’m surprised she doesn’t tip over.  She presents the Best Documentary Feature award to the beloved March of the Penguins.  Thank gawd that team won, otherwise they’d have to find something else to do with those stuffed penguins they brought with them.  I’m 7-for-10.

6:24pm—I hate to admit it, but Jennifer Lopez is donning a beautiful green dress.  It really hurt me to say that and now I’m out of food to eat.  I will now have to drown myself in a cup of orange sherbet while some girl sings a song from the movie Crash.  Funny—I loved that movie, but don’t recall any singing.  BTW—why are those people crawling out of the smoke??  I think they’re supposed to be recreating the car crash scene from the movie, but the actors are stumbling around like zombies from Dawn of the Dead.

6:33pm—Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves present the award for Best Art Direction.  I can’t help noticing that Keanu’s face is looking quite puffy.  At least Sandra is doing most of the talking.  Memoirs of a Geisha makes me 8-for-11.

6:44pm—- Ooooooh, I just luv, luv, luv Salma Hayek’s blue dress!!!  What a gorgeous color for her.  I think that dress may have just moved up to the top of my favorites list so far.  I’m going to take a moment and recalculate while I listen to those nominated movie scores..

6:48pm—Darn you, Brokeback Mountain!!!  How could you beat John Williams??  Well, I guess there had to be some good mood music in that movie to set the ambience.  Thanks to gay cowboy love, I’m 8-for-12.

6:56pm—What is up with Jake Gyllenhaal’s hair?  Never mind—I still love him.

7:00pm—Eric Bana and Jessica Alba present the award for Best Sound Mixing.  They’re both disgustingly beautiful and they blind my eyes.  Now I continue to blink in astonishment when King Kong beats out Walk the Line.  Even Ray won this award last year!  I’m slowly going down the tubes.  I’m now 8-for-13 and will never crack 20 points on my Oscar ballot.

7:18pm—Ludacris presents the third-nominated song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from the movie Hustle and Flow.  We’re all curious as to how this will turn out.  Not only because Terrence Howard is not singing it, but because of the song’s subject matter.  It’s definitely the most-animated song of the tunes performed so far, but is the Academy ready to give out a second award to a rap song??

7:22pm—Queen Latifah, looking gorgeous in a strapless black dress, presents the Best Original Song award to ‘Pimp’.  I must applaud the academy, even if it does bring my score down to 8-for-14.

7:27pm—Jennifer Garner attempts to present the award for Best Sound Editing and almost falls flat on her face while walking to the microphone.  Luckily, as she notes, she does her own stunt work (and thankfully, has already had her baby).  King Kong takes another effects award and stops my bleeding at 9-for-15.

7:38pm—Will Smith presents the Best Foreign Language Film award.  I can’t pronounce it, but I’m glad Tsotsi wins.  The man giving his acceptance speech refers everyone to his website for the list of people he wants to thank.  Now that’s a man who deserves to win an Oscar.  In case you’ve lost count, I’m 10-for-16.

7:42pm—Ziyi Zhang (a.k.a. Zhang Ziyi) presents the award for Best Film Editing.  Her English is still broken, but I can understand her say Crash.  She also tells me that I am 11-for-17.

7:44pm—Hilary Swank, in a size 00 black strapless dress, arrives early in the evening to present the Best Actor trophy.  Although Philip Seymour Hoffman is expected to win, for some reason I’m expecting a shocker.  It really could go either way.  I mean—shouldn’t Joaquin Phoenix win?He only sang AND acted AND played the guitar AND looked exactly like Johnny Cash.  Well - that’s just my two cents.  I’m looking at my Oscar ballot right now and it’s obvious that I don’t know much about anything.

7:48pm—Philip won as expected.  My hopes for Crash winning Best Picture are starting to dwindle.  There haven’t been any major surprises yet this evening.  Bor-ing.  The only good news is that I’m 12-for-18.

7:55pm—John Travolta is preparing to give out the Best Cinematography Award and I keep wondering what he is done of note recently.  My negative thoughts about John’s career and Scientology are projected onto my ballot.  Memoirs of a Geisha takes the win and I’m 12-for-19.

7:58pm—Jamie Foxx takes the stage to present the Best Actress Award.  I voted for Reese Witherspoon but I keep wondering if Felicity Huffman will bring the upset of the evening.  They’re both so cute, I’d be happy either way.  Reese’s young age could give the leverage to Huffman.  If I had any nails to bite, I would chew them now.

8:00pm—- Reese wins as expected (13-for-20!!).  How many of us are now remembering Ryan Phillipe announcing on stage a few years ago that she makes more money than him?  Somehow I don’t think that will change anytime soon.  For some reason, I keep getting this nagging feeling that their relationship will dissolve sometime soon, but that discussion is for another post..

8:08pm—Dustin Hoffman announces the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay and almost opens the envelope too soon.  Come to think of it, what has he done lately??  Brokeback Mountain continues its winning path to Best Picture.  Status? 14-for-22.

8:12pm—Uma.  What have you done?  You’ve paired a perfectly beautiful dress with some scary hair.  Sadly, you can still kick ass and men will still want you.  Nevertheless, you gave me another point by announcing Crash as the winner for Best Original Screenplay—so I will overlook the messy coif.  15-for-22.

8:19pm—Tom Hanks presents the award for Best Director.  Steven Spielberg is used to losing and once again watches the award slip through his fingers.  Ang Lee takes the award for Brokeback Mountain.  Who would have ever doubted that an Asian director would win an award for a movie about gay cowboys from the Midwest?  Not me!  I’m 16-for-23!!

8:22pm—Jack Nicholson closes the show with the presentation for Best Movie.  I don’t know why I even bother, we all know who’s going to win.  OMIGOD!!!  CRASH WON!!!!!  I may have lost another entry on my ballot… BUT MY MOVIE WON!!!!  I close with a sad 16-for-24… BUT I GOT MY UPSET!

Even though I may have lost $15 dollars on my work Oscar pool, I would like to thank Entertainment Weekly for giving me the Oscar guidance that I needed to make it through my pool.  Like I would have ever known which Foreign Language Film to vote for.  I couldn’t have done it without you!  Should I happen to win my pool, I promise that the money will be reinvested into my next subscription.  After all—I’ll need your Oscar predictions for my 2007 votes.